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Polara 2012 Golf Ball Forum Reviews

SuperStroke
Well I got out to the course again today and decided to go with the XDS for the round. I have begun to like this ball over the XD, I really don't see a huge difference in spin but the feel off the club is markedly better. With the driver these balls never seem to disappoint, even with a marginal swing you are in the fairway. You have to really watch your alignment on the tee box because where the arrow is lined up that is where it is going to end up. My driving has felt very good this year and I'm sure the Polara balls are the main reason behind this. I did hit a few drives with a Taylormade ball just to see the difference and I hit them on line as well but I got more distance from the TM ball.
For the iron game, I did not align the arrow and didn't see much self correcting on the worst of the shots. The Polara ball seems to hold it's flight very nicely, the feel is much better with the XDS compared to the XD. Neither have the feel of say a NXT or better ball. I feel that the XDS is a tad shorter than my normal Burner TP gamer.
I missed a fair share of greens today so I got ample opportunities to chip and pitch around the greens. The feel off the club isn't bad but the run out is tough to get used to. I am not a huge spin player but this ball seems to roll out even more than I am used to. I have come to accept this and now play for it I just wish I could explain the "extra" roll.
Now that the greens are mown I have gotten a chance to get a better read on putting performance. The Polara balls roll very true and have the handy arrow to start your putts online. I haven't noticed much difference between either ball when putting, they feel very similar of the putterface.
It was another successful round in that I used only one ball for the entire round. The XDS does nick up a little quicker then the XD but they both have proven to be very durable. Until the next round.
 
Played 18 yesterday at River Creek CC. Front 9 I started with the XDS and ended up with 2 balls in ponds. One hole was a Par 5 that you can play from 200 - 250ish to carry the water with the tee ball. I went for about the middle of the pond which is a 230 carry, ball dive bombed into the water. Second was a par 3 that had 140 to carry, hit a 7 iron which was plenty of club and what I thought was a well struck shot but landed right at the rock wall in the water. While playing the XDS on well struck shots would bounce and have a little roll, a few holes it was a bounce and stop. Chips would definatly roll, one bunker shot I had was a great shot that landed and had some serious roll. It landed soft but had some serious forward roll. Putting feel was still so so, I do like the big arrow for lining it up but the feel is just not there for me.

Back 9 I played the XD, one par 4 I bombed a drive which probably had 50 yards of roll. These ball definatly have some serious forward spin. Most other drives the ball just roll out if in the fairway but I pushed a lot of drives right into the rough. Iron shots felt hard, different feel than my previous testing with the XD. It was a bit chilly so that may of has something to do with it. Chips would check and roll, no real stopping them around the hole. Putting was again a hard feel but the ball rolled what I thought was true.

So I am out of the XDS and have one XD left, well struck drives just dive. I can only guess that instead of trying to correct side spin it just dives? For my game if I had to choose I would pick the XD, doesnt dive as much and does not seem to try and correct itself as much as the XDS. Again if you have trouble off the tee I would recommend these balls. I did not line anything up but tee shots, there were a few iron shots that would start drawing and than straiten back up. No working these balls. Overall they will give a slicer some confidence back and thats a good thing.
 
Finally got back out on the course Saturday but the conditions were not good. The fairways were crap and the greens were hard as rock. No ball would bite and everything was running fast. I went with the XD and shot it alongside a gamer v2. I was having a reallyyyy bad day of slicing the ball after weeks of hitting it straight finally so it was interesting to put these out there. On hole #4 you basically hit right along a pretty busy road. Of course said road runs along the left side of the fairway and i'm left handed, which means if i slice, i'm taking on some traffic. This was perfect for the Polara as when i went to tee it up i just felt some confidence with it, knowing that hey, at least if i mess up the ball should stay out of traffic, and it did. It did not stay out of traffic by much though, maybe 4 yards, and was still about 30 yards off. I found a few times where i could still manage to put a real big slice on this ball leading me to wonder how bad a normal ball would have been. The course i was playing layered holes so i wouldn't lose the drives, just played them out of the other fairways and open woods. I did lose 1 ball into the drink.

I played the ball with my irons both aligning it and not, didn't see much difference with them (my iron game needs work as it is but i don't slice the ball). I did notice a difference when shooting my 3w though. When i would align and hit it the ball it went dead straight. I usually slice it pretty bad with my 3w from the fairway.

