Tiger's Ball Testing Process

[iacas]

Inside Tiger Woods' ball-testing process | Golf Digest

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The 15-time major-championship winner is as meticulous as you might think.

This is from 2019 but for some reason it bubbled up recently.

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Woods started with short chips and pitch shots. He immediately noticed one ball came off much hotter with more roll out. He then moved to a longer pitch shot of about 40 yards, where he holed his third attempt. “OK, we’re good,” he joked. Woods continued to hit shots—all within a cluster of six or seven feet from the hole. Though the results were similar, he spotted differences. There were two in a row that he noticed flew higher. “I wouldn’t mind that with the driver,” he said. “That might get me more carry distance. But on short shots, it just feels hotter with less spin.” On another ball, Woods said, “It felt like it was sticking to my clubface a bit.”

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Woods did start with the 7-iron, picking out a target in the fairway. With a slight breeze in his face, he hit numerous shots, producing crisp, dollar-bill like divots, keeping an eye on the flight throughout and offering feedback. One ball was a touch firm, another went higher. “That’s not me,” he said. “That ball is kicking up in the air like a wedge. It feels hotter—almost like it has less spin even though it’s going higher.”

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“The balls launch higher now,” Woods said. “The older balls were more lower launch and high spin. Now balls are designed to provide as much launch with as low spin as possible. Our windows have changed over the years. I’m trying to launch it higher and get more distance. But in a tournament, I’m often trying to bring the ball down. And what I worry about is that when I’m trying to bring it down, and it doesn’t spin enough as it is, I get these runners that go out to the right. I’ve always had the ability to take off spin. And so, come game time and under pressure, my spin rates all come down, so I’ve always preferred a spinnier ball.”

I think starting with the short game is good, because many balls will be pretty similar off the tee. Irons are important, driver is important, but again I think most balls will be more similar there and so I recommend finding 2 or 3 that you like around the greens and putting, then taking those to the fairway and tee to see what you like there.

With Mevo+ and other sorts of things, you can do a lot of this yourself, too.

[saevel25]

Unless I find a ball that happens to be horrible off the tee, I base which ball I play only on short game and iron shots.