Best modern ball to use with wooden driver

[Don Mahaffey]

I switched back to a wooden driver about 6 months ago and I don't see going back to a modern driver anytime soon. Love the feel and being the weak minded golfer I am, the tempo needed to play well with a wooden club has carried over to the rest of my game and I'm playing ok and having fun. I've been trying to find a ball that feels right and so far I've had the best luck with a precept and with the noodle. Any suggestions on a "softer" ball that feels right off of wood?  ProV feels like a rock to me.

[Jon Cavalier]

Don:

Maybe give these a try: http://www.callawaygolf.com/balls/callaway-golf-balls/balls-2014-supersoft.html

If you do, I would be interested in hearing how they play off wood.

Jon

[Rich Goodale]

Don

I've been carrying my old persimmon MacGregor 3-wood in the trunk of my car for the past few months and gave it a chance to play last week in a competition at Hunstanton.  The course was the closest I have seen to Hoylake 2006 (I walked that course on the final practice day of that Open, so I know what it was like).  I used that 3-wood off the deck 4 times over the two days (3 times down wind and once into the wind, all in situations 220+ yards to the green).  The into the wind shot ended up 40-50 yards from the green which was a good result.  The 3 down wind shots all ended up pin-high, two on the green and one 20 yards right.  All shots were played in conjunction with a ProV1, and none of them felt like a rock.  The trajectory of all 4 shots was ugly to a player of your caliber (quail high cut/slices that carried 170-180 and then trundled along the ground for another 50+ yards or so), but the two that made it onto the green were the most fun golf shots I have hit for a long while (John Kirk nirvana).

I've now put my old Orlimar persimmon driver into the trunk of the car and I will be carrying it this morning at a nearby non-links course (Thornton) and on my next two links adventures (Monifieth later this week and Dornoch next week).  Might buy a sleeve of Noodles, just to see.....

Rich

PS--I haven't had the swing speed to hit a 250 carry drive with my melon-headed modern driver and a ProV1 since 2004......

rfg

[Greg Chambers]

Don,

The Bridgestone e6 feels pretty good when I hit it on the screws of my old Hogan Speed Slot persimmon 1 wood.

[Don Mahaffey]

Rich, I'm carrying the old Hogan 1. 3 & 4 woods with the speed slot. Not high dollar clubs back in the day, but they are holding up. I hit all of them way lower then my newer metal clubs and I like the ball flight. I forget how fun it is to play a 4 wood back in my stance and hit a low rope hook goer into the wind.

[Peter Galea]

Remember to dry out those persimmons after playing in "dewy" conditions.
I don't need to remind you Rihc, but for those who never have played a Super Eye-O-Matic or 693T,
please take care of those treasures. (one of my favorites is a Louise Suggs 3 wood).
A big plus of the "metal woods" for the casual player, when introduced, was that you
could throw them in the trunk and forget about them till you played again.
Not so with persimmon, or even the old laminates.
You needed to take them inside, stand them in corner with head cover off to dry.
Your "bulge and roll" will become "swell and mush" if left wet.

Don

I've been carrying my old persimmon MacGregor 3-wood in the trunk of my car for the past few months and gave it a chance to play last week in a competition at Hunstanton.  
I've now put my old Orlimar persimmon driver into the trunk of the car and I will be carrying it this morning at a nearby non-links course (Thornton) and on my next two links adventures (Monifieth later this week and Dornoch next week).  
Rich

[Thomas Dai]

Don,

I vary my play and the ball I normally use - sometimes I play with modern equipment, sometimes with hickory, sometimes with persimmon/old blades.

With persimmon/old blades I have found that the Bridgestone B330-RXS 'feels' more like an older period ball, the nearest 'feeling' ball I've found to a balata from the persimmon/blade period. The Srixon Soft Feel isn't bad either, but it's essentially a 'go' ball with not much 'stop' whereas the Bridgestone RXS does have some 'stop' to it.

There was a GCA thread quite recently about the best modern ball (not replica) for use with hickories, which might also be of relevance for persimmon as well - see -http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,59123.0.html

atb

[jeffwarne]

What's really interesting about the first 10-15 years (1974-1989) of my golf life was that good equipment was really hard to come by, and the good equipment that elite players were using was almost always vintage 1950's!
Amazing how technology not only stood still for 30+ years, but in many ways went backwards!
Balls got better but good wooden drivers were hard to come by and cherished.
Best driver performancewise I ever had was a 1971 Wilson Staff laminate.
Used a lot of 2 woods for driving a la Snead.

