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 Srixon Q-Star Tour. 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.
Typically, we try to be as dispassionate as possible when presenting our Ball Lab findings. The numbers are the numbers and, more often than not, they speak plenty for themselves.
With respect to the Srixon Q-Star Tour, keeping a straight face presents a challenge. I know a lot of you play this ball. I know a lot of you love this ball. Not for anything, I made my lone albatross with the prior generation of the Q-Star Tour so I’m not without my own affinity for it.
Given perceptions and Srixon’s reputation for quality, I had high expectations for the Q-Star Tour.
When the initial round of measurements was completed, I looked at the numbers and, frankly, I was shocked – and not in a good way.
And so I measured them again … the entire sample. The results were the same but when the new tooling for our diameter gauge arrived, I went ahead and measured every ball a third time.
Having gone through every step of the Ball Lab process three times, it’s reasonable to say that the Srixon Q-Star Tour is the most measured ball to date in Ball Lab. That doesn’t make the results any less disappointing.
About the Srixon Q-Star Tour
Srixon describes the Q-Star Tour as a mid-high launch, low-spin ball. That’s reasonably typical for the value-priced urethane category where one of the selling points is often straighter drives and greater forgiveness from reduced driver spin. It’s also true that low spin is, to a degree, a consequence of lower compression.
The Q-Star Tour is manufactured by Srixon at its factory in Indonesia and is sold around the globe (though model names vary by region). The stated price for the Srixon Q-Star Tour is $32.99, though Srixon will occasionally run discount promotions.
Srixon Q-Star Tour – Compression
On our gauge, the average compression of the Srixon Q-Star Tour is 72. Similar compression balls in the urethane space include the Bridgestone Tour B RXS, TaylorMade Tour Response and Callaway Chrome Soft.
Srixon Q-Star Tour – Weight and Diameter
- 36 percent of the balls in the sample did not meet our standard for roundness.
- None of the balls tested exceeded the USGA weight limit of 1.620 ounces.
The Srixon Q-Star Tour is on the large size for balls in the urethane/just-below-Tour-level space. The larger concern is the significant number of balls that failed to meet our roundness standard. Golf balls are supposed to round. When they’re not, that can cause wayward flight and balls that roll offline on the putting green.
Srixon Q-Star Tour – Inspection
Centeredness and Concentricity
Rating Srixon’s urethane balls is a bit of a challenge. The mantle is often indistinguishable from Srixon’s super-thin covers. That makes cover thickness more difficult to spot but also makes centeredness and concentricity issues a bit easier to identify.
During the visual inspection, we flagged 25 percent of our sample as bad. In every case, the issue was pronounced inconsistency in the thickness of the mantle layer. In most cases where layers are not concentric, the thin and thick portions are often 180 degrees apart. In the case of the Q-Star Tour, often the thin and thick areas are only 90 degrees which, when looking down at the ball, appears as thick areas on the top and bottom and thin areas on the left and right – almost as if the ball is being pinched.
Minor defects that are unlikely to cause performance issues were noted in just over 50 percent of the sample.
Core color consistency was generally excellent. There are bits of visible regrind material which is often used as filler. It’s part of the design spec for many balls and is not typically cause for concern.
Cover
Q-Star Tour covers are generally clean and free from defect.
General Observations
Srixon Q-Star Tour covers are exceptionally thin and would likely prove to be the thinnest in the category.
Consistency
In this section, we detail the consistency of the Srixon Q-Star Tour. 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 the Srixon Q-Star Tour is good (above average).
- Weight variation between the heaviest and lightest ball in the sample was minimal.
Diameter Consistency
- Diameter consistency relative to the other balls in our database is average.
- While not every ball in the sample was round, average diameter from one ball to the next is reasonably consistent.
Compression Consistency
We’ve put an asterisk on our chart because the compression consistency of the Q-Star Tour requires further explanation. If we compare only the average compression of the balls in our Srixon Q-Star Tour sample, the Srixon Q-Star Tour is among the very best we’ve tested to date.
That said, one thing we say quite often in our club tests is that there are a lot of ways to average 250 (yards). Along the same lines, there are a lot of ways to average 72 compression points across a sample.
The best balls we test typically have exceedingly narrow compression across what I refer to as the In-ball Compression Range (IBCR for short). The IBCR represents the range of values across the three points we measure on each golf ball.
For example, the three points (two on the seam and one on the pole) for a single high-quality, 90-compression ball might measure 89, 90 and 91 compression.
By comparison, the three-point compression variation of the Q-Star Tour is often significantly higher. For example, on a single ball we measured 72, 67.5 and 75. That’s a 7.5 compression point range on a single golf ball. We found a 7.5-point delta across multiple balls. The worst ball in the sample had a 9.5 compression point delta across the three points measured.
To put all of this in context, with respect to IBCR, the average across all of the balls in our database is right around two compression points. The best ball we’ve measured so far has an average IBCR of only 1.07 compression points, while the worst (the Q-Star Tour) has an average IBCR range of 5.10 compression points.
Similarly, when we look at the median standard deviation of the IBCR, the bests balls we’ve measured come in at .44 compression points. The average for the same metric is .87. For the Q-Star Tour, it’s 2.3. Significantly worse than the next ball down the list.
What we end up with is a ball that’s above average for average ball compression, but is significantly worse than anything else we’ve measured as far as mainining consistent compression across the whole of an individual golf ball.
My intent isn’t to pile it on, so to speak, but I felt the detailed explanation was necessary for you to understand why we flagged 42 percent of the Srixon Q-Star Tour balls we tested as bad based on the IBCR.
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.
Srixon Q-Star Tour – 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
Weight consistency for the Srixon Q-Star Tour is good (above average).
The Bad
With 58 percent of the balls in the sample being flagged for compression issues, lack of roundness or layering inconsistencies, there’s an abundance of evidence to suggest the quality of the Srixon Q-Star Tours we bought is not up to par – and I’d wager not up to Srixon’s standard.
True Price
The True Price of Srixon Q-Star Tour is $79.18. That represents an increase of 140 percent above MSRP.
Ball Lab Top Performers
Want to know which balls have performed best in Ball Lab testing so far?
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Golf2Much
3 years ago
Based on your Q Star assessment, I contacted Srixon asking for their response to your findings. Their response was they took the report seriously, they did isolate the batch of balls that you had tested and did not find any irregularities in other batches. With respect to various manufacturing locations, they responded they make balls all over Asia using the same tooling and quality control standards. They continued to say they manufacture hundreds of thousands of balls a year and there’s “always room for issues to happen.”
All that being said, I understand that your testing is basically destructive in nature. Has anyone correlated the impact of out of round, various layer thicknesses and weight variability to actual performance for the average golfer? I understand that in a perfect world we would like zero variability in our golf balls. However, even as a 12 handicap I know I don’t have zero variability in my swing. How much ball characteristic variability yield performance variability to the average golfer? Thanks!
2PuttBirdie
3 years ago
Well thought out response. Excellent question.