The TaylorMade SpeedSoft golf ball is a kind of uncommon merchandise for which the advertising and marketing division’s catchphrase tells you all the pieces you might want to know.
“Golf is tough. Play a softer ball.”
SpeedSoft. Placing “Pace” subsequent to “Smooth”? We’ve questions.
The press launch for the TaylorMade SpeedSoft golf ball tells us it’s a low-compression design, engineered for the “softest potential really feel whereas sustaining explosive speeds for the on a regular basis golfer.”
As with the lately launched TP5 and TP5x, TaylorMade believes it has cracked the code to mix mushy really feel and ball velocity with this new ball.
And the corporate believes it’s achieved it for $24.99 per dozen.
We’ve extra questions.
And what about that “on a regular basis golfer” factor? Are you an on a regular basis golfer? And does that imply you play on daily basis?
So many questions.
Let’s see if we are able to discover some solutions.
TaylorMade SpeedSoft Golf Balls: Downy Smooth …
Earlier than we get too deep, let’s put the TaylorMade SpeedSoft golf ball in the proper spot. It’s a two-piece ionomer-covered ball for below $25 per dozen. For that type of cash, you possibly can anticipate a mushy, low-spinning, high-launching ball that you just don’t thoughts dropping. The Wilson Employees Duo Smooth and the Srixon Smooth Really feel are typical of the species.
One profit is a pleasingly mushy really feel, which will be addictive. However the massive draw is you may get twice as lots of them in comparison with what you’d spend on a Tour-level ball.
However that “mushy” factor has a double draw back. While you go that mushy, you sacrifice spin and ball velocity. Tour-level balls spin as a result of their agency, ionomer mantle layer pinches in opposition to the mushy urethane cowl on glancing blows. Since a two-piece ionomer-covered ball has, nicely, a agency ionomer cowl, there’s no mushy/agency distinction. As a substitute, it’s a agency/mushy distinction, which delivers significantly much less spin.
And relative firmness – that’s increased compression to you and me – is a key ingredient to ball velocity. And ball velocity, whereas not the only real indicator, is a key ingredient to total distance. To place it merely: firmness contributes to ball velocity, which contributes to distance. Smooth, in different phrases, tends to be slower.
And the TaylorMade SpeedSoft is mushy. As in sub-50 compression mushy.
Nevertheless, based on TaylorMade, the SpeedSoft checks proper to the utmost USGA restrict for preliminary velocity.
“To have the ability to create a product that’s that mushy at that velocity is a really distinctive factor,” says Michael Fox, TaylorMade’s International Golf Ball Director.
PWR To The Core
How does TaylorMade squeeze velocity out of SoftSpeed? With its newest buy-a-vowel know-how, PWRCORE.
In accordance with TaylorMade, PWRCORE is an extra-large, tremendous low compression core. That’s coupled with a agency ionomer cowl with what TaylorMade describes as a low-drag, extended-flight 332 dimple sample. The corporate says you’ll discover the mushy really feel totally on method and wedge photographs, usually inside 30 to 50 yards of the inexperienced.
OEMs inform us, with some justification, that, since softer balls are likely to spin much less, they’re extra more likely to keep in play for his or her goal golfers. That these goal golfers battle with a slice is commonly left unsaid. But it surely’s truthful to cause {that a} ball that spins much less is extra more likely to discover proper fairway as an alternative of proper tough, or proper tough as an alternative of proper forest.
And I don’t know in regards to the programs you play on however low-spinning tee photographs are likely to roll extra within the fairway than they do within the tough. And so they typically don’t roll in any respect within the forest.
Did TaylorMade crack the ball velocity versus mushy velocity dichotomy? It’s extra possible that it has altered the recipe a little bit bit to squeeze as a lot velocity as it will possibly out of a sub-50 compression ball.
However there’s something distinctive in regards to the TaylorMade SpeedSoft. That’s, if you happen to like a touch of colour in your recreation.
TayorMade SpeedSoft Ink
SpeedSoft Ink is, fairly merely, a splash of colour. TaylorMade calls the brand new paint splatter design a “vibrant visible know-how” as a result of why the hell not?
Wait, it will get higher.
It’s a high-contrast, high-visibility paint job that’s, and we’re quoting, “a canvas of persona and magnificence ideally suited for individuals who dare to interrupt conference.” It’s additionally a “palette of prospects and roars with persona.”
Flowery verbiage apart, a touch of colour by no means harm anybody. And if you happen to like a touch of colour, these are fairly cool.
TaylorMade SpeedSoft Golf Balls: Colours, Worth, Availability
The essential TaylorMade SpeedSoft golf balls can be accessible in white and yellow in sleeves or in dozens.
The TaylorMade SpeedSoft Ink is available in three colorways, with colour splashes accessible in inexperienced, blue or pink. TaylorMade can be providing pink and orange choices in ball jars at retail places so you should purchase them one by one.
They’re accessible beginning right this moment at retail and on-line. They’ll promote for $24.99 per dozen.
For extra data, hit up the TaylorMade web site.
