dead driving range balls

[achadha7]

The balls at tge local driving ranges here aare dead. A 5 iron for me on the course carries 190 to 210 and at the range I am lucky if I get 160-170 and the marks they leave on the clubs is a pain to clean. Testing my new driver I was carrying 200 easy but who knows what it will be on the course. Do these dead balls affect flight path and launch aswell ? How to get rid of the nasty impact marks they leave ?

[0ldblu3]

Yeah, range balls are built for durability and don't have the distance of regular balls. At the range I go to they don't have enough space (housing development behind) so they have 80% flight balls and a net. So your range balls may be purposely deadened to limit flight.

In general I use range work for working on some aspect of my swing and ball striking, not gauging distances. When I find a real ball in the mix I use that with an PW to see what my adjustment should be up through the progression.

[achadha7]

Thanks. I was working on my driver ( first time with the new one. Old one was ill fitted and a POS) found no new balls in the mix. How does one gauge distances ?