Tech Talks With Dean Snell

[iacas]

Tech Talk with Dean Snell - Episode #01

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Join us as we launch a new Q&A series with Dean! Submit your questions and each week we will answer one or two to continue educating golfer's about golf ball technology and other questions about the game! This...

[iacas]

This mainly talks about how the 2.0 is a good ball despite two-layer balls typically being the "cheap" balls from a manufacturer.

[boogielicious]

He did a good job of explaining how the different layers work vs swing speed too. And he has that southern Massachusetts accent! Sounds like Emeril Lagasse’s cousin!

[WillieT]

On their email list and saw the email with the link…time to go check it out.

[p1n9183]

Pretty clear explanation and message. You can be labels into a category by swing speed or handicap but at the end you should test them all and see witch suit you best.

Index 0.8. 170 with 7 iron (33°). Gamer is a 2 piece golf ball with hard compression when I'm supposed to play a 4 layer one. 

[iacas]

Ball Lab: 2024 Snell Prime 3.0 | MyGolfSpy

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MyGolfSpy Ball Lab is where we quantify the manufacturing quality and consistency of golf balls. Ball lab does not infer durability or guarantee your

Let's cut to the chase:

• Compression: The total compression consistency for the sample tested was poor with a compression variability of17.8 points. Due to compression variances, six (6) golf balls were flagged as bad.
• Weight: The weight consistency for the sample tested was poor and twenty (20) golf balls were flagged as bad due to being over the allowable weight limit.
• Diameter/Roundness: The 4-point diameter for the sample tested was 1.68552 inches giving it an extra large diameter classification, and Six (6) golf balls flagged as not round, but Zero (0) golf balls failed the ball track test.
• Visual Inspection: Zero (0) golf balls for notable cover defects,  Zero (0) golf balls flagged for off-center cores, and Four (4) golf balls flagged for layer concentricity and/or thickness issues.
• Final Scores:
  • Compression: D-
  • Weight: F
  • Diameter: F
  • Overall: 13/100

Then Dean's response:

Dean addresses 3.0 data report

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I want to address a recent story on our Prime 3.0 golf ball model by a popular equipment review site. The article went over various lab testing results that showed small inconsistencies in some of our golf balls’...

What do you think?

[saevel25]

What I do not like is that MyGolfSpy doesn't give you any parameters specifics. They give adjectives, which are obviously up for their interpretation as to what is generous. It seems over the years they have gotten more and more secretive with their data and methods. Which doesn't seem right when you want to be an independent neutral tester of equipment. 

What if MGS tolerances for what is good is like 50% stricter than what all golf balls are tested to? Like, does that make sense at all. Especially if you are going to label something as bad. Did they even consult with golf ball manufacturers about how ball testing is done? 

I do agree with Snell in the whole designing to tolerances and knowing what tolerances give you a set performance. Maybe Titleist goes above and beyond for quality control, not sure. They seem to get high grades by MyGolfSpy year in and year out. That doesn't mean other golf balls are bad, or even discernibly worse on the golf course. Maybe especially so for amateur golfers. Let's say the core is offset and gets marked as a bad ball by MGS. What if in real world testing that causes a dispersion increase of like 1-yard. Can you tell the difference in 1-yard over the course of 50 shots? I doubt it. 

Yea, I would like to see more data, and actual real world data versus design tolerances. 

My opinion is on hold for now until further information is given. 

 

[woodzie264]

He did a great job in his defense - clearly the MGS review was hostile 

[iacas]

The MGS stuff does give me some pause, though: I highly doubt a Snell has the tolerances of a Titleist or a TaylorMade (or a modern Callaway). Is it worth the cost? That's for you to decide. But if they're noticeably off-center, over-weight, not quite round… that's concerning.

I can't dismiss it entirely. I do take it with a big grain of salt.

[billchao]

I don't read MGS's ball lab stuff, so I kind of skimmed through some other articles to get an idea of how they do things. I kind of find it odd that the results for the Prime 3.0 are reported slightly differently than they typically do with other balls. For example, this is the summary graphic for a ball they don't recommend from last year:

And this is the relevant information on the graphic for the Prime 3.0:

I don't know why it's different, I don't know what those letter grades mean, and I don't know how they arrived at the 13/100 score versus the 53/100 score for the Spalding ball. If you go through the article, you can determine that 6 Prime 3.0s were found to be not round. Out of 36, I believe, based on their testing methodology? So a significant difference from the Spalding. The Spalding article makes absolutely zero mention of compression variability as a parameter for evaluation, but it does on the Titleist AVX article, which is more recent. This is their concluding infographic for that:

It's still different. They go on to mention how many balls in each category are considered bad in the Prime 3.0 article but don't mention the percentage of bad balls overall. Presumably, some of the six balls that failed the compression variability test are the same as the ones that failed the weight and roundness tests. 20 balls failed the weight test, though. Unless someone calibrated the scale incorrectly, that's a significant portion of the sample. Also, apparently they found that one ball wasn't even a Prime 3.0 but was stamped as such? That's pretty bad.

