I've been playing golf a long time, shoot in the 80,s and have used all manner of ball. And this works as good as the next one but is a lot less expensive. That said, I think there's something to the "smart core" with regard to hitting straighter shots... ok - now I've played with this twice, 9 holes each time, and here's my impressions... - I've shot my two best scores of the year - coincidence? And actually, I would have had the best score of my life for 9-holes yesterday except for a mental lapse on the last hole. I was 1-over through 7, had a 3-putt bogey on 8 (from 50-feet) arrggg to go to 2-over. Easy, short par 4 for the last hole - par to tie my best score - smashed my 3H 230 yards leaving myself an easy 95-yards to a really wide green. But ..... pin was tucked way to the left beside a trap. I should have hit for the middle of the green but I aimed for the pin, caught the corner of the trap, took 2 to get out and then 3-putted from 50-feet - ARRRRGGGG! 5-over, 41 - still tied my best 9-hole score of the year, but I easily could have been 2-over! - My chipping and pitching has been much better. I don't hit high flop-shots so spin shouldn't be an issue, but I'm getting up and down from around the green a lot more. - I hit a Hybrid 3 off the tee and have hit 12 of 14 fairways (and the two I missed hit trees and bounced back out!), which is great and whereas I usually have a big draw, I seem to now have a small draw which is better. Again - not sure if it's the ball or the fact that I've been working really hard on hitting fairways, even at the expense of distance (thus the 3 hybrid off the tee) - Distance, maybe a tad less than the pinnacle soft I was hitting before, but like most mid/high handicap golfers my distance varies a lot from shot to shot so it's hard to really tell. For example my 3-hybrid I'm hitting anywhere between 190-240 with this ball. The wide range of distances obviously goes to the fact that my ball striking is very inconsistent, as opposed to the ball. Still - that's about what I would expect, distance wise with another ball. I notice that with the last ball I tried out (Pinnacle soft) I would occasionally flush an iron and get 20-30 yards longer than normal (like 170 on the fly with an 8-iron), and that hasn't happened with this ball, which I guess is a good thing since, especially with high irons, you need to be able to know how far the ball is going to go. - A strange thing is that with this ball, I simply am not getting good contact with my mid-irons off of the fairway. I presume that's me, but it's been 18 holes without a single, really good mid/long iron shot. I'm just not picking them up and then getting low ball flight, etc. but straight, so even my misses tend to be good which has contributed to my good scores. - Putting...again, I find it hard to see how a ball could affect putting, but I've been making all of my 3-5 footers, and only 3-putting from 40+ feet, so that's been good.
