2015 Bridgestone e5 Review Thread

Well, I have good news and bad news.

Good: tested these balls again this past weekend and they continue to perform very well
Bad: I lost another 3

So we took to the course on Saturday teeing off around noon with 65* temps and winds varying from 10-25. I’m really beginning to learn more about ball flight and what is good/bad for me. I tended to always think that I was getting too high which would lead to a distance loss from ballooning and also because the ball would lose all momentum into the wind. Now, it’s a given that the wind will affect distance but what I’ve seen from some of the newer balls (including the e5) is that that height is not an enormous indicator of distance loss due to the way that the dimples are designed to cut through the air with less resistance.

While the e5 is designed to be a higher launching ball with more spin (most in the e series), it can undoubtedly be flighted down using tee height and ball position in stance. As I mentioned last week, I was astonished when I hit 3 balls well into the wind and the e5 launching the highest also went the furthest. Needless to say, I’m over the thoughts that the e5 launches TOO high for me…simply not true.

Around the greens I had a better go of it on Saturday as I added a new wedge to the bag which I gained quick confidence with that allowed me to judge this ball on chipping performance. Is it the spinniest ball on the market? No. Does it spin well enough for me where I can play an aggressive shot that takes one nice bounce then settles up nicely? Yes.

I saw one shot on Saturday where I was 112 to the flag and hitting into the wind. Took a PW and was trying to keep it slightly down into the wind and it was one of those shots where I nipped the ball just perfect at impact. End result was landing 3 feet left of the flag pin high and spinning back 10 feet. As with anything golf, it still requires technique to get the most out of something and I saw that when executed a shot to the best of my ability.

I still have 6 balls of the original dozen left. Does this ball have everything I could want to be my daily gamer? No. It’s not yellow.

In all seriousness though, I wish it was available in yellow. But yes – for a sub $30 ball, I’m not sure there is a better one available for me. The durability is incredible and it does everything well enough where I could (and likely will) game it for 2015. This was a solid improvement on the previous version which I also enjoyed. Higher flight and more spin……which is a good thing for me.

If you have any questions, feel free to throw them at me! I’ll be playing in a tourney on Saturday morning and these will be put to the test again.

I was able to get out and play 18 holes with E5 and I put it up against the Duo (last years version) and the Callaway Supersoft.

My disclaimer though is that my swing is a mess and I wasn't getting the best swings on any of these balls, but hey at least I'm consistent right?

Also, after four rounds with the new E5s I'm down to my final sleeve! :bulgyeyes:

I wanted to rank the balls in terms of certain characteristics that I saw from them.

Driver:
Duo - 1 Best ball for me when using driver - low penetrating ball flight and longest driver tee shots where with this ball, also reduced left to to right misses compared to the other two.
Callaway Supersoft - 2 distance wasn't too great (shortest of the three) but my shots were pretty straight, slightly higher ball flight than the Duo, not as high as E5
E5 -3 I'm ranking it the third best b/c I lost a full sleeve of the balls off with my driver this round, I couldn't straighten it out and when I lost only one each of the other two the penalty strokes are killers so I'm taking this into account. I did hit some wonderfully high bombs with this ball though.

Irons:
E5 -1 even though I was getting more right to left movement out of the E5, this ball holds greens and has significantly less rollout than ball the Duo and Supersoft and by that I mean it was holding greens and rolling out 10 to 15 yards (yes yards) less than the Supersoft and Duo.
Duo -2 straight ball flight, the straightest of the three, however still a lot of rollout that made one putts difficult. Also a nice Mid trajectory too that cut through the wind on a couple of shots.
Supersoft - 3 straighter flight than the E5, if her trajectory than Duo, lower than E5 also on layup Par 5 shots this ball was great, very good rollout. But on holding greens, it never did, I didn't have one iron shot hold a green when I used this ball.

Wedges: 75-130 yds
E5 - 1 Couple of one hop stoppers, great performer. Definitely less rollout than the other two balls. Highest launching ball on wedges.
Duo - rollout, better than Supersoft held greens, still had work to do with the flatstick. Same trajectory as Supersoft on wedge shots
Supersoft- 3 I had an 85 yard wedge shot to a pin in the front, I hit the fringe in front of green, the ball released 40 feet past the hole, the green sloped back to front... Sums up the ball for me.

Wedges 75 yds in and Pitching/Chipping

Similar rankings as the longer distance wedge shots, however, something that I noticed with the Supersoft, it was very soft off of wedges and my 8I when chipping, still rolled out but, softer than the other two balls, at least it felt that way to me.

Putter:
I used the Nead, with a copper milled face and to be honest aside from the softness/firmness for a ball I can't tell the difference in sound or feel unless I'm comparing different putter faces (ie milled face to an insert)

I did sink some long distance putts (20 footers) with the Supersoft and the longest with the E5 and Duo was a 10 footer.

Durability:
Supersoft- 1 this ball held up the longest and survived the beating the best when in contact with cart paths, trees fences, rocks, the assorted stuff that my balls hit over the course of a round.
Duo-2 slightly more damage and wear over the course of certain shots than the Supersoft, picked up some scuffing on a sand shot, but over all wouldn't need to swap it out for another.
E5-3 with the urethane I think it may be a little easier to damage, it picked up some bad scuffing after taking a detour to the cart path.

