th6252

You can blame Bridgestone with the original Precept MC Lady and the anecdotal stories of guys with slower swingspeeds trying them out and hitting them farther than their regular tour balls. Bridgestone played the game and went all in with a speed-tiered marketing campaign that wasn't really backed with and hard research. I believe it was Callaway who then followed suit with the what eventually led to the original Chrome Soft. Then everyone else sort of began to dip their toes into the speed driven water...including Titleist to a degree. But, to be fair to Titleist...and I'm far from a Titleist ball homer...they were the first company that I recall that began to push back against the speed driven narrative several years back. Because of that narrative, I used to stay far away from any X ball (as I top out at around 102 dr ss) until recently when a friend of mine nudged me to just try a sleeve of the original Mizuno RB Tour X's he got for cheap. Had the durability of tissue paper, but it really opened my eyes. Between it and the non X RB Tour, I hardly noticed a difference tee to green. Distances were pretty similar off the tee with the X occasionally outdriving the regular by 3-5 yds but with a mildly higher flight on average. What really got me was the extra bite on greenside pitches and chips. Since then, I began experimenting with the Srixon XV vs Z star, TM TP5X vs TP5 and most recently Tour vs Tour X. Results are similar in most aspects for my game and realized it mostly boils down to feel for me. I think the Mizuno Pro X hits the sweet spot for me for feel, but the Tour X performs just as well for me at a bargain price. What I've begun to experiment with is using non X balls when I'm not making the most consistent contact on pitches and chips as the roll out a bit more consistently as opposed to getting the occasional "nippy" shot due to swing inconsistency with the X and having it come super short.

I’m really liking my dynapwr forged irons, surpassingly not a huge drop off feel wise from my old J15cb’s I’d played since they were released up until about 2 years ago. Just a bit tougher to tell sometimes where on the face I struck the ball. Obviously they play a half to nearly full club longer but not a huge drop off in spin window. Hard to see how Wilson can improve upon them.