- Joined
- Sep 11, 2013
- Messages
- 74,821
- Reaction score
- 88,392
- Location
- Ponte Vedra, Florida
- Handicap
- 11.9
Also, I'm curious to know if your putter has an insert.
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Also, I'm curious to know if your putter has an insert.
Guys this has been a great read.
To the reviewers, what tier of balls would you slot the Hopkins ball in? I guess what I'm trying to say is what does this ball most closely resemble to you? Something like an "E" series or more of a tour level type ball with it's characteristics?
Just a curiosity question, what was your typical miss on the greens today with the Hopkins ball?
I ask because I have actually been putting better with it, but my usual miss before was leaving them short, and the harder aspect I think has made them roll better and longer with my normal stroke.
Just curious if you were getting that same "hot" feeling off the putter.
Also, I'm curious to know if your putter has an insert.
Guys this has been a great read.
To the reviewers, what tier of balls would you slot the Hopkins ball in? I guess what I'm trying to say is what does this ball most closely resemble to you? Something like an "E" series or more of a tour level type ball with it's characteristics?
Where did you find them? I'd like to give them a spin.And no, I wasn't one of the official testers. I spent my money on them.
This is a skim, but aren't these urethane covered balls?
Where did you find them? I'd like to give them a spin.
I've contacted Hopkins, will see if they get back to me. I've been rethinking just about everything I do when it comes to golf, and so I'm really taking a look into which ball to play. While I like the Duo's on the green, perhaps it's not the ball I would be most comfortable with everywhere else on the course.I ordered them off the website when they were first released. I'm always looking for the perfect $20 ball at my handicap, so you take risks. They're not my type of ball for $20, but like I said if you like Warbirds or SuperDeeps these would fit your game. I just prefer a softer feeling ball all around and since noone had even hit them when I ordered mine, I figured a wedge company would make a ball that feels stupendous off wedges.
Hopkins Ball Testing - 2-2-2014 - Lake Padden Golf Course Bellingham, WA 35*F
Links to previous thoughts:
Review #1 http://www.thehackersparadise.com/f...Forum-Review&p=2732910&viewfull=1#post2712323
Review #2 http://www.thehackersparadise.com/f...Forum-Review&p=2732910&viewfull=1#post2724080
Review #3 http://www.thehackersparadise.com/f...Forum-Review&p=2732910&viewfull=1#post2732910
I got out with SkiBumGolfer and play (walking) 18 at Lake Padden.We played the Granite tees due to the cold. I played my R11 driver, Burner 2.0 irons, Scor Wedges, and Seemore M1 putter. It was a bit chilly (never got above 38F), but the course was in good shape. I played the Hopkins ball the entire time and went in with the mindset that I was just going to play my round instead of trying to be overly critical of anything.Spoiler
Driving:
I played driver on 14 of the holes this time out. I was pretty happy with my drives on all but 2 or 3 holes. I found the sound off the driver was not as bothersome when I wasn't specifically listening for it. The harder feel was still there, but results were comparable to what I'm used to normally so I didn't think too much of it. Overall I was pleased with how it went with the driver. Poor shots were because of me putting a bad swing on it, but even then the ball tended to hold it's line (except when I cold shanked one on 10 because I was mad the grill was closed haha).
Irons/Wedges:
My iron and wedge game was the best part of this round. Again, the harder feel was noticeable, but performance was good enough to get over the feel. There was noticeable more rollout on some of the long iron shots by about twice as much as I would normally see. This was a difference of 6-8 feet of rollout with the Hopkins vs 3-4 with the Bridgestone I usually play. Having seen this before, I played to allow for this and it was an easy adjustment. I was able to stop some shots on one hop (including a 4 iron from about 190 out off the tee) and did get one to back up about 4 inches. For the most part I was able to put the ball fairly close to where I was hoping with my irons and nothing performance wise made me feel the ball wasn't doing what I intended. I do wonder how much more rollout I would see on harder greens like say in summertime. I would tend to think it would be a bit more than I'm seeing now, but still manageable, though I can only speculate on that.
Putting:
I will say straight up my putting was off this day. I have 5 three putts, one of the worst putting outings I've had in a while. I did better on the back than the front but all around it wasn't very good. For the most part I struggled with speed. I feel like the feedback from the ball made me think I'd hit it harder than I actually had and I ended up leaving it short a lot. I did start to get things going towards the end, which made me feel like I was getting used to the feedback and trusting more how hard I needed to hit it. I very well may have just been putting poorly so I don't want to read too much into this. I am going to go out in the next couple of days and just spend an hour putting to try to make more sense of this.
Final Thoughts:
Again, nothing on this round would prevent me from playing this beyond preference for the feel. For the price, even that can be overlooked I believe. I didn't have a great round, shooting 48/50 for a 98, but I did have several pars on the round and pared the last 3 holes of the day settling down after a disastrous start to the back nine. So far this ball has held up to its claims, and compares as closely as I can tell to the balls they lay claim to comparing to. Not everyone is going to like this ball with the sound and feel, but it sure performs well enough for the price to be a ball to consider.
As always any questions or anything, feel free to ask or message me.
Thanks! That 4 iron was off a tee, so I'm sure that helped. That said the spin doesn't seem to be terribly much less for me from what I've seen so far off any of the irons. Definitely less, but still enough spin to be worked with.Awesome write up John. Interesting to see you getting some spin on long irons with these balls. I have a dozen sitting in my office waiting for the temps to warm up.