Have You Hard Or Soft Balls? (General)

Name: kenjohn

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Product:	General
Date:	23/04/04 (714 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap to purchase., Virtually indestructable., Travels a long way.

Disadvantages: Hard to control, with little or no spin control.

~ ~ Golf balls these days are as varied and different as the various different types of golfers who use them. They have come a long way since the early days of golf, when the golf ball was a simple leather pouch filled with goose or duck feathers!

~ ~ The appliance of science has led to today?s modern golf balls being miniature technological miracles, that are practically aerodynamically perfect. Nowadays you can buy a golf ball that will travel in the air for massive distances. You can buy balls with lots of spin, or practically no spin. Hard balls or soft balls, and all sorts of in-between balls.
Whatever your golf handicap, whether you be a budding Tiger Woods, or a total beginner, there is a golf ball out there in the market place that will be just about perfect for you.

~ ~ A relative newcomer to the golf ball market (at least in the USA and Europe) is a Japanese manufacturer called Srixon. (Sumitomo Rubber Industries)
They are not inexperienced in the making of golf balls however, as they have been one of the leading manufacturers in the Far East since as far back as the 1930?s, when they made Dunlop, Slazenger, and Maxfli golf balls under licence.
Nowadays they are part of the Adidas/Taylor Made Group of companies, and their own brand Srixon golf balls are to be found wherever golf is played.

~ ~ In common with most other golf ball manufacturers, they make a range of golf balls to suit different types of golfers
The Srixon Distance golf ball I am reviewing here is their ?budget? ball, designed specifically for the longer handicap golfer, (about handicap 16 to 36) who isn?t so concerned about spinning the ball, or working it with draw or fade from either the right or left. What most longer handicap golfers are most concerned with is the actual distance they can hit the bal
l, and it?s in this department that the Srixon Distance excels.
It?s a two-piece construction, solid-core ball with a high velocity core and a hard, durable ?Ionomer? cover. Don?t ask me what ?Ionomer? actually means, mind you. Golf ball manufacturers are forever coming up with new buzzwords to try to convince potential purchasers that they have made some sort of breakthrough in design, which will dramatically improve their game.
The truth is that ?Ionomer? is just another buzzword for an extremely durable surlyn (hard rubber) outer cover. What this hard outer cover means to the average golfer is that the ball will come of the club head with less spin and a higher trajectory, and thus travel further in the air before it finally comes to rest. (Hopefully on the fairway or green!) So it will go further than a softer golf ball, which most lower handicap (and professional) golfers use.
The harder cover also means it is virtually indestructible, and wont cut or go out of shape with a badly hit shot in the same way as a softer golf ball. (A distinct advantage if you want to save money!)

~ ~ The down side to the Srixon Distance ball is that it?s practically impossible to impart any backspin on it when you are playing a delicate little chip or pitch shot around the green, or when you are attempting to play a ?sliding? shot to avoid a bank of trees or other obstacle that is in your way.
This means that it?s more difficult to control, and thus more difficult to get close to the pin with any degree of consistency. Hence it wouldn?t be the golf ball of choice of a professional or good amateur golfer!


~ ~ I got a present of a dozen Srixon Distance balls from a friend at Christmas time. It?s not a ball I would normally play (or buy), to be perfectly honest, as I value the ability to work the ball from right to left, or to control it around
the greens far more that I do the actual distance it travels in the air.
But this isn?t so vital a factor when you are playing golf during the typical Irish winter. (Wet and windy!) The greens and fairways are usually very wet and often waterlogged, which means that a ball hit high onto a green will stop almost where it lands, whether it be one of the more expensive ?softer? balls, (like my usual Maxfli Revolution) or a hard two-piece ball like the Srixon Distance.
In fact, the harder Srixon ball will give you that little bit more distance of the tee in wintertime, and because it spins less in the air, will tend to fly that little bit straighter in a high wind.
So I have gradually used up the dozen Srixon golf balls I got a Christmas time, although now that Springtime is upon us, the remainder will now be banished to the bottom of my golf bag until next winter, and I will return to using a softer and more controllable ball.

~ ~ Cost is in or around the £12 mark for a box of a dozen, (£1 per ball) and the Srixon Distance is widely available in most good Sports shops, golf professionals, or on the Web from a plethora of different sites.
To sum up then. The Srixon Distance ball is a good buy for a long handicap or junior golfer, who puts distance at a premium, but is not really a good buy for the more gifted or lower handicap player.

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Copyright KenJ 2004

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