{"id":268,"date":"2011-04-15T12:28:16","date_gmt":"2011-04-15T19:28:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/herbgould.com\/?p=268"},"modified":"2011-04-15T12:28:16","modified_gmt":"2011-04-15T19:28:16","slug":"have-a-golf-ball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/herbgould\/golf\/equipment\/268\/have-a-golf-ball","title":{"rendered":"Have a (golf)ball"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>What\u2019s your golf ball IQ?<\/div>\n
Mine is high, but my game is low\u2014which means that even though I know what the supposed differences are, I don\u2019t let them get into my head.<\/div>\n
I often play Pro V-1s because they\u2019re a popular holiday gift and often handed out at outings. But on the rare occasions when I need to buy balls, NXTs or Noodles\u2014or whatever is on sale, really\u2014will do just fine.<\/div>\n
I do try to avoid Top-Flites because of the polyester-like statement they make to other golfers. I will add, however, that, as a fashion editor who knew her stuff told me long ago, there\u2019s a ton of quality polyester garments out there. And if you\u2019re a short hitter who doesn\u2019t have his nose up in the air about “feel\u2019\u2019 that\u2019s difficult to “feel,\u2019\u2019 Top-Flites will do just fine.<\/div>\n
Once, when Tiger was switching golf balls, my editor told me to go try a bunch of different balls, and rate them. So I bought some boxes of Nikes, Callaways and TaylorMades along with Titleists, and handed them out to a foursome I\u2019d put together. I could tell the difference between the $40 a dozen balls and the $15 a dozen balls: The cheap balls feel clunky when I\u2019m chipping and they hop more upon landing on iron shots. But it\u2019s not a $25 a dozen difference for my game.<\/div>\n
Nor is the difference that big for my friends who are 4 handicaps in their minds and 12 handicaps on their cards. Especially because those guys can go through two or three sleeves a round.<\/div>\n
The key to deciding on the right modern golf ball for you, I believe, is the confidence factor: What makes you feel good when you look down at the ball as you get ready to hit?<\/div>\n
For my wife, it has to be a Titleist. I think it has something to do with her growing up in a blue-collar house with a lot of siblings and not so much money. (She didn\u2019t play golf until she was in her 30s, but has worked at it and hits the ball well.) The Titleist name reassures her, and makes her feel confident. Fortunately for the budget, she doesn\u2019t know the difference between a DT and a Pro V-1, and I don\u2019t think that affects her game one bit.<\/div>\n
Once, during a slow practice day at the Western Open, I asked some pros what would happen if they played with Top-Flites. Jerry Kelly said he wouldn\u2019t know where the ball was going because the cores of less expensive balls are out of round. John Daly said he had no idea, because he\u2019d never played a cheap ball; people had been giving him fancy golf balls forever.<\/div>\n
For me, though, the golf ball that gives me confidence is usually whatever ball I have in abundance. There are tweaks, though. If we\u2019re playing a hazard-filled track while on a winter vacation, that\u2019s when I\u2019ll use up the gift Top-Flites that have been laying around the basement. If I\u2019m playing with a club president a golf pro or other dignitaries, I\u2019ll play the black Pro V-1s. Even though most golfers should use the lower-compression red \u00a0Pro V-1s, they don\u2019t seem to be handed out nearly as often as the black ones.<\/div>\n
The best ball I ever played was a Titleist adorned with the logo of a feminine-hygiene product. It was a ball I\u2019d never play when my golf pals were around. I found it on some lonely muni in Michigan, where I often sneak in quick solo rounds on the way to some sporting event. No matter how hard I tried, I could not lose that ball. A big carry over water? No problem. Across a heavily wooded ravine. Easy.<\/div>\n
I wouldn\u2019t recommend buying balls like that. But you don\u2019t have to spend a fortune on a golf ball to generate confidence when you look down at the ball.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What\u2019s your golf ball IQ? Mine is high, but my game is low\u2014which means that even though I know what… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":270,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[334,9,3,18],"tags":[6517],"class_list":["post-268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-golf","category-equipment","category-lifestyle","tag-golfballs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/herbgould\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2011\/04\/golf_ball.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/herbgould\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/herbgould\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/herbgould\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/herbgould\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/herbgould\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/herbgould\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":275,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/herbgould\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions\/275"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/herbgould\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/herbgould\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/herbgould\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/herbgould\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}