The pitch by many Direct to Consumer ball brands is that they eliminate the middleman. More often than not, the guys telling those stories are selling a stock factory product, know next to nothing about designing a golf ball, and hold exactly zero patents in the golf ball space. The actual design, engineering, and manufacturing are typically done by one of a growing number of ball factories in Asia, while the retailer of record is responsible only for the logo, packaging, and most importantly, the marketing. After that…things start to fall off.Īs golfers may or may not be aware, while the overwhelming majority of Direct to Consumer balls are more accurately characterized as Indirect from the Factory offerings. Dean Snell’s experience (and IP) in the ball business is well-documented too. The mainstream golf ball OEMs all have a library’s worth of patents. We wondered about the extent to which golfers think about who is actually responsible for the technology in the golf balls they buy. It’s also not surprising that nearly 11% report playing multiple models over the course of a round. Not surprisingly, a substantial majority play several different ball models over the course of a season.
For example, are better golfers more inclined to play their preferred ball more often? What about brand loyalty? Do golfers who favor Pro V1/Pro V1x players play it with more regularity than golfers who favor Callaway?Ī greatly simplified version of the previous question, we wanted to see how often you moved between golf balls.
It would be interesting to see what correlations exist between preferred ball usage and handicap or preferred ball usage and ball model. This question may be worth exploring further in a separate post.
Plus or minus a rounding error or two, that gives us about 50% of respondents playing their preferred ball at least 80% of the time, while about 9% play their favorite ball less than half of the time. More than 10% of you say you play your preferred ball 100% of the time, while the biggest chunk, say their favorite ball is in play 90-99% of the time. Most of us do a little bit of experimenting each year, which is to be expected, but how often are we keeping our favorite ball in play? Just about anyone who knows anything about golf balls and golf ball performance will tell you that you should play the same ball for every shot all season long.
It’s also worth noting that obsolete balls like the Titleist NXT Tour, Nike RZN, and Bridgestone e6 series were mentioned several times each. Looking beyond Snell in the direct to consumer space, Vice, Kirkland (this survey was closed before the ball launched), and to a lesser degree MaxFli (the Dick’s house brand), are more popular than offerings from more mainstream golf brands like Wilson, Mizuno, and Volvik.Īmong those who selected Other, Inesis’ Tour 9000, Srixon’s Soft Feel and AD333 were popular choices. That’s plenty justified given what we uncovered during and after our ball test, but it’s surprising to see the degree to which it trails brands it leads in the broader market. It’s a bit of a surprise for me that Callaway, the #2 ball on the market, isn’t particularly popular with our readers. This is one of those cases where what our readers choose doesn’t align with the market as a whole. Snell’s MTB/MTB X and Bridgestone’s Tour BX/BX S line were preferred by 8.41% and 7.62%, respectively.
Looking at the 2nd tier, Srixon was next among our readers- narrowly edging out TaylorMade.
Frankly, we got a little deeper into the mud than we planned, but what’s a little dirt in the interest of a greater understanding, right?įor each chart, I’ve included my general observations along with some of my interpretations. Along the way, we covered brand (and model) preferences, ball fitting, and the growing direct to consumer market. The idea was to get a better idea of why you play the golf ball you do (or maybe why you don’t much care what ball you play). Suffice to say, we got a lot more responses this time around. This is the second time we’ve done a ball survey and the first since 2015. Two months ago, we posted the 2019 edition of our Golf Ball Survey.