[Thomas Dai]

A couple of years ago the 'whipping' at the bottom of the shaft of my persimmon driver came loose. My club Pro is of an age that he learnt the 'craft' of repairing wooden headed clubs as a young lad so the task was pretty easy-peasy for him to undertake, but it took a while to locate some new whipping thread - no longer stocked by the usual golf industry suppliers apparently.

What were once basic 'bread-n-butter' repairs such as this or refinishing a wooden headed club or removing/replacing a shaft in a wooden headed club are apparently no longer part of the PGA Assistants training programme/exams. Shame.

Apologies for getting 'golfwrx-y'!

Don,

I meant to ask above, but how have you found playing persimmon again from the design/architecture/maintenance aspect? Has it in any way altered your perspective with regard to things like hazard placement, mowing lines, the ground game, etc etc?

atb

[BCrosby]

What's really interesting about the first 10-15 years (1974-1989) of my golf life was that good equipment was really hard to come by, and the good equipment that elite players were using was almost always vintage 1950's!
Amazing how technology not only stood still for 30+ years, but in many ways went backwards!
Balls got better but good wooden drivers were hard to come by and cherished.
Best driver performancewise I ever had was a 1971 Wilson Staff laminate.
Used a lot of 2 woods for driving a la Snead.

Jeff -  Happy to hear that someone else noticed. As late as '89 a local shop was selling 25 year old MacGregor persimmon drivers (Nicklaus still played with an old one at the time. Model M-70 (?)) for north of $500. It was thought to represent the state of the art in drivers. The Stradivarius, as it were, for which you paid a premium. The shop bought as many as it could and was selling them like hotcakes when the market disappeared about 1990. The shop found itself with inventory it couldn't move and never recovered.

I also remember looking at Norman's irons at the Masters in the late '80's. They were 20 years old, banged up and with lead tape all over them. You saw many players in the same period playing MacGregor tourney irons from the 60's.

And then metal drivers and Ping irons changed everything.    

Bob

[Tom Culley]

I like to use the Wilson Staff DX2 Soft when playing persimmon, they are crazy soft!

I recently got a deal on some of the older PX3 Soft Spins from Wilson, these seem equally good.

[Steve Lang]

  I recommend the Clayman Autograph Rawlings Balata, but I only have one left from playing Banff!

[Tom Fagerli]

What's really interesting about the first 10-15 years (1974-1989) of my golf life was that good equipment was really hard to come by, and the good equipment that elite players were using was almost always vintage 1950's!
Amazing how technology not only stood still for 30+ years, but in many ways went backwards!
Balls got better but good wooden drivers were hard to come by and cherished.
Best driver performancewise I ever had was a 1971 Wilson Staff laminate.
Used a lot of 2 woods for driving a la Snead.

Jeff -  Happy to hear that someone else noticed. As late as '89 a local shop was selling 25 year old MacGregor persimmon drivers (Nicklaus still played with an old one at the time. Model M-70 (?)) for north of $500. It was thought to represent the state of the art in drivers. The Stradivarius, as it were, for which you paid a premium. The shop bought as many as it could and was selling them like hotcakes when the market disappeared about 1990. The shop found itself with inventory it couldn't move and never recovered.

I also remember looking at Norman's irons at the Masters in the late '80's. They were 20 years old, banged up and with lead tape all over them. You saw many players in the same period playing MacGregor tourney irons from the 60's.

And then metal drivers and Ping irons changed everything.    

Bob

I can remember in the late 70s being unable to find a driver (new) that was worth a hoot. Had to have a Penna if going to get a new one. My best driver was a Wilson Staff Stratabloc with 12 deg loft (gee I was on to something back then!). I used to hit so many neck shots I cracked lots of necks!

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

As much as I dont like the comopany...The Titliest Solo is the closest thing out there.

[Tom Bacsanyi]

The Nike One Platinum is as close to a balata in terms of how it performs as any ball out there.  Out of production, but you can buy refurbs and even some new boxes here and there, especially off fleaBay.  That ball is how El Tigre was still hitting low risers and big ol' slinging hooks well into the later 2000s.  It is soft and was quite short compared to the V1/V1x/B330/etc of that era and spins like the beejesus.  If you don't strike it clean into the wind you'll get the ol' balata ballooner.  

