range balls vs real balls experiment results

[saevel25]

Don't you mean 180 feet?

Nope ;)

Please convert to yards next time, we are in America ;)

[Patch]

I never think much about distance when I am at the range. I don't think any two range balls will act the same, unless they are brand new, and just out of the box. They really get abused during their life span on the range. Plus they are usually of a higher compression than what I am use to.  Also, I have used some practice ranges in SoCal that use floating balls, and limited flight balls depending on where their range is located.

What I do is I set up and aim at the closest target on the range, which is usually the 100 yard marker. Then with what ever club I am using, the idea is for the ball to fly as close as possible over, or at that marker. I might go 100+ yards past that marker, or I might hit something in front of that marker. All I am looking for is my correct set up, and swing to send the ball on a line towards that marker. Yesterday I was at the range hitting my 7i way past my target. A good old boy who wanted to help me out told me I was using too much club. I thank him for his interest, and went on with my practice session. He gave me a puzzled look, and walked a way shaking his head as I continued hitting the ball past the target.

When I want to check distance with my various clubs, I will go to a local area that allows me to use my regular game balls, with a landing area that is very sandy. All I want to know is the carry value of each club, since the roll out after carry changes from course to course. The roll out is an on course adjustment for me.

Now every so often I will get a range ball that flies no where near where I thought it should have went. I just disregard it. I have hit balls that looked like a Phil Niekro knuckle ball after I hit them.

I might warm up with range balls when I am practicing my short game, but when I get down to business, I always use the same brand, and model of ball that I play for real with.

[anthony]

How many cubits is that?

[DaveP043]

1 Cubit:

Distance from fingers to elbow, estimated at 18 inches for a Biblical cubit, other cubits may vary. 1 Cubit = 45.72 centimeters = 0.4572 meters.

1 Furlong:

10 Chains = 660 ft = 220 yd

ergo, one furlong is 440 cubits.

Did anyone else know that an acre is 10 square chains?

[Wally Fairway]

I measure distances in furlongs.

that seems rather amatuerish - I gauge my shots on the range in hang time vs. distance.

Something like this -

Driver - 3 Mississippi's

3 wood - 2 Mississippi's and a Mississ

3 hybrid - 3 Oklahoma's

4 iron - 3 Virginia's

5 iron - 3 Arkansas

6 iron - 3 Florida's

and then I have to practice my Tiger topped 3 wood and that is 1/2 of an Oh Shit

[rkim291968]

Quote:

Originally Posted by boogielicious

I measure distances in furlongs.

that seems rather amatuerish - I gauge my shots on the range in hang time vs. distance.

Something like this -

Driver - 3 Mississippi's

3 wood - 2 Mississippi's and a Mississ

3 hybrid - 3 Oklahoma's

4 iron - 3 Virginia's

5 iron - 3 Arkansas

6 iron - 3 Florida's

and then I have to practice my Tiger topped 3 wood and that is 1/2 of an Oh Shit

DaveP043, can you take a crack at this?

[Ernest Jones]

Pinnacle Golds tend fly a little shorter because they're so damn heavy. I really hate losing the gold ones. That's why I switched to ProV, much cheaper.

[WUTiger]

Depends on the range. Some ranges use balls that go shorter. You are only talking about 8 yards of difference. ...

According to tests sponsored by Golf Digest, range balls have a lot more distance variation than ProV1 or top golf balls. Some went longer, some went shorter than the ProV1 competitors.

Here are the charts and comments: http://www.golfdigest.com/golf-equipment/2014-06/gd-tested-range-balls

Besides the type of range ball, the usage would come into play. Range balls that have been banged around a few weeks have little scuffs that would - I suspect - degrade their aerodynamics.

Personal misadventure: A few years I got some Callaway irons, and got Cleveland CG14 wedges for the non-PW additions. After getting in a few rounds with the CG14s, I decided to calibrate them - modified Pelz style - at a local driving range. I spend an afternoon charting my distances with the well used range balls.

A few days later, my wife and I played while on vacation. My normal play balls - Top Flite Gamers - consistently carried a half a club longer on partial wedges, and about 10+ yards on full shots, than the range-ball tests suggested. I had to make some back-9 adjustments to get shorter putts.

