Me too! Thanks for the link!

Anyone try the Bridgestone E5? I did their fitting thing and it recommended that to me. I looked it up and they claimed it is the only urethane 2 piece ball which I thought was interesting.

I used to play it 3 years ago and I really liked it. Then I got the hooks for the rest of the year and that ball just brings back bad memories now.

PH, you are the man. You got a ton of us free penta balls (me included), and uploaded that swing video for me. Hopefully someday I can repay these favors. For now, you'll have to settle for being my favorite poster.

Handicap:8
Ball: Snake Eyes Tour Premium or whatever Maxflis are BOGO, 3 for 30, etc.
Reason: Sticking with what I know. Started playing golf with Pinnacles. I have never adjusted to playing a ball that spins. Nothing more frustrating than grabbing a ball out your bag and not noticing its a ProV until you get to the green and hit a good chip that spins and comes up 20 feet short. Tried once to switch to ProVs and my wedges were tearing the covers. I'd rather play a cheaper ball that lasts longer and can shoot similar scores with.

Anyone know if this 6 pack of pentas = 6 dozen? Or 6 sleeves? 6 dozen seems a bit excessive, though I obviously won't be complaining.

I'd be shocked if it wasn't 6 golf balls.

I was assuming it meant 6 truckloads.

Yes, it's 2 sleeves.

If somehow 6 dozen Pentas (ESRP: ~$300) show up in my mailbox, I'm going to be one very, very happy golfer.

Confirmed. Received my 6 truckloads this afternoon.

Well the reason I ask is because I have seen numerous auctions on Ebay for lots of 6 dozen brand new penta balls where the pictures seem to be taken of balls sent through the mail. I became suspicious they may be from this promotion and people are flipping them, here is an example auction.

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-2011-TAYLORM...item1c1c2e2d21

I know it's a long shot, but my hopes are up.

I saw this thread & didn't think I should reply (the ball I play & reason don't really apply to most others), but when I saw the discussion about ball fitting, I thought I would share some data that might be interesting to a few of you.

Last year my GM & I did a seminar for our membership about ball fitting. He's an advisory staff member for Titleist, as I am the same for Taylormade, so we got some really good R&D from both companies. I don't know if it's possible to post the powerpoint on here (if it is, I don't know how), if someone is interested in seeing it, let me know. Here's a few of the points that some of you might find interesting.

Titleist fits balls off an 8-iron - they feel that if you can find the best spin rate for your scoring clubs, you can fit a driver off that. Their belief is that the scoring clubs are the most important and once you find the proper ball there, you match everything else to that. Taylormade fits off a 30-50 yard wedge shot - they feel that is the most important (especially for Tour players) and they will spend about 2-hours hitting short wedges to find the ball that performs the way a player wants, then matches the rest of the set to that ball. Personally, I agree with both - I think most amateurs buy a ball to go with their driver and in the long run, lose strokes because the ball doesn't perform in the scoring area.

In the distance off the driver, both companies performed test with virtually every ball (at least all the big-name companies) with driver speeds from 70 mph - 130 mph - the biggest difference is distance was measured in FEET, not YARDS! In the slower speeds (80 mph) there was a difference from shortest to longest of around 4 feet! At high speeds the gap was around 2 1/2 feet from the shortest to longest! This was surprising to all of us. Basically, the ball has no effect on distance off the driver in a pure strike. The only difference would be caused by spin, but both companies said they would fit a driver to compensate for that, as opposed to compensating short shots for the ball. Once you get to short irons and wedges, the difference was amazing - the spin rate for "distance" balls was significantly lower (in some cases 10K spin rates) below a "premium" ball! Around the green and on short iron approaches, this would create much less stopping power.

Taylormade uses what they call a "dashboard" - it has graphs that look like a speedometer and shows each ball in every "condition" (driver, long irons, short irons, etc) - in each situation there is a red area that is optimum - the Penta was in the red on every condition as was the Pro V1 (the X was close but slightly outside in one category). Amazingly, the Nike One was not in the red in a single category, we asked both Titleist and Tmade about that, and they both were shocked when they tested the Nike ball - it performed horribly, and one VP said "I don't know how anyone plays that ball" - I'm not slamming Nike, obviously several players use it, and it seems to work for them, but from testing is was far, far below the next worse ball. Some of the Bridgestone balls were very close (missing the "red" by a little in a couple categories), but the "distance" balls did not test well when they were in the shorter clubs.