I'm with @iacas on this one. I can't dismiss their findings entirely. It seems (if their testing is to be believed) that there were some significant QC problems with the production of these golf balls. But then I have to wonder, is the inconsistency really going to make that much of a difference in real world conditions with my golf game? I bet my swing produces more significant differences to the ball's performance than the manufacturing does.

One final note, there are so many ads and pop ups on their website. I hate it.

[Vinsk]

Isn’t it a bit contradictory to say there are tolerances, a range of specifications, and that performance isn’t affected in such small increments..but then state they set the specs on the higher end due to better performance? If the differences are negligible then why set the specs to where they could exceed the limit?

[iacas]

20 minutes ago, Vinsk said:

Isn’t it a bit contradictory to say there are tolerances, a range of specifications, and that performance isn’t affected in such small increments..but then state they set the specs on the higher end due to better performance? If the differences are negligible then why set the specs to where they could exceed the limit?

Yeah, probably… "We set the spec ranges to where the ball performance isn't affected, but we set the range at the top end so you got a longer golf ball, a better golf ball."

I guess this is what happens when you stop paying MyGolfSpy.

[Darkfrog]

I don't put much stock in anything MGS does with regards to equipment testing. My opinion is that they try to make their analysis come off as science-y as possible, without really sticking to sound principles.

Static testing of specification/tolerance like weight, shape, etc. is fine, and might be meaningful, but as Dean Snell suggested, without any dynamic testing there is no way to determine if the static data affects ball performance. I'd like to see results from a swing robot hitting 100s of balls, different clubs, various club speed, etc.

Also, if MGS is really unbiased, testing should be blind.

[ChetlovesMer]

15 hours ago, billchao said:

One final note, there are so many ads and pop ups on their website. I hate it.

This.

16 hours ago, iacas said:

I can't dismiss it entirely. I do take it with a big grain of salt.

Also this

16 hours ago, saevel25 said:

It seems over the years they have gotten more and more secretive with their data and methods.

This frustrates me too. 

[ChetlovesMer]

There are a lot of things I don't like about MGS testing. 
There are a lot of things I disagree with when it comes to their methodology, their findings, and especially the blanket statements they sometimes make. 

I do think they started doing what they do for the "right" reasons.

I sometimes find it funny when I hear golfers at the range or on the course talking about one of their tests as if it is the gospel according to the golf bible. It seems like I hear golfers talking about these guys, and for what ever reason, Rick Shiels as if anything they say or write has to be 100% true. ... Nobody's right all the time. 👍😁👍

[iacas]

1 hour ago, Darkfrog said:

Static testing of specification/tolerance like weight, shape, etc. is fine, and might be meaningful, but as Dean Snell suggested, without any dynamic testing there is no way to determine if the static data affects ball performance. I'd like to see results from a swing robot hitting 100s of balls, different clubs, various club speed, etc.

Eh, a ball that's over-weight and thus illegal is a valid test.

And if balls are out of round, or not concentric, that's valid, too.

[GolfLug]

I'm not doubting the MGS data. The 'testing' they do is basic lab measurements. I also think the variability is higher than what would normal industry range observed for a $30+/dozen ball. I have a bit of background in rubber/plastics materials and  injection molding and I have some idea as to what causes the reported variability. He is right that it happens at the best factories but what he didn't say is those factories QA them out - X-Outs.

Dynamic testing? On course real life performance? To each their own. There are plenty of people who buy Titleist X outs and happily game them without ever knowing or experiencing any difference in the course. They are what Dean S would call perfectly fine for 99 percent of us. I agree.

I have bunch of Snell MTB x balls that I use for my evening 9-hole walks and do just fine, but I won't push my luck using them in competition or whenever I really care about the score since I know there won't be any known X-outs in a regular Pro V1x sleeve. 

Damn, I've become such a ball-snob.. lol.

[Darkfrog]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

Eh, a ball that's over-weight and thus illegal is a valid test.

I certainly think static data is valid. My main issue with the MGS data is that I don't have confidence in their capability to measure things, and their procedures, test data, or metadata are not public. I see photos of a bunch of gear, but there is a lot more to measurement than buying expensive tools.

Looking at an older (2011) USGA test procedure, 3 out of 24 balls submitted can fail either weight, size, or initial velocity test and still be deemed conforming. Not sure if this document is current though. It's not a great look for a ball manufacturer if a bunch of MGS tested balls exceed the maximum allowable weight, but if MGS findings are within USGA allowances (3/24, 12.5%), maybe it's not as big of a deal as it appears. That said I think 100% of balls being within tolerance should be the goal of the manufacturer. 

1 hour ago, iacas said:

And if balls are out of round, or not concentric, that's valid, too.

This is where a robot test would be interesting, just to see how much an out of round ball deviates from a perfectly round ball. I'm curious what amount of eccentricity causes a noticeable ball flight difference. Is this hundredths of an inch, thousandths?

I wonder how much the cutting tool deforms the mantle and core when they visually inspect the layers for irregularities. I also wonder if the compression tester might permanently deform a ball enough to affect subsequent roundness measurements.