Putting i would say was even with the gamer. I both aligned and played it as it laid and didn't notice any difference. The greens were running fast and i was hot and cold putting.

The confidence game with these balls kept going back and forth with me. I felt better tee-ing off and from the fairway knowing the ball would help me be straight, but i couldn't get past the feeling that i was "cheating". We briefly had another person join our twosome and he even asked if it was one of "them cheater balls". I explained all about them and he just said "huh. well if you have to line up a ball and point it where to go then it's cheating" and kept on playing.
 
Got to the range yesterday and focused again on the short. Game. These balls absolutely do what is advertised off the tee. My biggest issue has been with the short game. I went and practiced chipping and putting for 2 hours yesterday. My big issue was with roll-out and it continued yesterday.

I spent the first hour with just the XD ball and chipping from a range of 50 yards to 10 feet. From 50 yards out with a 1/4 swing of a 56 degree wedge, I couldnt get the ball to stop. I can distinctly remember 5 shots out of what must have been 25 shots stopping on the green. Another 12-15 hit the green and rolled right off. The remaining were just bad shots by me. (shocking). The rest of the hour was spent on chipping or in this case, flopping because with a regular bump and run or a normal chip I couldnt get the ball within 10 feet of the hole. They just kept rolling and rolling and rolling. I tried using a PW, AW, and 56 degree and had similar results with all. I then started flopping them and it certainly helped to get the higher trajectory but still there was some roll-out (more than I am used to seeing with the Q-star or e6).

The next hour was spent with the XDS ball and I had similar results, but a little better. I was a little more successful with the XDS ball with stopping them on the green from 50yards out. I was able to stop at least 10 balls out of 25 on the green. The rest were either bad shots or rolled off the greens. I will say this, the ones that rolled off rolled off slower and not as far. With the chipping from closer in, I had a little more luck with them but alot more luck with flopping them. Noticed only a little bit of roll-out with my flop shots with a 56 degree. I guess this is how you need to play this ball around the greens.

I am going to get at least 1 round in this week maybe 2 depending on the weather. I will put more work in to these. One thing I would like to note, is that both balls are very durable. I still have 2 of each ball in good working order. Only a few minor scratches but nothing that will effect them from a performance standpoint. I have hit these alot and I am very impressed with this portion of the testing.
 
I played the 1 Polara XD I had in my bag this past Saturday for 2 holes after I already lost my match and had very similar results as the week before. The ball felt harsh off the driver, did correct a pretty bad miss, and ended up just left of the fairway. It was definitely shorter on the drive than my normal NXT, but my NXT would've been in the trees further long and left. I did hit 1/2 greens with the XD and even made the putt for 'birdie'. The green I did miss the ball bounced over it hard so I clubbed down on the last hole and ended up in a great spot.

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Polara XD & XDS Short Game Thoughts


I hit the short game area at the course and was there primarily to work on my 100 and in shots, but spent a good bit of time playing with the XD & XDS to gather some thoughts. I started out about 30 yards out from the green, and dropped down a couple of each ball, and grabbed my 56* wedge. I was aiming at the middle pin, with my ideal shot to be landing the front edge of the green (15ish feet from the pin) and stopping near the hole.

My first shots were with the XDS, a couple shots stood out to me; I landed my shot a little closer to the pin than I had wanted to (about 5 feet in front of it), it hopped then rolled about 10 feet past the pin. I thought I had hit this one perfect, but the ball all I got was hop and no stop. The other was dead on where I was aiming, front of the green took a hop forward and died just short of the hole. Both shots had similar rollout, so from that I took that in order for these balls to work for me, I have to expect a good bit of roll. I am not by any means a high-spin player with a wedge, but I usually dont see the amount of what seemed like top spin on the ball with a wedge shot like this. The ball felt fine coming off the wedge, but I still think that for me, that overall it just has a better feel when hitting a "lazy" or "easy" shot.

After the XDS, I started hitting shots with the XD. To be perfectly honest, I did not have any shots that really blew me away. The only shot that I had good results on was one that I hit just short of the green in the thicker grass, the XD died in the first cut and just trickled down on to the green. I had the feeling that no matter where I hit the ball, it was going to roll off the back edge of the green. Felt very hot off the face and an overall clicky-type feel. Like I said about the XDS previously, it seems like these two balls were somehow just determined to leap forward and roll out.

