Can you get properly fitted for a golf ball while sitting in a chair?
The prevalence of online ball fitting tools would suggest that you can but I’ve never been convinced. Perhaps that’s why, when I was tasked with comparing brand-specific online ball fitting tools, my initial reaction was, “They all suck.”
As the resident golf ball guy around here, I had kicked the tires on just about all of them over the past few years and haven’t been particularly impressed with what I found.
That’s understandable, given that golf ball fitting is complex and nuanced. That’s why we wrote a fitting guide last year.
With that, I find that many of the tools are too simply designed. In most cases, they’re intended (or at least they appear to be) for golfers with little product knowledge and almost no idea where to start.
At the risk of over-hyping it, I’d suggest you start with our ball fitting guide.
All of the tools we tested are designed with an element of consider your audience (and that’s fine), but if you have any understanding of golf ball performance and how it relates to your game, you’ll likely find most to be incomplete, at best.
Still, out of fairness (and because “they all suck” isn’t much of a guide), I decided to reevaluate to see which online golf ball fitting tools stand out and which are lacking (even for a basic tool).
For now, we’re leaving PING’s paid Ballnamic tool out of the discussion and focusing instead on the free offerings provided by the ball manufacturers themselves.
Here’s what I found.
Bridgestone
Pros
👍 Includes the option to input launch monitor data
👍 Gives you the option to prioritize distance or spin
👍 No overtly pointless mandatory questions
Cons
👎 Keys almost entirely off driver swing speed
👎 Not nearly as robust as it initially appears
👎 Algorithm ignores performance if you’re playing an inexpensive ball
Recommended Ball: TOUR B X
Is it the right ball: Yes.
While I’m not fully aligned with how it got there, ultimately the Bridgestone tool recommended the right ball more me. The caveat here is that the result would have been entirely different if I said I was currently playing an inexpensive ball, even though my other answers didn’t change.
Our Take
True to the Bridgestone philosophy, its online ball fitting tool keys off of swing speed and that makes the results more predictable than a true ball fitting ought to be.
The exception is that if you tell the tool that you play an inexpensive ball (I lied and said I play a Volvik Crystal), it’s going to recommend the e6 Control – even if your swing speed is 120+ with a driver distance of 330 yards (I tried it, and that’s what it spat back).
If you play a more premium offering and your swing speed is over 105, it’s a TOUR B X. If you select distance as your performance preference and an XS if you select spin. At swing speeds below 105 the answers change to RX and RXS respectively.
If you have zero familiarity with the Bridgestone lineup, it’s not bad, but if you’ve seen a Bridgestone golf commercial, you probably don’t need the fitting tool.
Callaway
Pros
👍 Robust fitting criteria
👍 Results based on more than just swing speed
Cons
👎 Not only asks your gender but it also uses it
👎 Recommends Chrome Soft more than it should
Recommended Ball: Chrome Soft
Is it the right ball: Hell, no.
I’ve played Chrome Soft, I know it’s the wrong ball for me, and the Callaway guys I know would likely say the same.
Our Take
Broadly, the Callaway ball fitting tool recommends Chrome Soft a bit more often than I think it should. It uses gender in the fitting equation which, frankly, is silly. For most of the inputs I tried, the answers are the same (as they should be) but why should the inputs that land on Supersoft for a male golfer get us to ERC Soft REVA for a female golfer?
They shouldn’t.
Likewise, it strikes me as bizarre that Callaway recommends Chrome Soft for an 85-shooter while recommending Chrome Tour for a 75-shooter with otherwise identical performance inputs. Those balls have wildly different performance characteristics so it seems odd that changing the average score changes the recommendation.
Srixon
Pros
👍 Includes detailed ball comparison chart
👍 Allows for some differentiation between driver and iron performance
👍 A second-tier question yields a better recommendation
Cons
👎 Pigeonholes golfers accordingly to swing speed
👎 Not as robust as some
Recommended Ball: Z-Star Diamond
Is it the right ball: Probably.
I haven’t played Srixon balls as often as I have others on this list but based on what we learned in testing, Z-Star Diamond is likely correct and certainly where I’d start.
Our Take
Like the Bridgestone effort, Srixon’s ball fitting leans heavily (perhaps too heavily) on swing speed as the main fitting criterion.
Slow players choose between spin and distance before moving on to feel preferences. Ultimately, you’re not escaping the Q-Star family (unless it’s for Soft Feel). Taking Z-Star off the table here seems like a whiff, given that slower players often benefit from higher spin.
Moderate players may land on Z-Star but most will still end up within the Q-Star family.
Only for higher swing speed players does the Z-Star family become the sole choice.
All of that said, we love that Srixon added a second question (Max Distance or Good Distance with Added Long Game Spin?). It’s a simple thing that produces a much more reliable result.
TaylorMade
Pros
👍 The simplest ball fitting tool we tried
Cons
👎 Lacks a second-tier of meaningful questions to dial in results
👎 Overemphasizes golf ball cosmetics
Recommended Ball: TP5x
Is it the right ball: Yes, but …
Without some understanding of the lineup, the simplicity of the questions makes it just as simple to find the wrong ball.
Our Take
For better or worse, TaylorMade’s online fitting algorithms are simple.
Choosing Everyday Performance is going to get you Distance+ or SpeedSoft depending on whether you emphasize distance or soft feel.
If you want Tour Performance with soft feel, it’s Tour Response. With Short Game Control, it’s TP5, and if you want to be a half club longer, it’s TP5x. As with Bridgestone, if you’re already even a little familiar with the lineup, you probably don’t need the tool.
