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 Callaway Chrome Soft X. 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.
For the first Ball Lab of 2021, we’re going back to the ball (or at least a similarly named one) that started it all. As the only high-compression offering (which I’d argue makes it the only legitimate Tour ball) in the Callaway ball lineup, the Chrome Soft X is going to be the better option (among Callaway balls) for the overwhelming majority of higher swing speed players.
That, of course, is only half of the story. The more relevant aspect for today’s discussion centers around general quality. Our test of the 2020 Chrome Soft suggested Callaway had some work to do regarding the quality and consistency of its golf balls.
It is what it is.
The company has been upfront about those issues, likening the process of upgrading a functioning factory to changing the tires on a moving car. That’s a challenge, to say the least. Analogies aside, the larger point is that we fully expected it was going to take some time for the benefit of the improvements to be realized.
So as you move through the results of the Callaway Chrome Soft X Ball Lab, keep a couple of things in mind. First, by all accounts, it’s easier to make a high-compression ball than a low-compression one. That means Chrome Soft X is a bit easier to manufacture.
Second, Chrome Soft X came several months after Chrome Soft. Our samples were purchased roughly three months later than our Chrome Soft samples. That’s three months’ worth of additional time to improve the factory.
Let’s find out what all of that means from a quality perspective.
About the Callaway Chrome Soft X
Like the standard Chrome Soft, the Callaway Chrome Soft X is a 332-dimple ball with a urethane cover. According to Callaway, the Chrome Soft X can generally be described as a mid-launch, high-spin ball. The spin profile most closely resembles those of the TaylorMade TP5 and Titleist Pro V1x.
As with Chrome Soft and ERC Soft, the Chrome Soft X is manufactured in the USA at Callaway’s ball plant in Chicopee, Mass.
Callaway Chrome Soft X – Compression
There is perhaps no more dubiously branded product in golf than the Callaway Chrome Soft X. With an average compression of 95 on our gauge, it’s significantly firmer than the Chrome Soft (compression measured at 75) and way (way, way) firmer than the 41-compression Callaway SuperSoft.
That’s 54 compression points from end to end. Even within the Tour ball category, Chrome Soft X offers slightly firmer than average compression. As I’ve said countless times, Chrome Soft X is, by no reasonable metric, a soft golf ball.
Once again, it is what it is.
Callaway Chrome Soft X – Weight and Diameter
- A single ball in our test sample exceeded the USGA weight limit of 1.620 ounces.
- A single ball in the sample also failed to meet our standard for roundness.
- While a couple of the balls in the sample flirted with the gauge, none failed to pass the USGA’s minimum allowable diameter test.
Having a ball not conform to the letter of the USGA rule is never good but it wouldn’t be enough to disqualify the sample. While it’s not perfect, having two balls in the sample come up short for weight and roundness isn’t terrible.
Callaway Chrome Soft X – Inspection
Centeredness and Concentricity
We found some degree of core centeredness and/or layer concentricity issue in roughly 75 percent of the balls in the sample though in most cases the issues were minor. The majority were a mix of inconsistent thickness and small layer incursions (like the one in the core image below). Almost all of them were found in the outer mantle layer. It sounds like a high number but minor imperfections that are unlikely to have performance implications are common across most brands.
What’s perhaps most encouraging is that while defects in eight percent of the balls tested were significant enough to be flagged as bad, we didn’t find any of the eye-popping disasters found in the previous generation.
Core Consistency
Core color consistency was relatively consistent. We did find a few balls that were slightly paler than the rest but not significant enough to suggest a serious problem. Otherwise, the cores were clean and well-mixed. We didn’t find any miscellaneous chunks or anything else unusual or out of place.
Cover
Chome Soft X covers were excellent. We found no defects that warrant a mention and thickness was generally uniform across the sample.
Callaway Chrome Soft X Consistency
In this section, we detail the consistency of the Callaway Chrome Soft X. 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 Callaway Chrome Soft X sample fell within the average range.
Diameter Consistency
- Diameter consistency relative to the other balls in our database also fell within the low end of the average range.
Compression Consistency
- Compression consistency across the sample was average as well.
- A single ball was flagged for having a significant variation across the three compression points measured. Cutting it open revealed a significant layer incursion which is the most likely explanation.
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.
Callaway Chrome Soft X – 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
- There is some evidence to suggest Callaway’s factory improvements are having an impact.
- Quality is significantly better than what we found with Chrome Soft.
- Values for all quality metrics fall within the middle of the average range
The Bad
The majority of balls had at least one minor defect. In total, eight percent of the sample were flagged as bad.
True Price
The True Price for the Callaway Chrome Soft is $53.99. That represents a 13-percent increase over the MSRP at the time of purchase ($47.99). While that doesn’t place Chrome Soft X among the category leaders for overall quality and consistency, it’s a solidly average result that suggests the brand’s investment in quality is starting to pay off.
