TXG - Snell MTB-X vs. Callaway Chrome Soft X

[BuckNasty]

There is ego involved and we want to play the "high end" balls we see on tour or tv even if it doesn't fit our game.

This is the part that always interested me in terms of golf ball perception on the market, because unless you are playing the Srixon or Bridgestone tour balls (according to both company claims), you aren't buying the same ball the tour players use (for the most part), just a ball with the same name stamped on the side that you see on TV.

 

[McLovin]

color me unsurprised.

the mgs results deviated far enough from rational expectation that further testing was undeniably warranted and necessary. instead, they chose to release the results. their motivations are subject to debate, in the same way callaway's marketing and response to the report are subject to debate.

ultimately, there is no replacement for individual testing. go try it for yourself, and buy what works best for you and/or what you want to buy.

 

[Iceman!]

Think this video feeds right in to Callaway's statement afterwards about the testing.

 

[mikeg_74]

This is the part that always interested me in terms of golf ball perception on the market, because unless you are playing the Srixon or Bridgestone tour balls (according to both company claims), you aren't buying the same ball the tour players use (for the most part), just a ball with the same name stamped on the side that you see on TV.

and most golf companies feed off of that. It's not just with balls, but with clubs as well. We have to remember we are a small percentage of golfers who dig into the minutia of what clubs and balls the tour is playing versus what we can get our hands on. To 98% of the golfing public they have no clue (and in most cases don't care), they just want to roll up to the 1st tee with the ball and golf clubs from their favorite golfer or OEM.

That's perfectly fine as well, but when misinformation from MGS comes out and people take it as gospel without digging into the data, you are doing a huge disservice to the average golfer who doesn't know better.

 

[obedt]

They had a really hard time justifying how a report can produce 18 yards of difference. Much like anyone who has played multiple tour balls can relate to.

 

[Iceman!]

To be honest with you CSX would be a better fit for me.
Lower launch and less backspin - If I played the MTB-X - I'd might be in the rough instead of the fairway.

 

[McLovin]

Think this video feeds right in to Callaway's statement afterwards about the testing.

here's what i hope the takeaway is: this not about redemption for callaway; rather, it's about the methodology, reliability and responsibility of the report. that is a bigger story (and my gripe from the beginning) than any one oem, big or small.

 

[ddec]

here's what i hope the takeaway is: this not about redemption for callaway; rather, it's about the methodology, reliability and responsibility of the report. that is a bigger story (and my gripe from the beginning) than any one oem, big or small.

exactly. Hell I'd leave their response completely out of it.

 

[McLovin]

exactly. Hell I'd leave their response completely out of it.

i do think that response needed one or two more editing passes before release. it fueled more fire on one side of the debate than the other. showing other (likely conflicting) data would have been more impactful.

 

[BuckNasty]

and most golf companies feed off of that. It's not just with balls, but with clubs as well. We have to remember we are a small percentage of golfers who did into the minutia of what clubs and balls the tour is playing versus what we can get our hands on. To 98% of the golfing public they have no clue (and in most cases don't care), they just want to roll up to the 1st tee with the ball and golf clubs from their favorite golfer or OEM.

That's perfectly fine as well, but when misinformation from MGS comes out and people take it as gospel without digging into the data, you are doing a huge disservice to the average golfer who doesn't know better.

You hit the nail on the head there, most of the general golf consumers don't do a significant amount of digging, so they go off of what they visually see on TV or an Instagram picture that shows a golf ball as the longest, causing that ball to sell-out without much digging into any detail.

 

[McLovin]

Trackman monitors the entire flight of the ball, which is beneficial when testing outdoors. GCQuad is a launch monitor - it takes a snapshot of launch characteristics and draws conclusions.

i thought i heard the txg guys say the testing of the report relied on quad, but i and/or they could be mistaken about that.

 

[obedt]

i do think that response needed one or two more editing passes before release. it fueled more fire on one side of the debate than the other. showing other (likely conflicting) data would have been more impactful.

We live in a click-baity environment. It sucks, but sure looks like that is what they were going for based off the way the report was marketed.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[DonJuan]

Sounds like a lot of general dislike for MGS. One factor that I always am curious about when people are testing products is where do they get the balls? Are these balls that come directly from the company, or do they go to Dick's Sporting Goods and pick up a few boxes? Is that driver off the rack or did the company send it to you? I know some gun reviewers would rather pick their own products for fear the manufacturers will cherry pick an item that isn't representative of the normal consumer product.

 

[mpeterson]

I don't think so. There should be no scientific difference in the testing caused by the robot. It has to be either the conditions, aerodynamics, or even a bad batch of Chrome Soft X balls or exceptional batch of MTB-X balls. All of which would point to methodology issues other than the robot.

Yup - If it turns out conditions/weather is playing a role, that's a HUGE issue in terms of developing a controlled experiment, and MGS should immediately stop crowing about how well designed their test was, because it wasn't.

I'll admit I've got an obvious bias here - but at the same time, while I really like the CS X, I would not be surprised if it was beat out by another ball. There's a lot of great equipment out there!

 

[DonJuan]

i thought i heard the txg guys say the testing of the report relied on quad, but i and/or they could be mistaken about that.

It was Trackman. They put a banner down on the bottom of the screen. They confirmed it with MGS.

