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Ball Test / 2007

It's a miracle. We have finally completed our annual ball test. The logistics involved in conducting the ball test is substantial and that is why it took us so long to complete. (That's our excuse and we're sticking to it). We expanded the group of testers who played a round of golf with each ball in the test to 80 golfers. We felt this gives us a better base from which to evaluate each ball and offers more statically sound ratings.

In the past year many new balls have been introduced. In this test we had 19 balls from 9 manufacturers. Once again we were not able to get Titleist to participate. We sent Titleist many emails and left several phone messages at their ball division and were promised a response but in the end no one from Titleist ever contacted us. We spoke with top management at TaylorMade at a golf conference in May of 2006. At that time TaylorMade had just introduced their new balls, the TP Red and the TP Black. They told us that they would definitely participate in the ball test. Later in the year when we contacted them they told us they had decided not to participate.

We believe that if enough golfers contact Titleist, TaylorMade, Dunlop and Maxfli directly by phone or email and make their feelings known to them they may decide that it is in their best interest to participate in future tests. Please take some time and let them know what the golfing public wants.

Ball Test Format
We asked each golfer to play one round with each ball and to be as fair and consistent as they could be in evaluating each of the balls. They promised to do their best and to put aside any preconceived biases they may have had regarding the balls in the test. We understand that golfers can have good days and bad days but we are confident that by having 80 golfers evaluate each ball that the final average results are a good indication of how each ball is perceived by golfers.

Here are the balls that were included in the test:

- Callaway Hx Tour
- Callaway Hx Hot
- Callaway Big Bertha
- Amur 460 DMS+
- Bridgestone B330-S
- Bridgestone e5
- Bridgestone e6
- Wilson Staff Tx4
- Wilson ProStaff 360 Max Distance
- Precept XP3
- Precept Lady S3
- Polara
- Volvik PROsPect
- Venture V-Distance
- Radar
- Wilson Staff 50
- Nike One Black
- Nike One Platinum
- Nike Ignite

Following are some ratings; conclusions and observations GolfTest USA made using the results obtained from the test.

Distance: The Callaway Hx Hot, Bridgestone B330-S, Nike ONE Black, Callaway Hx were rated as the best balls for distance.

Control: The Wilson Staff Tx4, Polara, Callaway HxTour, Bridgestone B330-S, Nike ONE Black and Bridgestone e5 were to the best in this category.

Accuracy: The best balls for accuracy were the Callaway Hx Tour, Nike ONE Black and the Bridgestone B330-S.

Putting: The top putting honors go to the Wilson Staff Tx4, Callaway Hx Tour, Bridgestone e6, Bridgestone e5 and Nike ONE Black.

Short Game: Best balls for your short game were the Bridgestone B330-S, Wilson Staff Tx4 and the Nike One Black.

Feel: The top rated balls for feel were the Wilson Staff Tx4 and the Bridgestone B330-S

Appearance: The Nike ONE Black and the Wilson Staff Tx4 "looked" the best to our group of testers.

Durability: The Bridgestone e6, Wilson Staff Tx4, Bridgestone B330-S and the Bridgestone e5 proved to be the "toughest".

Trajectory: The Wilson Staff Tx4, Bridgestone e6, Bridgestone B330-S and the Nike ONE Black rated best for "Trajectory".

Overall: (This rating is not an accumulation or average of the other categories. We asked the testers to take into account everything they look for and feel is important to them in a ball and give an overall rating.)

Overall, the Wilson Staff Tx4 and the Callaway Hx Tour received the top rating.

After each tester played and rated all 19 balls, they picked which balls they thought were the top four in the test. The Bridgestone B330-S got 20% of the first place votes, the Nike ONE Black, Wilson Staff Tx4 and the Callaway Hx Tour each received 15% of the first place votes.

When all votes were counted from 1st to 4th place (We gave 1 point for 4th place on up to 4 points for a 1st place vote) the Wilson Staff Tx4 finished on top followed by the Nike ONE Black, Callaway Hx Tour and Bridgestone B330-S.

We have looked very carefully at all the results from many different angles and are making this unscientific judgment and taking the liberty of ranking what we think were the top balls in this test. We came to the conclusion that 4 balls in the test deserve to be ranked #1.

1. Wilson Staff Tx4
1. Bridgestone B330-S
1. Callaway Hx Tour
1. Nike ONE Black


We are leaving it up to golfers to draw their own conclusions as to how the price of the balls relates to how each ball did in this test. We welcome your thoughts regarding the results of this ball test. Please feel free to post your comments on our "Message Boards".

We promise to begin our next test on new balls introduced later this year and have the results available by January 2008.

If you would like to see a specific ball included that we have not done to date let us know and equally important let the ball manufacturers know that you want them to participate in the GolfTest USA 2006 Ball Test. We think it would be great to have ALL the ball companies participate next year.

We would like to thank each of the ball manufacturers for their participation. Without their support and assistance we would not have been able to conduct this test and bring the golfing public these results.

Go to our manufacturer's links page to find out more information about the items in the above category.