Taylormade Penta TP - Forum Review Thread

Great review TY, sounds like these are the real deal. As a Pro V1 player I'm real excited to try these. I put my Pro V's away today to experiment with several other balls in the cold weather and all I got was ballooning, so this will show me a lot.
 
Great review TY, sounds like these are the real deal. As a Pro V1 player I'm real excited to try these. I put my Pro V's away today to experiment with several other balls in the cold weather and all I got was ballooning, so this will show me a lot.

If you like the Pro V1 you will love the same feel, better spin and alot more distance the Penta offers. It truly is the longest premium ball I have ever hit, I caught it a few times today that I could have sworn I was hitting a distance ball it took off so hard.
 
Awesome review Ty. Great stuff and very thorough.
 
TheDue Penta TP Ball Review

TheDue Penta TP Ball Review

Guess what showed up today? Having my coffee and waiting for the mailman, Liz may not be happy about that front door, lol.

Not quite as impressed with the packaging, but beauty is skin deep... or in this case package deep. The real beauty was inside!
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Now were talking:
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Here I had to show off my old Tour Slotline:
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Now for the close-up:
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In comparing this ball to some regular Burner TP's I had at home, I notice the TaylorMade Logo's are in a lighter font, with the TP in this version in red. No problem with any of that, however I would have liked an arrow system on the side. It may be my old eye's, but the individual dimples look smaller, more per ball? They also seem shallower? I could be way wrong on that, just initial impression. Putting in the house with these gave me a slightly deeper tone than what I got from the Burner TP's. Other than that I won't know a lot more until after while when I get to Southern Hills Course.

Thanks THP and TaylorMade. The sun is actually shinning today, so see ya! :golf:
 
Nice Pics Due! Can't wait to hear your feedback!
 
Looking forward to your review. You may want to blur out your home address in the 1st picture Due.
 
Looking forward to your review. You may want to blur out your home address in the 1st picture Due.

I agree, Diane might start sending you Nudie mag subscriptions :joy::laughing:
 
Dang-it, I'll have to just send her my address, lol. Actually, she was nice enough to text me first about the problem. Thanks everyone.
 
Very well done, Ty. Many thanks.
 
TY,
Is there still time in the season for you to get back out and play again? Looking forward to more.
 
I'm hopefully playing next Saturday weather permitting. If we get a good day after that I will try to play too.
 
Looking forward to more. It seems as though with the exception of a couple of people, just about everybody that has tried these balls thinks that they are meeting the expectations that Taylormade has set.
 
Great review thatnks for all the good info...I can't wait for them to come out so I can give them a shot.
 
I figured since everyone else is going on about the Penta, then I'd weigh in again as well...

I finally got out to play again yesterday, for the first time in weeks. Between work, family and inclement weather, I simply haven't been able to get onto the golf course. We've been blessed with one of the wettest autumn's I can ever remember, I haven't washed my truck since July (I have a policy, if it's not going to be nice for 5 days, I'm not washing it), suffice it to say, everything's saturated.

I went out with my Mom and Pop, and my brother to play at Rockwood Park Ft. Worth Golf Club another very old local course, with a history of colorful characters playing there. It's a short course, pretty well kept with some funny layouts that are pretty well in line with it's 1930's architecture. I enjoyed playing.

I learned something about playing on a super saturated course, it's like hitting a ball out of pudding. Your club comes to a complete stop somewhere at the botttom of your swing, and you get maybe 50% of the ball's flight potential as it wobbles through the air.

I did manage a few good drives with it, and a pretty good recovery from 165 out of the rough to the fringe of the 17th.

Putting was pretty good again, so was chipping, although with a muddy ball, they were less accurate than I'm used to. Greens were receptive though, I managed to put one ball within 2' from 105 out (tap in for my only birdie of the day)

I alternated between the Penta and a B330-RX, and managed to not lose a ball all day.


I'm still tickled with the performance of the Penta, and have enjoyed playing it immensely. I'll report back when I get a chance to play again.


Know this: Taking off weeks and even months at a time, does nothing to improve your golf game. The first couple of holes were sure hard work. :D
 
Ok, where to start? I can tell you that I gave these balls a full work-out, along with myself today. A few things to begin with, it made it to around 54 degrees with a 7 or 8 mile an hour West breeze, small gusts at times. They don't seem to be mowing as much or as low, fairway's or greens, but I'm sure that's to be expected this time of year. However, the rough was uh... rough and the greens were covered at times with leaves: Pic's are from my cell phone this time, sorry.

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I started out chipping and pitching to the putting green and trying to compare the new TaylorMade Penta TP to my standard Pro V1, Nike One Platinum and TaylorMade Burner TP. To be honest I can't say I could tell a dramatic difference here, most of the shots were bump and run type shot's. However, once I opened the blade for lob shots with my CG14 things got fun. Distance control and the ability to stop the ball quick was pretty cool with the Penta. A little quicker than the Prov, a lot quicker than the rest.

Putting: It seemed as if the Penta took a bit more finesse with speed. It sort of jumped off the face quicker. Held the line as well as the rest, no big news there and I still thought it had a slightly deeper thunk sound. Feel was very soft as was the Prov.

