Course Conditions Can Affect Your Golf Ball Choice (Video) - by Pete Styles
Course Conditions Can Affect Your Golf Ball Choice (Video) - by Pete Styles

Another consideration that really you should be taking into account when you’re choosing and selecting the correct golf ball for your game, are the course conditions and the weather conditions and the type of golf that you play. All these things make up a little bit of a picture of the type golf that you should be playing. So if you’re playing let’s say down in Florida, nice warm weather, very fast greens. Sometimes towards the end of the day, quite hard greens as well they dry out a little bit.

Generally in those conditions we would want to be playing a softer golf ball that spins a little bit more so we get nice control around the greens when we’re playing on. So we hit the ball a decent distance off the tee but then around the green if you’re playing a very hard golf ball, you’d feel like you got less control. So play a spin ball rather than a distance golf ball. So when you land the ball on the green you want it to grip, you want it to stop. Also when you’re making putts and chip shots, you want a softer feel of the club face, you don’t feel like you’ve hit it and it should shut-off the club face. You want a ball that feels softer when it lands on those fast greens and so when you’re putting, downhill particularly, you want a nice soft impact. So a soft and more spin related golf ball would be helpful if you were playing in very warm and dry conditions. And then the flip side of that would be you know we are in Manchester now, it’s October, it’s getting quite cold, it’s very damp on the ground, and as we go through the winter here, we generally don’t really feel like the greens are going to be that fast and certainly we don’t need to try and spin the ball on the green. Because as soon as the ball lands on the green, it’s generally quite wet, quite soft, it’s going to land and spin back a little bit. And when you’re putting, the greens are quite slow this time of year, so a very soft golf ball and a soft impact isn’t necessarily what’s required. We’ll actually prefer to use a slightly firmer golf ball that rolls out a little bit better on the greens because often golfers would under hit putts on the slower greens. You can also relate the type of golf ball that you are playing to your own game, you know, if you really value feel around the green, over and above distance, choose a soft and more spin focused golf ball. If you focus more on I’ve just got to get the ball up to the green, and regardless of how I putt, I just want to get it there and hit the ball longer. Choose a harder more distance focused golf ball. And I think if you understand the course conditions and you understand what you’re trying to achieve with the golf ball, then selecting the golf ball is a little bit easier to do rather than just looking at this minefield of 40 different golf balls in every Pro shop you’ll be able to highlight the golf balls that’s going to be more suitable for your game. 2015-11-03

Another consideration that really you should be taking into account when you’re choosing and selecting the correct golf ball for your game, are the course conditions and the weather conditions and the type of golf that you play. All these things make up a little bit of a picture of the type golf that you should be playing. So if you’re playing let’s say down in Florida, nice warm weather, very fast greens. Sometimes towards the end of the day, quite hard greens as well they dry out a little bit.

Generally in those conditions we would want to be playing a softer golf ball that spins a little bit more so we get nice control around the greens when we’re playing on. So we hit the ball a decent distance off the tee but then around the green if you’re playing a very hard golf ball, you’d feel like you got less control. So play a spin ball rather than a distance golf ball. So when you land the ball on the green you want it to grip, you want it to stop. Also when you’re making putts and chip shots, you want a softer feel of the club face, you don’t feel like you’ve hit it and it should shut-off the club face. You want a ball that feels softer when it lands on those fast greens and so when you’re putting, downhill particularly, you want a nice soft impact. So a soft and more spin related golf ball would be helpful if you were playing in very warm and dry conditions.

And then the flip side of that would be you know we are in Manchester now, it’s October, it’s getting quite cold, it’s very damp on the ground, and as we go through the winter here, we generally don’t really feel like the greens are going to be that fast and certainly we don’t need to try and spin the ball on the green. Because as soon as the ball lands on the green, it’s generally quite wet, quite soft, it’s going to land and spin back a little bit. And when you’re putting, the greens are quite slow this time of year, so a very soft golf ball and a soft impact isn’t necessarily what’s required.

We’ll actually prefer to use a slightly firmer golf ball that rolls out a little bit better on the greens because often golfers would under hit putts on the slower greens. You can also relate the type of golf ball that you are playing to your own game, you know, if you really value feel around the green, over and above distance, choose a soft and more spin focused golf ball. If you focus more on I’ve just got to get the ball up to the green, and regardless of how I putt, I just want to get it there and hit the ball longer. Choose a harder more distance focused golf ball. And I think if you understand the course conditions and you understand what you’re trying to achieve with the golf ball, then selecting the golf ball is a little bit easier to do rather than just looking at this minefield of 40 different golf balls in every Pro shop you’ll be able to highlight the golf balls that’s going to be more suitable for your game.