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GOLF.com first told you about the five-piece TaylorMade Penta TP golf ball in August. In this video from TaylorMade, Dean Snell, senior director of ball research, explains how he got the company's staff pros—including Sergio Garcia, Justin Rose and Retief Goosen—to try it.
Bridgestone's newly-updated e-Series golf balls, like their predecessors, are each designed to help golfers overcome a specific shortcoming. The e5 is for golfers who want to hit the ball higher and farther; the e6, lower and straighter; and the e7, something in between.
In a media release, Brandon Sowell, Bridgestone's marketing manager for golf balls, said, "The entire e-Series evolved from our learning about where players needed help in terms of ball-flight optimization. In the new e-series line we've made some significant modifications to make the balls even better at what they’re designed to do."
As most golfers know all too well, excessive sidespin can cause hooks and slices. So Bridgestone added a newly formulated layer around the core of the three-piece e6 which greatly reduces spin (Bridgestone calls it the Anti Sidespin Inner Layer). That new layer helps the ball fly straighter. Designers also reduced the compression of the e6's core by 8% but kept the ball's Surlyn cover.
For slower-swinging golfers who crave more distance off the tee, the dimples on Bridgestone's two-piece e5 ball are fractionally larger in diameter, but shallower than its predecessor's. This should give the ball more lift and carry off the tee. But the new e5 still features a soft Urethane cover (a rarity for a two-piece ball) for better feel around the greens.
The new e7 has a lower, more penetrating ball flight than the previous e7 thanks to a new material under the Surlyn cover that makes the ball about 5% firmer (Bridgestone calls it the Velocity Increasing Inner Layer). Like all of Bridgestone's balls, the inner portion of the e7's core is very soft, but it gradually gets firmer as it moves out toward the cover.
The new e-Series balls are available in golf specialty stores and pro shops for about $27 per dozen.
With bold, blue packaging and a name like Crush, it's not hard to guess which group of golfers Nike is trying to attract with its newest ball: players who want to outdrive everyone.
Designed specifically for golfers with a swing speed between 80 and 95 miles per hour (the average for most weekend players), the Crush has a soft, low-compression core and an ionomer cover designed to reduce sidespin for increased accuracy.
Rock Ishii, Nike Golf's director of product development for balls, said in a release, "I believe we've done a great job designing a longer and straighter golf ball for a wide range of swing speeds at a mid-tier price."
The Nike Crush is available now for about $30 per dozen.
Ernie Els got a little help from Callaway Golf in Shanghai at the HSBC Champions, where he finished second after shooting 63 on Sunday.
"I started playing a new golf ball that Callaway made," Els said. "This is what I've been looking forward to, is this golf ball. It would have been unbelievable if I could have won with this ball. It would have been great for Callaway and myself. I'm looking forward to the future now, and I think my equipment is now spot on."
Els was referring to the new Callaway Tour i(s). Ryan Moore, who finished third, also used it.
The Callaway Tour i(s) is a four-piece ball that Steve Ogg, Callaway's vice president of ball R&D, called "the most highly-engineered golf ball product we have ever come out with."
According to Ogg, the Tour i(s) is the softest ball Callaway has produced, but what makes it special is a large degree of spin separation, which makes it possible to put a lot of spin on iron shots and very little spin on drives.
"The ball has a high core compression differential," he said. "That is the difference between the compression of the inner core and the outer core. When you have a high-compression outer core, the ball holds it shape better when you're hitting wedge shots so you can give it more spin."
The greater force of a driver, he said, will penetrate the outer core and compress the soft inner core. That reduces spin and creates greater distance.
"It morphs to the shot that you want," Ogg said, "yet retains all the distance of the previous Tour i golf balls." The Callaway Tour i(s) will be available in mid-January for about $43 per dozen. In the video below, Ogg talks more about the ball.
(Photo by Scott Halleran/Getty Images)
SAN FRANCISCO – During a press conference after the pairings were announced for Thursday's Presidents Cup foursomes matches, Anthony Kim was asked if equipment would be an issue in the alternate-shot format.
"We are going to use Phil's ball [Callaway Tour ix]," he said. "I have got no problem with it. When I was little, I used all different kinds of golf balls because those were the used golf balls you had to buy in a bag. I'm used to playing with whatever. We'll go out there and have a good time."
Kim's normal ball is a Nike ONE Tour.
SAN FRANCISCO — In the foursomes (alternate-shot) matches this week, the players who are paired together will often play different brands of balls. The prevailing wisdom is that the teams should tee off with the ball preferred by the player who will hit the approach shot. Performance of most low-spinning, multilayer balls is fairly similar off the tee, the thinking goes, but the players would notice a different feel when hitting irons and wedges. Since distance control from the fairway is critical to setting up birdies, you want the player who is going to hit the approach shot to use his preferred ball. The rules allow the teams to switch balls after completing a hole.
On Wednesday morning, as the American team practiced
on the back nine at Harding Park, I snuck a peek at the balls the
players used off the tee, and I used that information to make a guess as to Thursday's pairings, which will be announced later this afternoon.
