Cheap Vs Expensive Golf Balls Test
In this Cheap Vs Expensive Golf Balls Test, Neil Tappin puts the Kirkland Signature 2.0 up against the Callaway Chrome Soft X to see how they compare.
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00:00 (gentle music)
00:02 Now for many golfers, their number one priority
00:11 when searching for a golf ball
00:13 is something with a urethane cover.
00:15 They understand that urethane cover
00:17 provides them with the spin
00:19 and the feel they're looking for in the short game,
00:21 and it also allows the manufacturers
00:22 to build in some of those design elements
00:24 that give them distance in the long game.
00:27 And if you're gonna go down the route
00:28 of a urethane golf ball,
00:30 you've got three options, broadly speaking.
00:32 You've got the Tourplane models by the premium brands,
00:35 but they're likely to set you back
00:36 somewhere in the region of about 50 pounds per dozen.
00:40 And then you've got a new band of golf balls
00:42 that are sort of mid-priced urethane offerings,
00:45 again, from the top brands,
00:47 but they will still come in
00:48 at around about 30 pounds per dozen.
00:51 If you don't want to pay that much,
00:53 your next option is something like this.
00:55 This is the Kirkland Signature 2.0.
00:59 It's a urethane-covered ball,
01:00 and it costs just over one pound per golf ball.
01:04 Now, we wanted to find out what you give up on
01:06 if you were to go for something like this.
01:08 So we're gonna put it through its paces
01:10 in a series of head-to-head challenges
01:12 up against a Tour premium urethane-covered golf ball,
01:16 the Callaway Chrome Soft X.
01:19 We're gonna find out how these two golf balls
01:21 compare to each other
01:22 on a series of challenges out on the golf course,
01:25 and then I've also already hit them both
01:27 on a launch monitor,
01:28 and I'll show you that data as well.
01:30 It's very interesting.
01:31 Right, we're here at the London Club.
01:33 Let's get started.
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01:57 Okay, so for the first of my three challenges,
02:00 I've come down here to the 11th hole
02:02 on the Heritage course at the London Club,
02:05 and I'm gonna hit three shots with each golf ball,
02:07 starting with the Callaway.
02:08 Now, this is a tough hole.
02:10 It's playing about 165 yards.
02:12 It's into quite a strong breeze, but it's downhill.
02:15 I'm gonna hit a seven iron,
02:16 and we'll see how I get on with both of these golf balls.
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02:25 Skinny.
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02:27 Pin high.
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02:36 Right, six golf balls, safely on board.
02:42 Let's go and find out which one's closest.
02:44 Okay, so we've come down here to the green
02:46 to find out how each of those six shots has done.
02:49 Hopefully you can see all the shots that I hit,
02:51 and the one that's closest to the flag
02:53 is this one right in front of me here,
02:55 and that, hopefully you can see that,
02:57 is the Kirkland Signature,
02:58 and it's about 25 feet short, so not bad.
03:03 Now, the others, the three Callaway shots are here,
03:06 one, here, two,
03:12 and the one up there that's to my left to your right,
03:15 that's probably the one I hit the furthest,
03:17 so that means the shortest one was the Kirkland,
03:20 and there's one in the middle there
03:22 that was also a Kirkland.
03:23 So I'd say, in terms of performance from that little test,
03:25 there's not an awful lot to choose between them,
03:29 and the Kirkland actually did pretty well.
03:31 The last thing I will say, though,
03:33 is that I probably, the shots I hit with the Kirkland ball,
03:35 I probably hit them a little bit better
03:38 than the ones that I hit with the Callaway,
03:40 but all in all, I'd say both golf balls
03:42 gave me pretty good performance
03:43 in pretty tricky weather conditions.
03:45 Right, time for some bunker shots,
03:58 and to see just how well both of these golf balls spin,
04:02 how much control I'm able to get around the green.
04:04 Again, I'm gonna hit three shots with each golf ball,
04:07 and you'll hopefully be able to see
04:08 just how much spin control I'm getting
04:10 when hitting a shot like this.
04:12 I'm gonna start with the Kirkland,
04:13 and then move on to the Callaway.
