MyGolfSpy Ball Lab is where we quantify the quality and consistency of the golf balls on the market to help you find the best ball for your money. Today, we’re taking a look at the Bridgestone Tour B RX. An overview of the equipment we use can be found here. To learn more about our test process, how we define “bad” balls and our True Price metric, check out our About MyGolfSpy Ball Lab page.
Before Tiger Woods became a Bridgestone brand ambassador, the RX franchise was the best-selling ball in the Bridgestone lineup. The RX’s popularity makes the argument that before Tiger, Matt Kuchar’s dad was the biggest needle mover for Bridgestone ball sales.
Go figure.
For what it’s worth, its popularity was the reason we chose it as the official ball of Most Wanted testing. As we came to understand the implication of lower compression for higher swing-speed golfers, we moved on to the Tour B X. However, because of its softer feel, the RX remains popular with slow to moderate swing-speed golfers.
In this edition of Ball Lab, we take a closer look at how the quality and consistency of the RX measures up to the market as a whole.
About the Bridgestone Tour B RX
There are plenty of surface-level similarities between the Tour B RX and other balls in the Bridgestone Tour B lineup. The balls sold in the U.S. are made at the company’s factory in Covington, Ga, it features three-piece construction and the cover is injection-molded urethane.
Keep in mind that manufacturers’ stated launch and spin characteristics are typically based on comparisons to other balls within the same lineup. With that said, Bridgestone lists the Tour B RX as high launch and low spin. That’s typical for balls within the soft urethane category as it provides the means to offset the speed lost to lower compression.
While discerning golfers will likely notice the RX doesn’t spin as much around the green as the Tour B XS, many will find its spin acceptable.
Bridgestone Tour B RX – Compression
On our gauge, the average compression of the Bridgestone Tour B RX is 75. That’s solidly 10 compression points softer than the Tour B XS and nearly 25 points softer than the Tour B X.
It shouldn’t surprise anyone to learn that the most similar ball (compression-wise) we have in our database is the Callaway Chrome Soft. The Srixon Q-Star Tour is a few compression points softer while the OnCore ELIXR is a bit firmer.
The compression (and a good bit of Bridgestone’s past marketing efforts) suggest that none of the above is suitable for higher swing-speed golfers who risk over-compressing the core, losing distance.
Bridgestone Tour B RX – Weight and Diameter
- None of the balls tested exceeded the USGA weight limit of 1.620 ounces.
- Zero percent of the balls failed to meet our standard for roundness.
- Zero percent of the balls were smaller than USGA’s minimum allowable diameter.
Three bullet points to tell you that there’s not much with respect to weight, roundness or size failures to be concerned about.
Bridgestone Tour B RX – Inspection
Centeredness and Concentricity
Generally speaking, within the Tour B range, Bridgestone does an excellent job keeping its layers consistent and its cores properly centered. That said, we did find a single ball where issues inside the ball were significant enough that we deemed it bad. A couple of others were on the edge but, as it is our policy to always give the ball the benefit of the doubt, we can say that instances of major defect appear rare.
Including the core debris described below, minor issues were present is less than one-third of the sample, which is likely better than most.
Core Consistency
We found a few balls with a single small piece of material inconsistent with the rest of the core. In all cases, the specks were minor and by no means enough to disqualify a ball.
Cover
No issues were found with any of the covers within our Tour B RX samples.
Bridgestone Tour B RX Consistency
In this section, we detail the consistency of the Bridgestone Tour B RX It’s a measure of how similar the balls in our sample were to one another, relative to all of the models we’ve tested to date.
Weight Consistency
- Consistency (of weight) across our Bridgestone Tour B RX sample fell within the average range.
Diameter Consistency
- Diameter consistency relative to the other balls in our database also fell within the average range.
Compression Consistency
- Compression consistency across the sample was fair (below average).
- We flagged one ball as bad for compression which deviated significantly from the sample median.
- A second ball was flagged as bad for having significant variation between the three compression points measured.
We found a 13-point compression range across the sample. For context, that’s a bit like mixing a Tour B XS and Tour B RXS or finding a Left Dash tossed in with your box of Pro V1s.
True Price
True Price is how we quantify the quality of a golf ball. It's a projection of what you'd have to spend to ensure you get 12 good balls.
The True Price will always be equal to or greater than the retail price. The greater the difference between the retail price and the True Price, the more you should be concerned about the quality of the ball.
Bridgestone Tour B RX – Summary Report
To learn more about our test process, how we define “bad” balls and our True Price metric, check out our About MyGolfSpy Ball Lab page.
The Good
As we’ve coming to expect from Bridgestone, the company does an excellent job keeping the insides of its balls consistent. There are no major red flags around weight and diameter.
The Bad
The compression range for the Tour B RX isn’t as tight as it should be and balls have a tendency to be firmer at the poles than on the seam.
True Price
The True Price of the Bridgestone Tour B R X is $49.08. That represents a nine-percent increase over MSRP ($44.99). That’s certainly not bad and for golfers who want urethane and are willing to sacrifice a little bit of speed for softer feel, the Tour B RX is almost certainly one of the best options on the market right now.
Ball Lab Top Performers
Want to know which balls have performed best in Ball Lab testing so far?
Check out:
Rich M
10 months ago
I am just going through my first dozen. The experience so far has been good, as the ball performs as promised. One noticeable difference however, is the amount of wetness the ball retains. I mean, it was loaded with beads of groundwater covering the ball through the seventh hole. I play fairly early in the morning and under strict no touch rules. Anyone else see this?