Interesting how the ball discussion in the product place sparked questions about golf balls in general. I got a couple of questions about balls in general, so I’ll address them here.

I got a couple questions about cover materials. We use Urethane on ERC and all of the Chrome family of balls. When compared to Surlyn, Urethane is softer and produces higher spin rates (in fact, 35-50% more). This tends to produce more consistency, and better shot control – especially with the short game. ALL tour balls use a Urethane cover. Surlyn is harder, and tends to be found in distance balls. It is cheaper and lasts longer, but is generally not found in he best quality golf balls.

When discussing a tour level golf ball with a slower swing speed, the typical response is “You don’t need it – you don’t swing hard enough to compress it.” True, but wouldn’t a player who doesn’t hit it far need to rely on a stellar short game to shoot better scores? The answer is yes, of course, so wouldn’t it make sense to have the best performing ball around the greens since that’s where the player needs to make up strokes. ERC has a lot of life in the area – a 65 compression ball with a Urethane cover.

I got a couple questions about cover thickness. Generally, a thinner cover will produce higher performance and better feel. The Chrome family has among the thinnest cover in the game (last I heard, it was THE thinnest). A thinner cover is difficult to manufacture due to the way the material is injected into the mold. The greatest imperfections often occur in the cover manufacturing process.

What’s with the layers? In a nutshell, layers are strategically placed inside the core- at varying depths depending on what the manufacturer wants to achieve with the design. Their positioning will influence the performance of the golf ball based on the conditions presented at launch. This means that layers aren’t just added to say This ball is a 4-piece ball. Each layer has a specific purpose. For example, as layers are added, the manufacturer may be trying to reduce spin on a lower launching, higher speed shot (driver), or maybe increase spin on a mid-launching shot (mid-iron), or flatten trajectory on a high launching shot (wedge). Whatever the case, the motivation for each manufacturer is different.

Every Tour level ball is NOT trying to do the same thing. Describing what the ball does can be challenging. Simply stating that “this is a high launch/ Low spin ball” is an over simplification. It’s a high launch/ low spin ball – WITH WHAT? A driver? A 7-iron?? A wedge??? Typically, the discussion should be this ball is a lower launching/ mid spin ball with the driver, it’s a more of a mid launch/ mid spin ball with the 7-iron, and a higher spinning ball with a wedge. Care to guess what ball this is? (Chrome Tour). Chrome soft, by contrast, has one less layer, so the 7 iron and the wedge will have similar characteristics. Chrome Soft is more of a high launch, low spin with any club in the bag. It is optimally designed for a slightly slower swing speed player than the Chrome Tour or Chrome Tour X.

Worth noting that the ball is designed to respond to a certain input characteristic a certain way. English, please… Suppose that a Chrome Tour is struck with a clubhead speed of 95 MPH – it will not always respond the same. If Xander is hitting his hybrid, I’m hitting a 3 wood, and Average Joe is hitting a driver – all at 95 MPH, the resulting spin, launch, ball speed, carry, etc. will ALL be different. The ball will respond differently depending on the type of swing, loft, attack angle and any other clubface variable. The player needs to try the ball, and see what it does for him/ her. A decent ball striker could very well say “I love this ball with the driver and that one around the greens.” – that’s not crazy..

I hope this helps!!