In my opportunities to put these in play, one thing I have learned about these balls is that I will definitely have to pick a spot on the green and let the ball roll to where I need it to go. If only that pinpoint accuracy was a strong part of my game, right? I feel that in order for me to get these balls to stop, rather than roll out, is for me to have a much higher trajectory on my wedge shots, almost having to hit flop type shots just to be able to keep them in the area where I am aiming. I will be playing a couple rounds this week, and next up is getting my thoughts on the XD when played from Tee to Green.
 
Well I played 9 with these balls yesterday and had an average round. I hit the ball well, but this thing hurt me around the greens. I've been playing a HEX Black a ton recently for the season, so I'm used to much more spin than I saw with these. So I'll just say that as a sort of disclaimer to start off.

Like I said, I struck the ball well for the whole round, so these did not feel too badly for me off the face of my irons. On a well struck shot, for me, ot is nearly impossible to have a harsh feeling off the face. These seem to rocket off the face of my irons. I love the distance off the irons I get with these. When struck badly (which, come on, I don't ever do), these feel harsh, but any ball will feel that way for me. I'm still seeing about +5-15 yards for these balls over the HEX Black, with the XD being a bit further than the XDS. Not much spin off the irons into greens as usual. The XDS would release a few feet on average and the XD released a lot, several yards, and sometimes over the green. That performance hurts these balls, but at least the XDS is okay for me. I can work with it. The XD is tough to do.

Off the woods, these balls feels a bit dead to me. Not very hot off the face, and they feel very similar to each other. They give a high, arcing trajectory other than the self-correcting thing which works very well as has been said before. I can't work the ball with these at all or the self-correcting messes with it a bunch. I believe that has been mentioned before.

The short game performance of these just flat out sucks for me. I really dislike it because, especially the XD, releases a ton on any pitch. For the most part I like to play low spinning short game shots, and these just come out as low bullets. The XDS spins a bit so it will have a slight check on the first bounce, but after that it just releases. The XD just straight releases. I have to play more lofted shots to get them to stop. High trajectory is the best/only way I have found to do it, and I don't like that.

I could easily see these balls being amazing for some people who need the distance and straightness of these, but for not being able to work them and not having the short game performance I like, it doesn't work for me.
 
Reading the great reviews, would these points seem a fair summation?
1- amazingly straight when lined up at your target
2- hard bouncing and long rolling around/on the greens

Question: around the green when people mention lack of spin, are you lining up its centre aim line perpendicular to you target or just hitting it as it lies? Sorry if this was said earlier, I only read about 5 pages of the reviews.
 
oiler3535 said:
Reading the great reviews, would these points seem a fair summation?
1- amazingly straight when lined up at your target
2- hard bouncing and long rolling around/on the greens

Question: around the green when people mention lack of spin, are you lining up its centre aim line perpendicular to you target or just hitting it as it lies? Sorry if this was said earlier, I only read about 5 pages of the reviews.
Click to expand...

In an effort to abide by the rules of golf, I do not touch the ball once it is off the tee. Asking Polara the same question, they said off the tee if you use the aiming arrow you will see the correcting results, but otherwise it should play just like a regular ball from the fairway in. As for your summation, it is hard to say. I personally agree with your 2 statements but weirdly enough, some of the testers have had great luck with these around the greens and with their wedges.
 
oiler3535 said:
Reading the great reviews, would these points seem a fair summation?
1- amazingly straight when lined up at your target
2- hard bouncing and long rolling around/on the greens

Question: around the green when people mention lack of spin, are you lining up its centre aim line perpendicular to you target or just hitting it as it lies? Sorry if this was said earlier, I only read about 5 pages of the reviews.
Click to expand...

For me, these are both accurate. I 've been lining up the ball on all shots, not just the tee ball.
 
So I got out on Sunday and decided to play the XD for the first 9. My last round I almost exclusively played the XDS and loved it. The XD on the other hand wasn't that likeable.

Driver/FW: Off the tee the ball felt like a rock coming off the face. It didn't feel as springy as the XDS. I also noticed really high ball flight which caused me to lose almost 20+ yards on some tee shots. I noticed a little distance loss with the XDS ball but even more so with the XD.