The rest is just about color, patterns and personalization. Frankly, there’s not a lot of meat on this particular bone.
Titleist
Pros
👍 The most robust online ball fitting tool
👍 Explains why you’re matched to a given ball
👍 Includes an option for virtual consultation
👍 Shows a comparison between your top two balls
Cons
👎 Might ask more questions that some want to answer
👎 Recommending balls based on anything other than performance feels a bit un-Titleist
Recommended Ball: Pro V1x Left Dash
Is it the right ball: It’s complicated.
I was fitted for Left Dash several years ago (before it was available at retail) and I’ve grown to love it. My answers certainly lean Left Dash, while my ball flight data may say different – I was fitted for Pro V1 during a recent in-person fitting.
Our Take
Unlike in-person fitting Titleist’s ball recommendation tool has every model in its fitting matrix. You absolutely can get fitted for Velocity (though I hope you don’t).
While the Titleist tool asks more questions than any other, there doesn’t appear to be much, if any, filler among them. The tool also explains why most questions matter, which can help you understand what it really wants to know.
Changing the answer to nearly any legitimate fitting question can change the recommendation which, if nothing else, suggests there’s a legitimate reason behind each one.
Simply, it’s the most complete of the online fitting tools.
Vice Golf
Pros
👍 Impressive offering from a DTC brand
👍 Allows performance needs to be ranked rather than focusing on a single characteristic
Cons
👎 Gender and experience questions have no real relation to performance
👎 Algorithm may skew a bit towards Pro Air
Recommended Ball: Vice Pro Air
Is it the right ball: Probably not.
Full disclosure: the Air is a new ball and I have no direct experience with it but it replaces Pro Soft, which definitely wasn’t right for me
Our Take
My sense is that Vice’s algorithms skew dispersion (low spin) too heavily towards the Pro Air, leading to a gap between what you really need and what it’s going to recommend.
That said, for a DTC brand (or any brand, for that matter), the Vice offering is surprisingly good, even if I’m not entirely confident it gave me the best recommendation. My suspicion is that the weighting of answers within the algorithm isn’t exactly what it should be but it’s not wildly off, either.
The Vice offering isn’t perfect but as online ball fitting tools go, it’s better than most.
Testing Methodology
To test each of the tools, I answered all questions honestly or at least honestly to the best of my understanding and capability. Each one is a bit different and in some cases what the tool really wants to know is open to interpretation.
For example, when asked how far I hit my driver, I told the truth. When asked for my shot shape, I wasn’t sure what to answer since “all of the above” isn’t an option. In those cases, I defaulted to the middle or average answer. In the case of ball flight, that meant selecting straight.
While there are likely more fitting tools than we covered in this post, I looked mostly at the market leaders and didn’t bother with anything that required my name and email address just to get rolling. I’m looking for a golf ball recommendation; I’m not trying to join your mailing list.
That left us with fitting tools with six of the biggest brands: Bridgestone, Callaway, Srixon, TaylorMade, Titleist and Vice.
Once I got the initial recommendation, I stepped through each tool several more times utilizing a variety of inputs to try and get a better sense of how things work under the hood and how reliable the underlying algorithms are.
Five Things to Consider
You may not be speaking the same language: We think we know what words mean but sometimes the actual performance attributes that matter get lost in the translation that comes from the need to simplify the language. My point is that the answer you’re giving may not actually be to the question the tool is asking.
As an example, I discovered that performance attributes like “Straight” or “Tight Dispersion” are sometimes code for “low spin.” That’s problematic given that while most of us likely want to hit the ball straighter with tighter dispersion, few of us are looking for lower spin through the bag.
We may not know what we need: Many of the fitting tools ask about trajectory. That makes sense since ball flight is an integral part of ball fitting. The problem is that we may think we hit the ball high but don’t. We may think we want more spin but we don’t need it. Without data, the algorithms have no choice but to assume the golfer knows what he needs. That’s problematic and, to an extent, antithetical to the whole notion of fitting.
The inputs are often non-specific: Do you want more spin? In ball fitting, that’s not a yes or no question. What if I need to cut spin on my driver and increase it on my wedges (as many of us would like). Few if any of the tools we tried draw distinctions between drivers and irons or irons and wedges. Golf is a multi-faceted game. Ball fitting should reflect that.
Some questions are unnecessary: Admittedly, this is more of a gripe than an actual challenge but several of the tools ask about gender while others ask about handicap or average score.
The former is completely pointless (at least it should be) while the latter isn’t likely to provide enough meaningful performance insights to be relevant. Ball fitting ultimately boils down to flight, spin and, to a lesser extent, feel. Handicap or average scores can be measurements of ability but they provide no meaningful value when it comes to determining what performance characteristics you need from your golf ball.
One last piece of advice: For any online fitting tool, I’d recommend stepping through it several times to understand the “triggers” that most influence the results. If you can understand what’s happening under the hood, there’s a better chance you’ll be able to wrap your head around what the app really wants to know or, at a minimum, how your answers are impacting the fitting recommendation.
Final Thoughts
As the resident ball guy around here, it’s clear to me that the online ball fitting tools need work. The common thread is that they’re all right if you have little to no knowledge about a ball manufacturer’s lineup. And that’s fine. It’s OK not to know something.
With that said, simplicity often comes at the expense of reliability.
Absolutely, some of these tools are better than others but the big takeaway in all of this is that if you’re serious about ball fitting, OEM online tools are, at best, a starting point.
Most are better than nothing but none match the reliability of an in-person fitting.
Schuyler Carroll
7 days ago
I’ve played Left Dash since it came out.
Are there any options from DTC or other brands that have similar characteristics?