 

[McLovin]

yeah that's a smooth 118. Can add ours together and not get that haha

when i went to their orlando event, matt hit 7i and driver for a little while. he looks like he's giving it 60, 70% tops. yet the ball just GOES. he was flying his driver 300. i've never seen anything like it.

 

[-CRW-]

i thought i heard the txg guys say the testing of the report relied on quad, but i and/or they could be mistaken about that.

TXG said they weren't sure, but knew that MGS used GCQuad for most of their testing.

However, for the study in question Trackman was used.

 

[McLovin]

TXG said they weren't sure, but knew that MGS used GCQuad for most of their testing.

However, for the study in question Trackman was used.

my bad. i saw @donjuan's response above too. i was listening to feed in the car, so wasn't watching for the banners.

 

[mikeg_74]

Sounds like a lot of general dislike for MGS. One factor that I always am curious about when people are testing products is where do they get the balls? Are these balls that come directly from the company, or do they go to Dick's Sporting Goods and pick up a few boxes? Is that driver off the rack or did the company send it to you? I know some gun reviewers would rather pick their own products for fear the manufacturers will cherry pick an item that isn't representative of the normal consumer product.

I don't think there is dislike and more of them needing to realize they have a responsibility to put out accurate information/data to be consumed. Wherever you are on the side of "one online forum being better than another", I think we all agree that we go to our forums of choice for accurate content to help us make better buying decisions for our games.

 

[mpeterson]

here's what i hope the takeaway is: this not about redemption for callaway; rather, it's about the methodology, reliability and responsibility of the report. that is a bigger story (and my gripe from the beginning) than any one oem, big or small.

I think ArmyGolf asked them on Twitter what the deal was with the Z star performing very differently in two different colors. Their response was "warrants more testing". If I responded to peer review on an article I wrote to a reviewer, it'd be rejected immediately - to me that's something that should make me think "huh, what's up with this data?" - it amounts to a control, and should give you an idea what your variance is.

It really gives the impression that these guys think they know a whole lot about experiment design and analytics than they do. And like I said in my previous comment - yes, I'm a fan of one of the companies they've been fighting with, but it bothers me more to see bad science than a ball from the brand I'm playing not do so well in a test.

 

[golfinnut]

my follow up would be this...if that performance is only going to work or be effected by a robot, then why should we care and why should we as humans bother going out there and testing on our own?

Exactly!

 

[cnosil]

I don't think there is dislike and more of them needing to realize they have a responsibility to put out accurate information/data to be consumed. Wherever you are on the side of "one online forum being better than another", I think we all agree that we go to our forums of choice for accurate content to help us make better buying decisions for our games.

Of course there is member dislike of other forums. Your statement about going to one forum over the other for accurate content implies you don’t trust the information on other forums.

Generally what I am reading on the ball information is that the original study was wrong, has inaccurate results, was done incorrectly, was done to discredit specific companies and the TXG video proves those points.

People complain that when an human is used to do testing that a robot should be used and when a robot is used people are needed. It is like any study that is done, you can find sources that will completely contradict different sources. Only a few people know the exact protocols that were followed with the testing from the reports. Can any test be influenced, of course, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t value in the testing.

 

[Canadan]

Sounds like a lot of general dislike for MGS. One factor that I always am curious about when people are testing products is where do they get the balls? Are these balls that come directly from the company, or do they go to Dick's Sporting Goods and pick up a few boxes? Is that driver off the rack or did the company send it to you? I know some gun reviewers would rather pick their own products for fear the manufacturers will cherry pick an item that isn't representative of the normal consumer product.

I don't think there is dislike and more of them needing to realize they have a responsibility to put out accurate information/data to be consumed. Wherever you are on the side of "one online forum being better than another", I think we all agree that we go to our forums of choice for accurate content to help us make better buying decisions for our games.

Of course there is member dislike of other forums. Your statement about going to one forum over the other for accurate content implies you don’t trust the information on other forums.

There's no point in making this any more than it should be. Both MGS and THP provide a place to talk golf, and everyone is free to pick one (or both really) to have their conversations about the game we love. I speak for probably more than just myself when i say that I couldn't care less what they are doing over there, and if I did, I'd probably have an account. It's not dislike, it's a total lack of interest. I'd rather read about what THPers are doing with the balls, not what some other golf forum is doing.

 

[DonJuan]

I don't think there is dislike and more of them needing to realize they have a responsibility to put out accurate information/data to be consumed. Wherever you are on the side of "one online forum being better than another", I think we all agree that we go to our forums of choice for accurate content to help us make better buying decisions for our games.

Yeah, but they put out the data that they had and explained their methodology. Maybe that should've also recording wind mph and direction, barometric pressure, etc. As someone who has designed and consulted on experiments, it is very difficult to exhaustively account for all variables. When I read it, I came away thinking wind was probably a factor. I would love to see them re-test the two balls head to head to control for other variables.

 

[mikeg_74]

Of course there is member dislike of other forums. Your statement about going to one forum over the other for accurate content implies you don’t trust the information on other forums.

.

for me it's a general disinterest in what others are doing. I enjoy THP and all that it offers around the game of golf and outside the game of golf. It has nothing to do with trust, and everything to do with people and how I want to consume my golf content.