Lesson: calibrate your wedges using your on-course golf balls

[Lihu]

Note on range balls versus play balls, range balls go about 215 yards/240-ish less than Pro-V1x balls, or about 10% less. That was kind of surprising. I teed off with my 3W and a roughly 3/8" tee and 5 shots all carried about 240 yards over a little bunker that requires 235 carry on the Course 2 18th hole from the blue tees when they are set all the way back. Some shots might have been longer? IDK. I hit over 20 shots with range balls and some landed past the 215 yard hill some landed a tad short. This is just an interesting measure of range ball versus play balls.

This was wrong, actually. It's closer to only 5.6%.

I suppose I can qualify that with my 3W the difference is pretty obvious, but I think it applies to all clubs more or less equally.

Using an "Angeles National" souvenir Pro-V1, and three assorted Pro-V1x balls and one brand new Pro-V1x ball, I hit a 3W off a 3/8" tee 5 times from the farthest back position of Brookside Course 2 Hole 18 and carried the bunker all 5 times. I think I just carried it. So, I just google earthed it and it only measures out to 227 yards. In any case, all 5 shots up in the red ellipse area on the right.

The little red area to the right is where they moved the driving range mats and roughly where I was hitting from, and they extended the concrete area as of when this image was taken. The area on the left of the image is roughly where the 215 yard hill is located.

227/215 is around 5.6%

[WUTiger]

This was wrong, actually. It's closer to only 5.6%.

I suppose I can qualify that with my 3W the difference is pretty obvious, but I think it applies to all clubs more or less equally. ....

... 227/215 is around 5.6%

Lihu...

• +1 for interesting test.
• - 2 for over-extrapolating the results

You performed a test using a 3W (one club) on five ProV1 and five range balls.

GD, on the other hand, used a 2 x 2 x 2 matrix to get their results: 2 ball types x 2 clubs x 2 swing speeds, per club.

And, - 1 to {GD + test lab}. The testers should have used 20 ProV1, rather than just 12, to have a balanced 20 + 20 test matrix.

You are assuming that the difference from 3W shots (regular vs. range)  will be the same for all clubs of all lofts/shaft lengths.

The GD results, however, show longer ProV results for only the driver. For 7 iron, the range balls went both shorter and longer than the ProV.

-----------------------------------

Too bad we couldn't get together and compare three different types of range balls - a new batch and an old batch of each - against a pro-spin, mid-spin and distance ball (on-course grade).  We could have drivers, 3W, 5i, 7i and PW. That way we could get a better charting of the variance gaps, and where the gaps increase or shrink within the complex matrix.

[Moppy]

I think in the fishing world, it is called trolling ...

Maybe. But I have to admit I smiled as soon as I saw the avatar.

[isukgolf]

Maybe. But I have to admit I smiled as soon as I saw the avatar.

Oh I smiled through the whole little story he had created ... and if he was fishing he would have caught his limit by now.

[Lihu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lihu

This was wrong, actually. It's closer to only 5.6%.

I suppose I can qualify that with my 3W the difference is pretty obvious, but I think it applies to all clubs more or less equally. ....

... 227/215 is around 5.6%

Lihu...

+1 for interesting test.

- 2 for over-extrapolating the results

You performed a test using a 3W (one club) on five ProV1 and five range balls.

Thanks for the +1 and I suppose even the -2 score on the over-extrapolation. I actually used 5 play balls and 20 range balls, but I did not walk out to measure every shot. Actually, I didn't "measure" the carry on the 5 play balls either. Trakman or Flightscope is going to be much more accurate, but this is kind of all I had to work with and it was kind of haphazard that I did it at all. In fact, I didn't even expect to carry the bunker with my 3W. I was waiting for some people. . .I hit one ball and didn't see it land and hit another one thinking it went out of bounds, then another, etc. Finally, I figured out that I was carrying the bunker from the barely perceptible faces staring back at me. . .I waited for them to get to the green before hitting the last two.

BTW, my only complaint of the GD test results is that they do not show the distribution of the distances. Doubtful that if I take a simple average of the minimum and maximum numbers that I would get a reliable range ball versus play ball ratio to use.

