Old ball, old club vs new ball, new club

[InTheRough]

Times have really changed. Crossfield made a video where he hit a new old stock Dunlop 65 balata with a persimmon driver and compared it to the Srixon Z-star. And with the modern driver and same balls.

I'm old enough to remember playing the Dunlop Green Dot 90s with a laminated driver. I remember my drives were about 165 - 175 yds back then. But I'd put smiles on the balls a lot. I'd spend more on balls than green fees during a round. Crossfield hit the balata/persimmon combo 185 - 201.

The striking difference was the XXIO driver Srixon Z-star total distance of 300 yds. 100 yds difference between the balata ball and the persimmon club. And now I know why I used to regularly get a 10 on a 500 yd par 5. Why I was shooting 110 - 120 for 18 holes most of the time.

 

[RayG]

Unfortunately, a 40 year old ball or whatever would have lost a lot of its “oomph”. And Crossfield probably doesn’t have the swing of a pro from that era. An ideal comparison would have Titleist break out the old mold and formula to produce a bunch of ‘new’ old stock. Nicklaus would regularly hit 280/300 yard pokes using the ‘old’ tech. No trampoline effect there, smash that pill as hard as you can “on the screws”. I’ve seen plenty of vids of guys hitting the old drivers, but using modern ‘soft’ balls. The technology doesn’t match up to get the most out of the old clubs.

 

[pattyboy21]

I've played many courses with newer technology that I used to play with persimmon woods and balata balls. I would say the major difference isn't distance; rather it is in how the ball reacts on mishits.

I'd also guess that the long hitters on tour today would hit persimmon woods much further than Souchak, Dan Pohl and others that were considered long in the old days.

 

[RetiredBoomer]

In my thirties, I hit a Spalding Top Flite about 235 yards with a Spalding Elite laminated maple driver. I bombed one once in a while, but we're talking typical.

Last year, as a half-dead geriatric, I hit a Titleist ProV1x about 230 yards (GPS) with a brand new Taylor Made Original One 275cc driver.

So tech is real. But this year, just for giggles, I've got a new custom set of Louisville oil-hardened persimmons.
Whether they ever see real green grass and an open sky is anybody's guess.

 

[Snickerdog]

I still have some old balata balls around, maybe I should hit a few for testing purposes.

 

[BigMac]

In my thirties, I hit a Spalding Top Flite about 235 yards with a Spalding Elite laminated maple driver. I bombed one once in a while, but we're talking typical.

Last year, as a half-dead geriatric, I hit a Titleist ProV1x about 230 yards (GPS) with a brand new Taylor Made Original One 275cc driver...

How far do you figure you'd be hitting that old ball with that old persimmon now?

I think new technology is a great thing for all us Joe Average golfers. No sense making the game harder as we get older.

 

[RetiredBoomer]

I still have some old balata balls around, maybe I should hit a few for testing purposes.

They're real rubber in the windings and on the cover, not modern polymers, so they won't fly as they did new.
Better to keeps them as souvenirs.

 

[RetiredBoomer]

How far do you figure you'd be hitting that old ball with that old persimmon now?

I think new technology is a great thing for all us Joe Average golfers. No sense making the game harder as we get older.

Here's the thing. Persimmon and laminated maple woods can't hold a candle to modern metalwoods in terms of technology.

Still, one can't go to Callaway, Cleveland, Cobra, Mizuno, Ping, TaylorMade, Titleist, or Wilson and say, Please send me your newest, most high tech metalwood with this exact loft, lie angle, face angle and headweight that I want.

No matter how many adjustable hosel gadgets or screw-in weights that they may have, they just can't do that. They can give you whatever shaft and grip that you want. The clubhead options are there but limited. They can't give what I mentioned above.

In an earlier thread, I got ragged on because I mentioned that can't get the combination of lie angle and loft that I want in three Callaway Mavrik alternate models.

Do you know who can and will do that? Who DOES do that?
The Louisville Golf custom shop. They no longer work in laminated maple, but in oil-hardened persimmon, they can give you the EXACT fit that you want.

So I know what tech can do in almost fitting clubs. I want to re-live the experience of what perfect fit with less tech can do.

 

[WMac19]

Yeah, that old ball had to have degraded fairly significantly.

Can't speak to very old balls but I do have some 10 or more years old Taylormade TP Red LDP around here. All bought used so could be water balls, woods, no idea.

As far as drivers, I've played them over the past few seasons with the Epic, Rogue SZ, G400 Max and G410 Plus.

Hard to detect if they're any shorter, really. If they are, I'd have to think maybe 5 yards because I don't seem to have any apparent issue wrt longer approaches into greens.

I used to think they were shorter but playing them more over the last 6 months has dispelled that for me.

Similar tech, I know, with the urethane cover. But with everything touted as longer and straighter, I'd figured to detect a real difference.

With clubs, absolutely. My old R7 Limited TP might be as long when absolutely nutted but as per average distance accounting for some slight to moderate mishits, my modern drivers beat it by quite a bit. 15-20 yards on average, more with strikes higher on the face.

 

[Chef23]

I still have my Powerbilt Citation persimmon driver in the garage. It would need a new grip though.

I was playing metal woods when the ProV came out I think I had a Titleist Pro Trajectory driver and it was probably a 250-260 club for me but the revolutionary thing for me about the ProV was how straight the bad swings were. You would think the ball was off the course and they would just seem to straighten out.

 

[Badger_Golfer]

Thats why they say that the biggest difference in golf today is the ball and why some say that its time to roll the ball back. Modern balls are so good because they are low spin off the driver and high spin off the short irons and wedges.
With the old balls, they would spin so much that you really had to have a good swing to bomb it. IMO, modern balls dont spin enough off of the driver to really get the best performance with vintage persimmon drivers.
I play my vintage set from time to time (persimmon woods from the '70s and irons from the '30s) and the irons work great with a modern ball but the woods tend to be a lower flight for me. It works fine if I can play a shot where I can let the ball run but if its a tee shot where I have to fly the ball over something that is 150 yards or more, its trouble for me.