[Ken Moum]

A couple of years ago the 'whipping' at the bottom of the shaft of my persimmon driver came loose. My club Pro is of an age that he learnt the 'craft' of repairing wooden headed clubs as a young lad so the task was pretty easy-peasy for him to undertake, but it took a while to locate some new whipping thread - no longer stocked by the usual golf industry suppliers apparently.

What were once basic 'bread-n-butter' repairs such as this or refinishing a wooden headed club or removing/replacing a shaft in a wooden headed club are apparently no longer part of the PGA Assistants training programme/exams. Shame.

FWIW, if it comes up again, black braided dacron fishing line works great for whipping.  I have some old stuff that's braided dacron with a plastic coating on it that's EXACTLY what OEMS were using in the 1970s.  Golf component suppliers used to have it, then for a while the only place you could find was as tip-up line for ice fishing (the coating kept it from freezing up). Now it's nowhere to be found

But this http://www.ebay.com/itm/Troll-Queen-Braided-Dacron-Fish-Line-50-Yd-45-Test-/120523538087 is all you need.

With all the guys going retro and hickory, maybe I need to make a tutorial on whipping and a couple of other "skills" I picked up when I started building and repairing clubs back in the 70s

K

Here's one of my retro sets





That Frank Johnston putter predates his being acquired by Golfcraft and it has a hickory shaft.

I "cheated" on the driver as I just can't handle a steel-shafted driver any more.  That's a nice Honma with a graphite shaft (I also have some fairway woods that I usually use.)

And I do play with the 1958 Haig Ultra irons my dad bought new.

[Dave McCollum]

During some remodeling, we took down a behind-glass display of some old MacGregors.  Not sure what to do with them—first reaction is to go hit them and let the staff do the same.  Pretty sure they’ve never struck a ball and appear virginal.  This thread seems a good place to thread jack sympathetically and ask for suggestions.  Sorry about the poor quality of the photos.  Didn’t seem important enough to bother.  If you can’t read the graphics: 1,3,4,5 woods; 1-SW irons, vintage 1981, numbered set 255 of 2000.
 
They have no sentimental value to me beyond that they’ve been hanging there for 34 years untouched.  Thoughts from the persimmon crowd?

[Greg Clark]

Don,

I've played quite a few rounds with persimmon and modern balls.  What you are looking for is a low compression ball that also is a high spin ball.  The low compression will help on off center hits.  Particularly with the lower lofts that most old persimmon drivers have, a ball that spins can really help get the ball in the air.  As an aside, most players would hit the higher lofted 2 woods farther than drivers.

The best match I have found is the previously mentioned Bridgestone 330-RXS.  I'd also rather play with a ball that spins around the green, which that ball does fairly well.  Most of Wilson's balls work pretty well also.  I've posted a link to a good site that compares balls.  I haven't played the Maxfli U/2, but for the price, compression and driver spin rate, it looks to be a heck of a match for persimmon.

Another option is to buy some old balata or Titleist Professional's off of ebay.  They will have degraded a bit, but they still play just fine.  They do go out of round fairly easily however.  That being said they are great fun to play with.  I've got a reasonable stash of them.  If you drop me a PM, I'd be happy to send you a few.

Ken,

Please send me those Centennials.  You surely don't need them anymore.   

http://public.tableausoftware.com/profile/#!/vizhome/GolfBallsComparaison/Dashboard1

[Dave McCollum]

Oops, didn't resize the crappy photos.  Use the scroll bar, if curious.

[Thomas Dai]

Ken,

Thanks for the tip about black braided dacron fishing line for whipping. BTW, that's some interesting looking sticks in your bag.

Don,

I recall seeing limited edition sets mounted in frames/boxes on walls from MacGregor, but not with 4&5 woods included (did JN ever carry a 4 or 5 wood in his prime?). I also recall Hogans in boxes/frames hanging on walls in pro-shops and clubhouses as well, just the irons though, no woods.

As an aside, there are often seemingly very good condition wooden drivers and fairways on ebay. Amazed by the low prices. Younger players who've come to the game after the wooden era was over might benefit from acquiring one and giving it a go to experience how the game was played for many decades. It might also aid with the historical appreciation of architecture and maintenance practices too.

Greg,

That's an interesting comparison chart you've highlighted. Thanks. The compression numbers are nice to know. You mention the old Titleist Professional, that was a very fine ball. Played almost exactly like a balata but far much durable. I wish it were still made.

atb

[Jim_Kennedy]

Whipping:
http://www.ashawayusa.com/