Golf Equipment Review: What’s in a Ball? (Video)
June 10, 2013; Ardmore, PA, USA; Detail view of wet golf balls in the basket during the practice round of the 113th U.S. Open golf tournament at Merion Golf Club. Mandatory Credit: John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports
We all know that our ball is the only piece of golf equipment that we use on every shot we make because the golf ball manufacturers have told us so. It just makes sense that we want balls that fly far, self-correct, roll when then need to and stick when they should. Not all of us are as talented as Cristie Kerr when it comes to issuing verbal commands that bring the pesky little round things under control, but all of us would like to be!
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I was recently asked to review a new golf ball designed by Ball Couture specifically for older women golfers. It’s a niche market. Men outnumber women on the links by about 3:1 and while older women tend to play more rounds per year than younger women (for perfectly obvious reasons), older women golfers (say, over 60) are a small demographic in the golf equipment market.
When it comes to golf equipment, older women are at best a neglected market share. I know. I am an older women golfer. I qualify with age and I embody all the athletic characteristics Ball Couture is attempting to accommodate, a slow, soft swing being central.
Would I review Ball Couture’s new ball? Not without field-testing it, I said.
Star Fort Ladies Golf Association
So Ball Couture sent me some balls and I engaged 9 of my Star Fort Ladies Golf Association playing partners in a field test of Ball Couture’s psychedelic golf balls marked with martini glasses and diamond rings and high heels.
While the balls come in 4 colors that will match any golf outfit that any older woman golfer wears to the first tee on any given day, my field testers came to their task without any thought to golf fashion. After all, it was 9am on our regular play day and most of us were going home to something fairly routine after our round.
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The balls got a good test and they passed with flying colors. They’re lively and respond positively to our little-old-lady soft, slow swings. They have a nice roll, which added distance to our shots, and they were also very easy to locate on a course that’s still getting its first growth of spring grass and currently has a kind of modified cammo-look.
Two women broke 90 today and credited their balls with the added distance that got them down that low. The golf jock among us said the balls are too soft for her, but two other long hitters in the group reported that they were getting better-than-average distance off the tee by keeping their balls low and hitting Michelle Wie-type stingers.
Diane Christensen, Ball Couture’s CEO, chatted with Ricky Potts and Jason Boslow and me about these balls two weeks ago on Friday Foursome. Let her tell you why this golf ball is unique. She conceived it and designed it.
I’m not going to get into the technical specifications of dimples and so forth that seem to rivet comparisons of Titleist and Bridgestone and Nike balls. I’m just reporting here that 9 older women golfers are feeling very enthusiastic about a golf ball that Ball Couture designed to accommodate their style of play.
One of the first questions I fielded as we came off the course today was “Where can we get them?” Diane Christensen answers that one.
Fore!