No, I didn’t see it on TV. Or in a magazine. Or online, exactly.

This amazingly compelling ad came in an email from my father-in-law Jim, who passes along all sorts of random things to friends and relatives on his massive email list.

The e-mail’s subject line read “How Hard Is A Golf Ball” and contained a link to a piece of ultra highspeed photography I’d seen before; specifically, a golf ball smashing into a steel plate while filmed at 70,000 frames per second. For the non-technical, that’s really, really, really high-speed photography; all this action happens in less than 1/1000th of a second.

The differentiating point about the e-mail containing the link this time was this little bit of information…

1 –  The Pro V-1 golf ball by Titleist is actually a three part ball, but you have to have a club head speed of at least 100 mph or more to be able to compress all three stages. If you don’t the ball never fully compresses and you don’t get the distance out of it that the pro’s do.
2 –  *WE* will get more distance out of a ball that only has two stages of compression…like the Titleist NX Tour. It is more suited to *OUR* swing speed and we can compress it upon impact and can hit it further than the Pro V-1 ball.
3 –  So the secret is not to buy the most expensive balls out there, because we are actually decreasing the distance we can hit the ball, unless your club head speed is over 100 mph  —  which unless you are 21 to 50 years old, isn’t going to happen!!!

This ball is not a Titleist NX tour. In fact, it well might be a significantly softer practice ball. But with this new information about two vs three part ball construction and amateur levels of swing speed, this footage takes on all new meaning. I know my club speed is not particularly fast. And it makes sense that two stage compression would work better than three for a duffer like me. So hopeful golf wannabe that I am, next time I pick up a box of balls, I’ll look for NX Tours, even if the ball in this video clearly isn’t one.

Because we bad golfers live on hope. And this little email of recycled footage and clever suggestion just re-ingnited mine. Nicely done, anonymous Titleist golf creatives, nicely done.

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By Dennis Ryan, CCO, OLSON

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