Ball Lab Top Performers
Want to know which balls have performed best in Ball Lab testing so far?
Check out:
Mark Combs
10 months ago7 or 8 years ago when the original Apex irons came out, every club in my bag, the ball I played, and the bag I carried said “Callaway” – today, I don’t own a single Callaway product. I think they make good equipment, but they don’t live up to their marketing, and some of it in my opinion is dishonest, and for me it’s a turn off. The off center balls was the final straw for me.
W
10 months agoI would love to see all the major balls tested in windy conditions. Now I know you guys don’t have a wind tunnel, but I’m finding that some of these main brand Tour type balls perform very poorly in a strong wind due to their dimple patterns all made to “fly” a bit more than old soft balls used to.
But a firm concrete test side by side of every ball in the wind should be done by somebody, and you guys should be the ones to do it.
Thanks for your consideration.
Christopher
10 months agoTony,
I think your reach into the world of golf ball “truth” testing has been extensive and fun to be a part of. Have you considered including standard range balls, both limited flight and normal, as also a control in testing? I am a loyal MTBx because of your initial research. I would love to see how they held up numbers wise if you had a control group that hit a range ball somewhere in the testing batch of each round. I think a lot of us would be able to equate those numbers as well to our own range experience/expectations. It would obviously be an outlier but it would also stand as a distinct data string that could be as close to a control as possible.
Dave
11 months agoUnless I missed it, does MGS have a chart that shows which swing speeds are best suited to balls? I infer from this (fabulous) story that the CSx is really firm and thus is for fast swingers. But how fast, 100mph+ fast?. That kind of info would be most helpful. Thanks MSG!
Jarrad S
11 months agoThanks for the great work, as always, Tony. Would love to see you guys review the new Kirkland Performance + 2.0 balls.
Richard
11 months agoAny thoughts on ball balance testing!! I use Check Go Pro on all my balls. I find that most of the line I scribe points in the direction on my strike. I don’t see why this isn’t an issue for golfers especially pro’s.
Frank
11 months agoSo I guess this means that the Chrome Soft X has a lower percentage of soft in it than it has chrome. When you cut into it, weren’t you expecting to see something that looked like some finely ground bits of a 1964 Ford Mustang bumper glimmering inside of a ball of cotton?
I know I was. . . so I am deeply disappointed in these testing results.
I think they should rebrand this particular ball as ‘Meaningless Metallurgy’ and try again with the ‘Chrome Soft’
Kjhishere909
11 months agoWe had no luck with the first 2020 chrome soft we tried. Check it out. https://youtu.be/SIj0uF0L1Vc
After all the issues we saw with their older balls… And then having the first 2020 ball we tried crack open… Just can’t give them another chance.
Mgs
11 months agoHey Tony, hope you can check some cheap 2 piece golf balls in the future. Thanks for all your work.
Ike
11 months agoI will never buy Callaway balls again. They knew they had problems with the ball and sold them anyway.
RT
11 months agoThey were bad balls awhile back had to shut down a plant , aren’t much better .now I swore off callaway products .never looked back
Edward Lazar
11 months agoDo you have any information on the present Kirkland Golf balls and the Kirkland Putter and wedges. Could you give me a link to look at what My Golf Spy has done on what I am interested in. Thanks a lot. Have enjoyed your evaluations the past 2 years.
Weston Maughan
11 months agoTony, great work!, can we also get a page dedicated to this topic, where there is a table listing the results of every ball lab review completed, so we can sort the results by the data you have gathered?
Dave
11 months agosee https://forum.mygolfspy.com/topic/40540-ball-lab-quick-reference/
Jeremy Ireland
11 months agoI concur, I had to search back through past ball lab results and it quickly became a tiring effort.
Steve
11 months agoSome DTC balls have been requested Tony, so how about adding OnCore to the bundle. Me thinks, it will be right up there with all of them, maybe even some premium balls.
Rick
11 months agoCheck out the Chicopee Plant video on the Callaway site. Yep – $50mil investment.. Good video about how the plant started as the Spaulding ball factory. Lots of people in Massachusetts making golf balls when you include Titleist.
Jeremy Ireland
11 months agoThe more I see these lab results, the less I’m becoming concerned about the balls.
Minor’ defects obviously happen. Are these ‘defects’ REALLY going to offset some part of my game sooo much as to be noticeable? Hell, drivers and FW woods aren’t even the EXACT degree of launch they’re stamped at, I DOUBT each metal head is exactly the same weight or roundness either. How many cracked SIM heads have we seen posted online now???
I changed once from Chrome Soft to Mizuno after Callaway’s major quality fall-out. Now Mizuno balls earn a bad review, but know what? I’ve played them (RBx Tour) for two years now without once suspecting a bad ball.