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05:07 Okay, so all six shots played,
05:09 I'd say I got pretty good spin control with both golf balls.
05:13 In fact, it was a blind test.
05:14 I'm not sure I really would have been able to tell
05:16 much of a difference between the two.
05:18 That's a Kirkland signature,
05:19 the one that's closest to the hole.
05:21 That one is a Callaway, and I'd say that one,
05:23 I don't know, I felt as if that one spun the most
05:27 of the shots that I hit, but all round,
05:29 I'd say the performance from the bunker was very good,
05:31 and it's kind of what I would expect
05:34 from a good quality premium urethane golf ball.
05:37 So, so far with the Kirkland signature, so good.
05:41 (upbeat music)
05:44 Right, time to find out how good these golf balls
05:59 are off the tee with a driver,
06:01 and I've come to the 14th hole,
06:02 which is a good opportunity to test them out
06:05 'cause it's just over 400 yards,
06:07 and it's a dogleg right to left,
06:09 and there are some bunkers on the corner of the dogleg,
06:11 which I feel like I should be able to make it
06:13 over those bunkers fairly easily.
06:15 It is into the wind, but I feel like I should make
06:17 that carry quite easily.
06:18 So I'm gonna hit three with the Kirkland,
06:20 three with the Callaway.
06:21 We'll see how we get on.
06:35 Let's give the Callaway a go.
06:37 Right, six shots hit.
06:49 Let's find out where they are.
06:51 Okay, so some interesting findings here.
06:54 Now, the longest shot I hit was with the Callaway.
06:56 That's the Callaway Chrome Soft X up there.
06:59 That's also a Callaway there,
07:01 and there's one just in the rough over here,
07:03 which is down the left-hand side of this hole.
07:05 They're all very similar distance, actually, up the hole.
07:08 This one here leaves me about 130 yards in,
07:11 so that's got about 270 yards,
07:12 which I'm very pleased with, into the wind.
07:15 Now, the best shot I hit with the Kirkland
07:17 is sitting right here.
07:18 I'd be very pleased with this,
07:19 but this was by far and away
07:22 the best shot I hit with the Kirkland
07:24 because the other two, which weren't too bad,
07:26 one, you can see, is in the foreground of the shot.
07:28 The other one is even shorter down here
07:31 on the left-hand side, and I've paced it out
07:33 from the ball that's shortest
07:35 to the ball that's longest, is 24 yards,
07:38 which is not insignificant.
07:40 And I will come on, and I will talk about
07:42 the launch monitor data in this video,
07:44 but certainly the findings that I've had on this test
07:47 while I was playing it out on the golf course
07:49 and from the launch monitor would say
07:51 that the Callaway Chrome Soft X does provide me,
07:54 certainly at my clubhead speed,
07:56 with that bit of extra distance,
07:57 and you can see what that means, actually,
07:59 when you're out on the golf course.
08:00 So I'm gonna hit one of these.
08:02 I think I'll hit this one.
08:04 So at the start of this video,
08:13 I said we'd take a look at the launch monitor data,
08:14 and I'll show you that now,
08:15 but it's also worth saying I also tested both of these
08:19 over nine holes here at the London Club
08:21 in what can only be described
08:23 as some dreadful weather conditions.
08:25 So I do have a pretty good feel
08:26 for how both of these golf balls perform
08:28 in all areas of the game.
08:31 Now, I'm gonna start by talking about this 50-yard pitch
08:33 I hit on the launch monitor,
08:35 and as you can see from the data,
08:37 the Callaway did spin more,
08:38 so I was getting 6991 RPM of spin with the Callaway,
08:42 which is very good.
08:43 It was offering plenty of control,
08:45 but that number for Kirkland is also very good,
08:48 and it's something that I noticed probably even more
08:50 when I was out on the golf course, to be honest with you.
08:52 Hitting shots around the greens,
08:53 just how well this spins.
08:56 It does offer really good short-game spin control,
08:59 but then when you also add in the fact
09:01 that it's also got a lovely soft feel off the putter face,
09:03 I think the short game is where you really see the benefit
09:07 of this golf ball.