Obviously, cost is a factor to many people, and premium golf balls are much more expensive, but finding a ball in your price range that performs well from 8-iron down as opposed to the driver, would be a better way to fit your golf ball to your game. There were several lower price golf balls that performed close to the premium balls (off the top of my head - NXT Tour, Tmade Burner, and one of the Bridgestone balls were good), however, some really sacrificed spin.

I'm not trying to slam other companies, or promote a certain ball (well, maybe I am - you should try the Taylormade!! Ha Ha), but I think for those of you that are serious about finding a great ball for your game, starting with the short shots and experiementing with different balls to find the one that performs the best is a great way to do it. Obviously, the more spin you have, the more side-spin you will have off a driver, so there is a slight trade off with a higher spin ball - this is countered with getting a driver that is fit for you & possibly improving your mechanics. The trade off for gaining 2-4 yards and then losing shots into and around the green by using a distance ball is probably not a good strategy though.

We have a lot of other data, but those were the highlights - i figured some of you might be interested in it, and if you have any questions, or would like more info, let me know. I don't have the graphs with me (I'm on vaca), but I can get them, so if there's a specific ball that you'd like to know about, let me know & if it's on there, I'll give you the data.

Did you guys do any testing on the Srixon ZStars?

Ive played a couple rounds with them and I think they are very comparable to the other high spin balls, and seem to be a bit more durable.

I find this real interesting, as I generate a ton of backspin with my driver and was curious as to how much a high spin ball factored into it.

good stuff as always golfdoc.

Thanks! I think there was testing on the Srixon - I'll see if I have the data with me & if so, I'll check it & let you know how it tested. If it isn't, or I don't have it, I'll drop an email to tmag & see if I can get some numbers. I know a lot of guys are playing the Srixon and it's definitely a really good ball, so I'd be interested to see some data as well. I'll check & post what I find.

Really interesting post, thanks! I'd love to see the whole PowerPoint if at all possible.

Interesting stuff. I do wonder though how much of a difference the ball really makes for someone of my limited skills. I'm basically a no spin player around the greens - it's a fluke when a ball checks for me. I don't notice a whole lot of difference with the middle irons coming in, either - the ball generally stops pretty close to the mark, nothing backs up unless it's a short iron from an elevated tee. I do notice a difference how a ball feels when putting but my putting is so erratic that I have no idea if it affects results.

How often are you hitting from <50 yards from the fairway? How often do you clean the grooves out of your clubs

I have the same problem when Im in the rough. I never get the ball to check. I also use to only clean the grooves after each round. After seeing the difference I now clean my club after every shot.

If my club is clean and Im in the fairway the ball checks really well (assuming Im not using a pinicalle gold).

But usually when Im "around the greens" Im not in the fairway unless I bombed a drive on a short par 4 or I was trying to reach a par 5 in 2 and didnt quite make it.

It doesn't really matter where I am. I do have old grooves - old clubs - but that's not the issue. Bought a Vokey spin milled wedge last year, no difference, gave it to my dad. It's the operator.

Sorry, didn't mean to hijack the thread.

doc - that is an awesome post. Are you familiar with how to use Google Docs? I've never uploaded a .ppt to there but it lists presentations as an option. If you wouldn't mind giving it a shot and posting the link, I'd definitely like to check that out. If you have any problems you can PM me and I'll try and help you figure it out.

That was an excellent post golfdoc. It certainly agrees with an article that says that even amateurs benefit the most (strokewise) from premium balls with good short game spin (something along that line). However, price is certainly an object, especially when high handicappers lose a good deal of balls (myself included).

I, for one, enjoy using refinished Titleist ProV1 / ProV1x, as I got them at an excellent price online. I wanted to get another 3 dozen, but I can't seem to get them on the site. They fly well for me and give me just what I want on the greens (A nice stop within 2 feet on full swings, only a few feet of roll on half swings, no problems w/ putting).

http://www.ohurleyrange.com/

****ing this.

Really interesting post dagolfdoc.

Would love to see the data if you can post it somehow.

ProV1 all the way. Best feel around the green without sacrificing anything off the tee. I love the cover on it and the control I have on pitch/chip shots. I tried some of the other high end balls from Callaway and Nike, but I always come back to the ProV1. Those other balls were good though, but for some reason I get the best response out of the ProV1.

Has anyone received their 6pack of pentas in the mail yet? I (and I believe everyone else) got the email on June 2nd, which said up to four weeks for delivery. Thursday will be 5 weeks and still nothin.