I’m starting to view these ball lab test as a thanks, but no thanks articles….
Kansas King
11 months agoI appreciate the tests and I understand your viewpoint. Golf is probably one of the few sports where equipment can have such a large and incredibly small difference on how it is played depending on the circumstances. Golf balls with minor defects are unlikely to ever be noticed by an average golfer that isn’t rocking a positive handicap, if even then. I think it’s easy to look at MGS test results and lose the forest to the trees when trying to compare products. I still think the most valuable information that MGS testing provides isn’t the nuances between clubs but the good and bad outliers. The original Chrome Soft testing that got MGS some attention is a prime example of how exposing a poor product is beneficial. Splitting hairs on new drivers that all launch balls within a couple MPH of each other isn’t going to really offer a tangible benefit to readers but identifying a driver that launches balls 5% slower across various swing speeds is noteworthy. The MGS test with the last five MGS winning drivers is a fine example of where they probably just could have called it a tie among the top four as they were so close.
I know this doesn’t pertain to golf balls but I think an interesting and revealing metric MGS could include on club testing is including how many testers performed best with each club in the test. If there were 20 testers it would be interesting to see how many had the best performance with the winner versus the club that got 2nd, 3rd, etc.
Tony Covey
11 months agoSeveral things I’d say. The first lies in the devil between what you will notice and what you will ultimately appreciate. If your ball is inconsistent, if you may not notice some loss in speed (whether it’s from one ball to the next or across different points on the ball) or a spin issue because of unevenness in mantle/casing layers, those ticks of MPH and RPMs or the extra bit of axis tilt from off-center cores add up, and ultimately will cost you strokes. We’re inherently inconsistent, and so it’s exceptionally difficult to know when our equipment is also inconsistent.
I love your driver and fairway wood analogy because it helps explain why this matters. If the loft of your 15° fairway wood was actually 16.5° when you bought it and is still 16.5°, you shouldn’t care, because it’s consistent. Nothing changes from shot to shot except the guys swinging it.
But let’s look at a couple of different ways.
Let’s assume a magical world where your golf ball is 100% consistent in every way, every time. But…every time you put a new one in play, something about your fairway wood changes. Maybe it went from 16.5 to 16. Maybe the EXACT same swing, same impact location, same everything results in a ball that’s a little bit slower (just because you swapped in a new ball). Or maybe the lie angle changed so the same impact condition results in a shot that’s 5…or even 25 yards more offline. What if the greenside spin properties of your wedges changed when you pulled a new ball out of the bag?
That’s what we’re talking about with the golf ball.
When the ball isn’t consistent, any number of variables can change. So in no small respect, an inconsistent ball – particularly if it’s really inconsistent – can be like having the loft and lie on your clubs randomly adjusted each time you put a new ball in play.
Minor defects you probably shouldn’t worry about, though if every ball has a minor defect I think it’s fair to say the manufacturer hasn’t met its objective.
In your case, you went from one bad ball to another and you never noticed. That’s not a knock on you at all. It’s the reality for most of us. When we don’t achieve the desired result with a golf shot, we’ll blame ourselves. That’s warranted a good bit of the time, and because of that, most golfers will never think to blame the ball. But we now know that sometimes the ball is to blame.
Having measured and cut a good number of balls and knowing what I know, my bottom line is that I NEVER want to worry that a bad result was because of the ball.
While most of the results are similar (that’s more or less the definition of average) some of the models we’ve tested simply don’t provide that measure of confidence.
Jeremy Ireland
11 months agoTony, I hear ya. But suddenly I feel like I’m searching for some mythical unicorn of a golf ball with zero imperfections. :- \
Justin
11 months agoSo Tony is there one ball above them all that you would play over every other ball based on these lab results??
John
11 months agoIf you’re going to play a $ 30, $ 40, or $ 50 ball, then why not play the one that has the least defects and will give you the best results ?
There may not be a utopia ball out there, but there are certainly those that are better than others.
In addition, by exposing those that have poor QC will incentivize them to do a better job or lose sales.
Mark
11 months agoOver the last 4 years we have sent in at least 40 sets of Taylormade irons from faces caving in because of those speed slots on the face. You know there is an issue when some guys have sent in M2, then they replaced with M4, then finally they sent them a remake M2 without the slots. Things happen in manufacturing. I have played chrome soft since the first year, 6 handicap, never once hit one and went, wow what the heck happened there. Doesn’t mean there werent defects, just means someone in my skill level never once thought about my ball being bad. I bounce between the std. the X and a few other golf balls.
Zooter9
11 months agoTony: Suggested next reviews:
Tour Response
Vice Pro
MTB Black
Tour Speed
Thanks!
Tony Covey
11 months agoAll in the pipeline. Was finally able to order the last of what we need for Vice Pro yesterday.
Zooter9
11 months agoTony: Thanks!! Really looking forward to that review.
