Urethane vs. Surlyn - a difference in driver spin?

[jorgesgolf]

I was reading the May issue of Golf Digest and in their "Equipment" section towards the back, they are explaining the differences in spin (RPM) between urethane-covered and surlyn-covered balls. Although there appears to be a difference between the two types of balls when struck with an 8-iron from the rough, they also say that Golf Digest testing shows that there is "almost not difference in driver spin." Is this true? Are we talking about side spin, the spin that causes the hooks and slices that plague the average golfer? That strikes me as surprising given that I would think that the performance balls (urethane) would have more side spin which would allow the better player to work the ball with the driver more easily than they would with a surlyn ball.

Anyone have any thoughts?

Jorgesgolf

[jorgesgolf]

Can someone move this thread to the equipment section? I mistakenly put it here.

Jorgesgolf

[niblick]

It's my understanding that urethane balls are designed to spin just like balata off wedges and lofted clubs, but spin less off a slick-faced modern driver. That's the magic of the new technology... high-launch, low spin drives that carry forever, and approach shots with the same ball that bite like a Doberman.

I have read though, that to take advantage of the properties of the thin urethane covers with driver you have to have lots of clubhead speed. For folks with clubhead speed in the 90s or less, urethane or surlyn won't matter much off the tee.

[beung]

Well there are 2 features at work here and on drives I wouldn't think the cover material has as much effect on spin as the layers inside of the cover. It just so happens that the Urethane covered balls are also the more expensive multi-layered balls.

The beauty of a multi-layer ball is that they can have different characteristics depending on what they are hit with.

The layers acts as different "cores" when hit with different force.

If you hit a muti-layer ball with a high lofted club the energy never really gets transfered to the very center layer and so the middle layer(s) of the ball act as the core. Which produces a lot of spin.

Now if you hit the same ball with a driver, the energy from the driver basically goes through the middle layer(s) almost bypassing them and uses the very center layer as the core, which is designed to produce less spin.

So if you have a low swing speed on your driver and use a multi-layer ball chances are your misses will be worse because the ball is going to have more side spin because you don't generate enough power to pass the energy through the middle layers. Or if you tend to hit the ball with a face that isn't square, not all of the driver force is going to be passed through to the center layer so again it will produce more side spin.