At this point we went to the 1st Tee. I told myself not to expect too much simply because of the cooler air. Wrong! My first drive with this ball was a bomb. Kind of a ho-hum trajectory that just seemed to keep going. Left edge just into the rough leaving me 90 up hill to the center of the green. SW put the ball within 4 ft for birdie, I lip out, lol. Something to note, I kept yelling for the ball to GO off my wedge because it was so high. Seemed odd after the rather low flight off my driver.

This is kind of how the day went. Can't say I had the best round as I shot 43/43, but that was me not the ball. I didn't have a single drive that sliced or hooked all day. Had a few that were pushes and had no trouble drawing the ball. A buddy that was with me commented that he'd never seen me hit longer drives. Well, I have hit to some of those spots before, just not often or in the cold weather of the last few weeks. I hit 14 fairway's with 2 bad pushes and 2 along the edge.

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Not sure how well you can make out the picture above, but the ball is stuck in it's divot hole #2. This happened three times today? I don't do that three times a year. Need I say more on the ball flight and spin:

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This one above was on #10 and very common. The last pic below was on #16 and the ball spun back out of a big divot towards the hole.

Overall: I really liked this ball. I lost one on the last drive off 18 tee and was sick, :angry:. I did see some ballooning of the ball off my short irons, but not with the woods or long irons even into the wind. Distance control was a bit tough because I hit this ball farther a lot of the time. Accuracy is possibly it's best suit. I thought it was extremely forgiving for me. There was some scuffing, but not what I expected with a ball that felt this soft. My Prov generally would not last nearly 18 holes. It's a keeper if I can afford it.

I'll be back out there with the other five this weekend in SE Kansas. Thanks
 
Nice write-up Solidk. These things are something else. Like you mentioned "it's like hitting a marshmellow". Hardly feel the ball at all and straight.
 
I'm glad you had the same results as me. It was definately straighter than the Pro V for me and unless you need a distance ball to stay straight you can play this ball. But I'm really glad you had the same distance I did. I could not believe how far the ball was flying off my driver and it appears we both played in the 50's which usually kills distance for me. I think I have found a new premium ball for next spring.
 
Thanks guys these reviews are great! You are saving me some $$... I usually buy 3-4 different golf balls at the beginning of the season, test them and pick a winner (for me). It looks like I'm just going to go with the PENTA from the start.
 
I got a chance to follow up with Tim last night about the ball I gave him. Tim is an over 50 senior at our club and he is 8 handicap who has a great short game and is a great iron player. He normally plays a Taylormade TP Black. He lacks a bit on distance and accuracy off the tee at times and he makes up those strokes around the green. I asked him what his thoughts were on forgiveness and he compared the ball to his TP Black. He said distance was similiar but that he felt the Penta was longer for him by a little bit and it stayed lower off his longer clubs. Around the greens he loved the soft feel and thought it was a little better than the Black. Overall he didn't see a vast improvement over the Black for his game and the distance increase was minimal at best for him he said. That leads me to believe my initial thoughts, for folks with higher swing speeds, this ball really shines. Tim swings between 80-90 mph with a driver he said and I think that is why he isn't seeing the huge distance gains that some of us are seeing over the other premium balls out there. But the fact that a guy who has been a TM Black all season was impressed with it as much as he was leads me to believe it is an upgrade to last years balls for everyone. When I told him it would be replacing the Black he said he felt it would be a good replacement and he was looking forward to playing it in the future.
 
It was definately straighter than the Pro V for me and unless you need a distance ball to stay straight you can play this ball.
What did you mean by this? I'm just a little confused, could you clarify please.
 
What did you mean by this? I'm just a little confused, could you clarify please.

I cannot answer for him, but for me I had the same thing. The latest incarnation of the Pro V's had some ballooning for me and these just did not have it.
 
What did you mean by this? I'm just a little confused, could you clarify please.

I'm referring to ballooning or balls that simply are not hit perfect tend to have more sidespin than normal. The Pro V's tend to over react to sidespin and miss your target more than the Penta. If I line up and hit a golf shot without thinking I play a fade meaning it goes where I'm aimed but with left to right spin on the ball. As a 2 handicap you know the difference between a fade and a slice, so I'm mostly clarifying that for people who hit the ball way left and it comes back to the middle. The Penta will hold that line much better than the Pro V for me, which can turn into a ballooned slice or hard cut if not hit perfect. Hope this clarifies.
 
I too was pretty surprised by the lack of sidespin this ball had. One drive specifically I knew my swing got a little flat or I may have swayed a little, not sure what it was but knew I cut across the ball. The ball started to turn off the club face but kept it's line.

I don't generally see much problem with the Prov, but will occasionally slice it off line. Not yet with the Penta.
 
That makes more sense. When you are referring to the ProV is it the Prov or the X?

I stopped playing the ProV because I noticed a significant loss in distance (15 yards min on tee shots) and too much spin on the greens, so the X suited me perfectly.

Nice write-up!

john
 
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