^^^

EDIT: Wrong again. My data seems to fall right in line with the GD test if you take speed versus distance ratio.

In fact, the OP falls in line with the 7i tests that GD did???

[natureboy]

I was talking to my coach and he was telling me that the only difference between me and the pros right now is that the pros know exactly how far they hit all those clubs.  So we went to the driving range and he stood out there as i hit golf balls so he could measure.  Teh range balls look beat up but they are pinnacle golds.  I was hitting my 5 iron about 400 feet (yes feet, we ARE in America) on the range.  But when I got on the course and played wiht my game balls, Dunlop ProZ ecks, I was hitting my 5 iron 376 feet on average.  Has anybody else noticed that the range balls tending to go a lot farther?  My old pen pal said my coach was prob just giving me wrong distances but I don't think so because he is really good at eyeballing distances adn guessing peoples weight

First get a new coach. Then switch to measuring all distances in standard Roman paces - this is what all pros use to pace off on-course distances.

Lihu...

+1 for interesting test.

- 2 for over-extrapolating the results

You performed a test using a 3W (one club) on five ProV1 and five range balls.

GD, on the other hand, used a 2 x 2 x 2 matrix to get their results: 2 ball types x 2 clubs x 2 swing speeds, per club.

And, - 1 to {GD + test lab}. The testers should have used 20 ProV1, rather than just 12, to have a balanced 20 + 20 test matrix.

You are assuming that the difference from 3W shots (regular vs. range)  will be the same for all clubs of all lofts/shaft lengths.

The GD results, however, show longer ProV results for only the driver. For 7 iron, the range balls went both shorter and longer than the ProV.

-----------------------------------

Too bad we couldn't get together and compare three different types of range balls - a new batch and an old batch of each - against a pro-spin, mid-spin and distance ball (on-course grade).  We could have drivers, 3W, 5i, 7i and PW. That way we could get a better charting of the variance gaps, and where the gaps increase or shrink within the complex matrix.

I think GD didn't use enough clubs. I think the lack of compression and dimples relative to brand new premium balls will have the biggest contract bet. driver & wedges.

A new ball should be easier to compress and transfer energy to with a slower SS than a typical range balls so should go farther with driver. The very worn dimples on many of the range balls will affect the high-spinning wedges and short irons more by limiting the typical ballooning of trajectory so they will likely travel a bit further than your game ball. Dialing in wedges with real balls is better, but if you are limited on opportunities to do this, maybe try to use the newer less worn range balls (so the spin is closer to the new balls and at least more consistent) and try to at least hit a group of five new ones with the same club / same conditions so you can estimate a rough % adjustment factor. Then fine-tune per your results on the course.

[Lihu]

I think GD didn't use enough clubs.

Clearly, more data is required. Unfortunately, it requires more "practice rounds" which are shunned around here. . .

However, if someone were to conduct such a test. They might take 20 Pro-V1/x and 20 range balls and hit all the balls on the course several times with every type of club under different conditions. Let's say someone just bought 16 ProV1x and 4 ProV1 slightly used, and can possibly convince his/her course to let them take a small bucket of range balls to hit into a fairway. That might be a good basis for the experiment. The person would need to go out on maybe 7 trips so they only need to perform the test twice on any given day?

So, if it were possible to get a few members to repeat the experiment and record the range ball types etc, then record every distance we might get an interesting statistic and at different swing speeds because that seems to affect the results as well.

To really confirm it, we could get some people with daily access to a trakman, flight scope or CG2 to perform this test as well? Hmm. Who here has such access?

Hypothetically, of course. . .

[Yukari]

Funny, my 5 only goes about 120 smoots.

I did notice that some range balls only go about 100-110 smoots.  But the ones with the high end range ball, like Pro V1 Practice balls, they seem to go about 120 smoots.  There were some where the driving range is a pond, it only seems to go about 150 smoots even with the driver.

[bm85]

Pinnacle Gold are usually good balls in my opinion. Range balls can vary widely though.

I get about 10-15 more yards per club I use going from PW-3. Still don't have any additional wedges...

[Mr. Desmond]

The OP Avatar creeps me out ... I thought he was 12 years old by the post, which seems like utter (crap).

But if he is serious, my apologies.