Hybrid/Long Irons: Just like the XDS the XD performed superbly with my hybrid and long irons. My hybrids produced a low-mid ball flight and my longer irons got the ball up in the air a little bit higher but no major ballooning shots like with the woods. this ball provided great accuracy with my approach shots of 200+.

Wedges: All-in-all I had my worst nine hole score in a long time and the wedges were where I was realy struggling. It was suprising becase my wedge game is my bread and butter. I had no touch with my wedges and I have a small feeling that the XD had a small part in that. I had no touch around the greens, I hit what I thought were some really good lob wedge shots that seemed like they never checked up and rolled forever.

Putter: This was the same as the XDS, the ball felt very firm, but rolled very true. I had a couple of really solid downhill/uphill puts with this ball.
 
Mardin said:
So I got out on Sunday and decided to play the XD for the first 9. My last round I almost exclusively played the XDS and loved it. The XD on the other hand wasn't that likeable.

Driver/FW: Off the tee the ball felt like a rock coming off the face. It didn't feel as springy as the XDS. I also noticed really high ball flight which caused me to lose almost 20+ yards on some tee shots. I noticed a little distance loss with the XDS ball but even more so with the XD.

Hybrid/Long Irons: Just like the XDS the XD performed superbly with my hybrid and long irons. My hybrids produced a low-mid ball flight and my longer irons got the ball up in the air a little bit higher but no major ballooning shots like with the woods. this ball provided great accuracy with my approach shots of 200+.

Wedges: All-in-all I had my worst nine hole score in a long time and the wedges were where I was realy struggling. It was suprising becase my wedge game is my bread and butter. I had no touch with my wedges and I have a small feeling that the XD had a small part in that. I had no touch around the greens, I hit what I thought were some really good lob wedge shots that seemed like they never checked up and rolled forever.

Putter: This was the same as the XDS, the ball felt very firm, but rolled very true. I had a couple of really solid downhill/uphill puts with this ball.
Click to expand...


Its not you. Its the balls. I have had the same issues. I played them side by side with Q-star and hit virtually the same shot. The XD and XDS never checked up and just kept rolling, whereas the Q-star checked up and stopped.
 
DevRickus said:
Its not you. Its the balls. I have had the same issues. I played them side by side with Q-star and hit virtually the same shot. The XD and XDS never checked up and just kept rolling, whereas the Q-star checked up and stopped.
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The thing is I praised the XDS for it's wedge play in the first round with it. I didn't have much success with the XD though. I'm going out again later this week and will try to play the XDS again. I'm losing distance regardless with both balls.
 
Mardin said:
So I got out on Sunday and decided to play the XD for the first 9. My last round I almost exclusively played the XDS and loved it. The XD on the other hand wasn't that likeable.

Driver/FW: Off the tee the ball felt like a rock coming off the face. It didn't feel as springy as the XDS. I also noticed really high ball flight which caused me to lose almost 20+ yards on some tee shots. I noticed a little distance loss with the XDS ball but even more so with the XD.

Hybrid/Long Irons: Just like the XDS the XD performed superbly with my hybrid and long irons. My hybrids produced a low-mid ball flight and my longer irons got the ball up in the air a little bit higher but no major ballooning shots like with the woods. this ball provided great accuracy with my approach shots of 200+.

Wedges: All-in-all I had my worst nine hole score in a long time and the wedges were where I was realy struggling. It was suprising becase my wedge game is my bread and butter. I had no touch with my wedges and I have a small feeling that the XD had a small part in that. I had no touch around the greens, I hit what I thought were some really good lob wedge shots that seemed like they never checked up and rolled forever.

Putter: This was the same as the XDS, the ball felt very firm, but rolled very true. I had a couple of really solid downhill/uphill puts with this ball.
Click to expand...
As far as with the wedges go, that's the exact way I feel, and I like the words you used to describe it. When I was working on the short game area, I felt that there was no touch with my shots at all. It was very frustrating.
 
Mardin said:
The thing is I praised the XDS for it's wedge play in the first round with it. I didn't have much success with the XD though. I'm going out again later this week and will try to play the XDS again. I'm losing distance regardless with both balls.
Click to expand...

I am losing on average ~10 yards with the XD and ~10-15 yards with the XDS. With that said, accuracy is always a good thing.
 