1. Jim Furyk and Justin Leonard: Furyk was teeing off on the even-numbered holes using a Nike ONE Tour ball. He typically plays a Srixon Z-Star X.
2. Anthony Kim and Phil Mickelson: Kim, who plays a Nike ONE Tour, used a Callaway Tour ix ball off the tee on the even-numbered holes (photo).
3. Zach Johnson and Kenny Perry: They both use a Titleist Pro V1x, but Perry asked Zach if he could use one of his balls on the tee at 13. "His is a little bit different than mine," Perry told a bystander. It's very possible that they use a Pro V1x ball from different model years.
4. Tiger Woods and Steve Stricker: Woods teed off on the odd-numbered holes using a Titleist Pro V1 instead of his Nike One Tour.
5. Hunter Mahan and Sean O'Hair: After hitting O'Hair's TaylorMade Penta TP off the tee on 13, Mahan said, "Wow! It spins a lot." Mahan uses a Titleist Pro V1x.
6. Stewart Cink and Lucas Glover: Both players use a Nike ONE Tour D ball.
JERSEY CITY, N.J. -- At the 2009 PGA Championship, Sergio Garcia and Retief Goosen tried out the yet-to-be-released, five-piece TaylorMade Penta golf ball. Last week at the Wyndham Championship in Charlotte, Matt Bettencourt, James Driscoll, Justin Rose, Jay Williamson and Casey Wittenberg also started using the ball.
Now, according to TaylorMade representatives, Y.E. Yang, the man who walked away with the Wanamaker Trophy at Hazeltine, has put the Penta into play at the Barclays Championship. Yang had previously been using the TaylorMade TP Red LDP.
As we reported in early August, the Penta has been designed to optimize its performance in five key areas: with the driver, long-irons, middle irons, short irons and partial wedge shots. The ball will be available to the public starting December 1.
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(Photo by David Dusek)
CHASKA, Minn. -- Last week I told you that Sergio Garcia and Retief Goosen will be using TaylorMade's yet-to-be-released Penta golf ball here at Hazeltine. From the outside, a five-piece ball looks identical to a two-, three- or four-piece ball. They're all round, white and covered with dimples.
Don't try this at home, but if you cut a few Pentas in half, this is what you'll see.
Starting at the far right, the four interior pieces are: the black core, which is solid; the gray inner mantle layer; the red middle mantle layer; and the thin, light-red outer mantle. The sliver-thin, white urethane cover is the fifth layer.
Also See:
- 2009 GOLF.com Ball Guide
- See and Buy TaylorMade Balls
- PGA Tour Winning Bags
Sergio Garcia and Retief Goosen plan to use TaylorMade's new five-piece golf ball, the Penta TP, at next week's PGA Championship at Hazeltine.
The ball, which took three years to develop, won't be available to the public until Dec. 1. It is golf’s first five-piece ball, and according to TaylorMade officials, was added to the USGA’s conforming ball list on Wednesday.
The goal for the Penta was to optimize its performance in five key areas: with the driver, long-irons, middle irons, short irons and partial wedge shots. (Get it? "Penta," five.)
The cover of the Penta TP is made of a soft urethane material to promote a high-spin rate, but lower trajectory on wedge shots and pitches for more control. The outer mantle layer, which can be found directly under the white cover, is the most-easily compressed. Of the three mantle layers in the Penta TP, it's the fastest, and TaylorMade says it is designed to create optimal spin and flight conditions when ball speeds are below 120 mph (short irons for tour pros).
The middle mantle layer is semi-firm, and TaylorMade designed it to be compressible on shots with a ball speed between 120 and 140 mph (mid-irons). According to a TaylorMade memo, the inner mantle is designed to create high-launching, low-spinning shots with a ball speed between 140 and 160 mph (long irons).
Encased under all those layers is the core, which is made from an extremely fast, low-compression material that only the fastest swingers will be able to activate. However, TaylorMade says those who do can expect more ball speed and less spin on drives for increased distance.
TaylorMade expects the Penta TP to be widely used by its Tour staff players, and the ball has not only been tested by Garcia and Goosen, but also by Dustin Johnson, Jason Day and Justin Rose. But TaylorMade says the ball should also appeal to slower-swinging players and a wide range of amateurs because it has been designed to increase ball speed (for more distance) and provide feel around the greens.
Callaway has asked the USGA to remove the Tour i ball with a
sidestamp from its list of conforming golf balls because some may exceed the USGA's weight limit.
In a release on the company's Web site, Callaway explains, "The deviation in ball weight was traced to a manufacturing anomaly that occurred on two days in mid-2008." Callaway went on to say that less than 1% of Tour i balls were affected. Theoretically, the heavier balls could fly farther on well-struck shots.
Going forward, Tour i balls will be marked with a sidestamp that has two dots on either side, like this one: 
.
The only golfers this will truly affect are professionals and elite amateurs. Starting in June, those golfers will need to use the ball with the two-dot sidestamp. All other golfers may continue to use the former version of the Tour i ball, even for rounds that are counted toward handicap calculations.