Marq
11 months agoAt the courses we oversee, we find thousands of lost balls. Chrome soft is still in second place to pro v1’s by a wide margin (considering premium balls only). So this sales are definitely not hurting. One thing we did notice in the early Chrome soft versions, balls that were lost & sat around outside for a while, the covers tended to turn a yellow shade. That wasn’t as noticeable with any other premium balls. But that doesn’t seem to be the case with the newer versions, so maybe the process is improving. The chrome soft x is still fairly new so we haven’t come across many of those yet.
Why make a big deal over the word “soft” in the name? Most balls being released today have one or more of the following adjectives: speed, fast, soft, tour, or some combination of them.
Appreciate the review, but the best thing for everyone is to try the balls yourself and then determine what works best for you in every aspect of the game.
John
11 months agoAfter reviewing these lab reports for all the balls tested thus far, I’ve come down to three balls in the mid-compression category that are worth playing.
Maxfli Tour
Bridgestone Tour B RX
Srixon Z-Star
Really like the feel of the Chrome Soft but until they can prove that they are making a quality ball for the prices they charge it’s not going in my bag.
bob
11 months agoSounds like Callaway is coming around gradually. Drop the price on the Chrome Soft X to around $24 until you get your act fully together and can ask for that premium price. Until they prove they have upgraded to meet the standards and performance of the other balls at that price point I can’t see why a golfer would spend money on their balls.
Luigi
11 months agoSounds like you had absolutely no clue that CS had layering issues prior to someone cutting them open and giving their 2 cents on if a ball is worth buying or not. This ball is good enough to be played by pros including Rahm, Mickelson, and Xander.
Now there are 2 problems plain and simple.
1. The weight in which these tests carry to people and players that have absolutely zero say in how good a ball performs because they aren’t good players. I know I suck and will happily buy a prior gen CS / CSX and I know that if a ball goes the wrong way, it won’t be because of the core, mantle etc. You should learn that.
2. The second issue is we are paying for quality. We deserve perfection but, that perfection is rarely ever met with any product.
These tests are bogus. If you suck, then you suck. An off-center core on a ball will not be the judge of that.
Mackie
11 months agoBut dont you want to suck less? Golf is too expensive of a game to suck deliberately at. At least attempt to erase faulty equipment from your bag. I’d rather score a 79 vs. an 83, and know that my ball was a small piece of me getting there and not blame it on anything outside of equipment. Might want to go back and see why Titleist got started. Since there is such a thing as inaccurate guns, and having a good one could be the difference between life and death. As with all human production there are errors made. Then surely a good golf ball can mean the difference between burning the edge and lip out vs. a true roll dead center of the cup.
Christopher
11 months agoIf you have access to a perfectly flat putting area place some Blu Tack on the side of the ball and see how it affects a good stroke. Perhaps the inconsistencies at their smallest are unnoticeable during regular play with regular folk, but I remember major winner Tony Jacklin complaining about his new sponsor’s ball and was told in a round about way, “We know it’s terrible we just wanted the publicity!”
Yes some might not ever know if it’s them or the ball (and it’s probably them in most cases), but more consumer knowledge is a good thing.
MIGregB
11 months agoWait… didn’t Callaway initially try to claim that MGS’s testing procedure was faulty, or at least biased? I seem to recall that they were trying very hard to discredit MGS’s golf ball report. They eventually came around, but it was anything but up-front! Am I remembering incorrectly?
David
11 months agoA $50M investment? I don’t think so….
Mark Reynolds
11 months agoTony-
Where does MyGolfSpy purchase its test golf balls? I’m curious to know if you get them factory direct or from a major golf retailer.
I may wait a while for Callaway retailers to flush out the previous inferior balls before shopping for the next generation of improved Chrome Soft..
Thanks for the terrific info.
Mark R
Duxbury, MA
MIGregB
11 months agoClick the link in the very 1st paragraph:: “check out our About MyGolfSpy Ball Lab page”. The link won’t copy here, but it’s easy t find.
Tony Covey
11 months agoHey Mark,
Whenever possible, we spread our orders out across retailers and time periods. The idea is to try and see how consistent the balls are across multiple batches. Spreading orders out across a couple of months and 2-3 retailers helps us do that. Nothing measured for ball lab is provided by the manufacturers.
Risky Plan
11 months agoIn one of the pics, there are 2 boxes of balls, one labelled “Golfdom” and another labelled “GG,” which may mean Golf Galaxy.
Paul
11 months agoThank you Tony, the original article about the Chrome Soft was definitely an eye opener for not just myself but a lot of people, I imagine. It definitely made me think differently about what I hit and what’s inside (up until that point, I may have been “too loyal” to certain brands. While Callaway has improved the quality and consistency of the manufacturing process, they still have a few more QC work to do based on the new findings.