I've only been lining up the ball on tee shots. It works fine on any other shots.
 
DevRickus said:
I am losing on average ~10 yards with the XD and ~10-15 yards with the XDS. With that said, accuracy is always a good thing.
Click to expand...

I can't complain because most of my tee shots are finding the fairway, but my scoring irons really struggled with the XD. I used the Penta on the back 9 after the front with the XD and the Penta out performed the XD is almost every other phase of my game (obv). If I would give the XD a score after 9 holes I'd say C+. But I'm not ruling the XD out yet. I'm going to put a few more rounds into them. As for the XDS, the ball has solid psuedo tour ball performance around the greens, and with that usually comes lower scores.
 
oiler3535 said:
Reading the great reviews, would these points seem a fair summation?
1- amazingly straight when lined up at your target
2- hard bouncing and long rolling around/on the greens

Question: around the green when people mention lack of spin, are you lining up its centre aim line perpendicular to you target or just hitting it as it lies? Sorry if this was said earlier, I only read about 5 pages of the reviews.
Click to expand...

Yes to both 1 and 2. Full shots into greens I got the ball to stop but it's a big bounce and stop. Chipping they roll out, takes some getting used to. I really didn't notice a difference when lining up chip shots.


Tap-in Talking
 
VA. Vince said:
Yes to both 1 and 2. Full shots into greens I got the ball to stop but it's a big bounce and stop. Chipping they roll out, takes some getting used to. I really didn't notice a difference when lining up chip shots.


Tap-in Talking
Click to expand...

I also noticed that they bounce fairly high on the fairways..a lot more bounce than a regular ball.
 
good stuff mardin! I'll take straight these days. need it.
 
Mardin said:
I also noticed that they bounce fairly high on the fairways..a lot more bounce than a regular ball.
Click to expand...

Almost 50 yards of roll out on a few drives if not more with driver. On well struck iron shots I do get the ball to stop but I still cant get one par3 out of my head. 140 yards carrying water with a 7 iron and what felt like a well struck ball just came a few yards short. Either ball just does not fit my game but for high cappers that struggle off the tee I would recommend either the XD or XDS in a heartbeat. These balls along with some lessons would bring that confidence to a lot of golfers.
 
DevRickus said:
In an effort to abide by the rules of golf, I do not touch the ball once it is off the tee. Asking Polara the same question, they said off the tee if you use the aiming arrow you will see the correcting results, but otherwise it should play just like a regular ball from the fairway in. As for your summation, it is hard to say. I personally agree with your 2 statements but weirdly enough, some of the testers have had great luck with these around the greens and with their wedges.
Click to expand...

If you're abiding by the rules of golf you're not using this ball anyway, which is why I mention lining up the ball for every shot :)
 
Playing tomorrow afternoon, will have a review of the XD soon to follow.
 
Damaikis said:
I've only been lining up the ball on tee shots. It works fine on any other shots.
Click to expand...

Same for me. On the other shots that I play it as it lies, the ball acts like any other ball.

DevRickus said:
I am losing on average ~10 yards with the XD and ~10-15 yards with the XDS. With that said, accuracy is always a good thing.
Click to expand...

A little different for me. I did lose a little distance with the XD, but not with the XDS. With the XDS, I got a much lower tragectory and a ton of roll out. It didn't look pretty, but ended up out there.

Mardin said:
I also noticed that they bounce fairly high on the fairways..a lot more bounce than a regular ball.
Click to expand...

The XDS really bounced and rolled for me in the fairway.
 
Got out for a quick short game test with the XD and XDS, I have to say I enjoy the XD for putting and the XDS for anything off the green. The XD I would say felt harder than the XDS which worked for each type.

Putting
The XD had a harder feel, which I actually preferred and it just seemed to roll better for me than the XDS.

Chipping
The XDS seemed to spin a bit more for me, which is what I'm trying to do more lately, but the XD seemed to roll out more which I could see helping me as well.

Pitching
I couldn't get the XD to work for me on this, it just felt dead on impact. The XDS was a great feeling ball and got some great spin.

Flopping
Soccer players do this best but the XDS did it best for me, I was able to really get good contact and feel and some great spin for stopping power.

Overall they both did well but had individual traits that worked better for me in places than the other.
 
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