09:08 It performs really well.
09:10 But how does it perform further out?
09:12 Well, let's take a look at the Seven Iron data.
09:14 So as you can see,
09:15 the Callaway was offering me more ball speed,
09:18 so there's a jump in ball speed for me from the Callaway
09:20 of five miles per hour.
09:22 The launch angle was the same,
09:24 and it was a little bit lower spinning,
09:25 the Callaway, than the Kirkland,
09:27 so I was getting more distance
09:30 with that Callaway Chrome Soft X.
09:31 Now, I think it's important here to say
09:33 that when I tested the Callaway golf ball for the first time,
09:37 I was really impressed with this Callaway Chrome Soft X.
09:40 It provided excellent distance in the long game
09:42 and good control in the short game,
09:44 and that's why I chose it for this particular video,
09:47 because if you are thinking about going
09:50 for a cheaper urethane golf ball,
09:52 this is your one option with Kirkland,
09:54 but with Callaway, you've got three options
09:56 where you can choose something
09:57 that's gonna really sort of fit your game.
09:58 That's why I chose the Chrome Soft X,
10:00 and you can see from that number, those numbers there,
10:03 just how well it does suit my game,
10:05 and the same was true of the T, so take a look at it.
10:08 That jump in ball speed in particular with the driver,
10:12 so 164 versus 158, the Callaway also launching
10:17 a fraction higher but spinning less
10:19 and providing quite significant extra distance gain,
10:22 and I think when you saw the driver comparison
10:25 I did out on the golf course, the challenge that I did,
10:27 the Callaway golf balls were all longer
10:30 than the Kirkland golf balls,
10:32 but actually it was during my on-course testing,
10:34 both today and I've also tested this Kirkland ball before,
10:38 where I just feel like if you're giving up something,
10:41 for me, it's off the T,
10:43 it's a little bit of distance off the T.
10:44 It's not drastic, you're not losing 50 yards,
10:49 but you might on certain shots lose 20 or 30 yards.
10:53 For me, that was certainly the case.
10:54 Whilst I was getting great spin control
10:56 from the Kirkland around the greens,
10:57 I was also getting a bit more spin off the T,
10:59 and I think that goes to talk to exactly what you get
11:03 if you invest in a premium ball.
11:06 You get that separation in performance,
11:09 in spin performance between the long game
11:11 and the short game.
11:12 You get an all-rounder, something that works really well
11:15 in every department of the game.
11:17 This Kirkland ball is very impressive,
11:20 but it's better around the green than it is off the T.
11:24 Okay, so there you have it.
11:25 That's my look at the Kirkland Signature 2.0 golf ball.
11:29 And I think had I been testing this on its own,
11:31 I'd have been really impressed with it.
11:33 I was really impressed with it
11:35 because it offers fantastic short game performance,
11:38 so really lovely feel off the putter face,
11:40 and fantastic spin control when you're hitting bunker shots,
11:43 chip shots, pitch shots.
11:45 It performs fantastically well,
11:47 especially when you consider the price.
11:49 But for me, as I started to move further away
11:53 from the green, I felt as if this was spinning
11:56 a little bit too much for me.
11:58 And that's where the Callaway Chrome Soft
12:00 sort of separated itself in terms of performance
12:02 because it still offered all those same attributes
12:05 around the green.
12:06 But if I was choosing, I think I'd probably choose
12:08 to pay the extra and go for the Callaway Chrome Soft,
12:11 but that doesn't necessarily mean that's the right thing
12:14 for everyone out there.
12:14 I think it's a good idea to figure out
12:16 what your budget is for a golf ball,
12:19 and then make your choice accordingly.
12:21 And if you don't want to stretch
12:22 to those premium level golf balls,
12:24 then the Kirkland Signature 2.0 is a fantastic option
12:28 that will perform very well,
12:30 but it's worth just knowing exactly
12:33 what you are giving up on.
12:35 That's it.
12:36 If you've enjoyed the video, please do hit the like button.
12:39 But that's it for now from the London Club.
12:41 We'll see you next time.
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