Final thoughts:
The Duo and Supersoft are $8 cheaper and if my swing doesn't improve I couldn't justify spending the additional money on the E5. However, with the performance on iron and wedge shots being that much better than the other two balls I think the E5 is the better play and for a sub $30 ball I think this is the best ball for my game (once improved) on the market.

Any questions or comments as always let me know.



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Nice ball, but it doesn't spin.

:angel:

Just kidding - saw comparative 1/2 and 3/4 wedge spin to other urethanes that are a lot more expensive. By comparative, I mean close enough that a normal golfer probably wouldn't notice much (if any) difference at all.

I'm taking the e5 on the road to Scottsdale, AZ next week. I'll be playing in the Horseshoe Member/Guest with my brother at Whisper Rock! There I'll get to play a lot of spinning pitches and chips from tight lies into perfect, fast greens with lots of undulation. But if it's too windy, I'll switch back to my Srixon's - as I've mentioned in my reviews, my biggest complaint with the e5's is poor performance with both helping and hurting winds. The e5 does fine with crosswinds.

On the evening before the tournament, we're going to go hit Whisper Rock's practice areas where I'll get to really put the e5 through it's paces with chipping

Hawk said:

Nice ball, but it doesn't spin.

:angel:

Just kidding - saw comparative 1/2 and 3/4 wedge spin to other urethanes that are a lot more expensive. By comparative, I mean close enough that a normal golfer probably wouldn't notice much (if any) difference at all.

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Agreed on the spin, I don't see this lacking against others I have tried.

May try to use this for 9 and RX for 9 tomorrow to compare flight/distance/spin.

I was able to put this into play again this past weekend and actually decided to play the B330-RX for half of the round so that I could to try and gather some comparison thoughts.

Difficult to judge at times when as in true amateur fashion I don't have the most repeatable swing or results.

I actually played substantially better on the back with the e5 where I was hitting more fairways, green, knocking chips closer, and making more putts.

On the front I struggled with getting chips close to the hole and was leaving putts short. On the back with the e5, it was exactly the opposite. I think that chips ran out a tad more but I also know that I had a few chips where I had to land on an exact spot and needed the ball to stop pretty quickly and was able to achieve that.

I believe that I saw a touch higher ball flight with the e5 but also saw less dispersion with the e5 as compared to the 330-RX.

I'm one that can (and try) to find flaws in whatever golf equipment I'm using but other than this ball not being yellow, it's simply performing exactly as I NEED a ball to function.

Sorry for the rambling as I'm typing this from the phone but I really am impressed with this ball. Shares many characteristics with the previous e5 but I think it's better in the wind and also that it has a bit more stopping power on the greens.

Good thoughts cookie.

You and your yellow balls....

Based on the performance that I've seen with these over the time I've spent with them. I decided to make this ball my gamer for the year, put the purchase in yesterday for a few dozen of these balls and I'm really excited to see where my game goes this year.

So got these out for a round this weekend. Cold and blustery winds, but the greens were semi-thawed so they were fairly receptive. Gamed these the entire front nine and most of the back.

Distance all around is about what I've come to expect this time of year. Off the tee no major issues other than a couple of poor swings. Iron distances were about what I've come to expect, with my 8I coming in at ~150, then +/- 10 yds per club from there.

I am not a huge spin player but wanted to talk about spin on approach shots a little. I saw a little more spin than I'm used to due to the greens being receptive, but I don't think I'd ever have a problem with rolling one of these off the back of a green with anything less than a 6I. Just for example's sake, I took a couple of photos on the first two holes.


This was pretty much my experience all day with these. Any shot that was hit solidly and landed on the green first didn't go too far from where it landed. Only backed up the one e5 though.

Around the green and putting went pretty well. Didn't have any distance issues. Not really a spin player when it comes to short game, so I play for rollout as is. No issues there. Putting was pretty fantastic until I had a brain fart on the back nine, but that's all indian.

Durability wise, I'd say that this ball meets or exceeds my expectations for a urethane covered ball. Found a couple cart paths and maybe a tree. Other than some slight blemishes, I didn't see much of anything. Certainly nothing that would persuade me to take the ball out of play.

After dumping three of these, I pulled out some leftover Z Starts from my bag for some comparison. Off the tee and distance-wise in general, I didn't see a huge difference between the two. No noticeable difference in side spin that I could tell. I will say that the Z star seemed to spin a bit more on approach shots, but with the wind the way it was by the end of the round I don't think it's easy to declare a clear winner.

Overall, I'd say that this year's e5 is a great evolution on a ball that was already a great fit for a lot of golfers. Can't wait to put in some more time with them.

OITW said:

Based on the performance that I've seen with these over the time I've spent with them. I decided to make this ball my gamer for the year, put the purchase in yesterday for a few dozen of these balls and I'm really excited to see where my game goes this year.

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I think there's a good chance they go in my rotation as well. I will say that I'll defer to price though and I usually only buy balls if I find a deal. I'd take the previous version just the same.

Hawk said:

I think there's a good chance they go in my rotation as well. I will say that I'll defer to price though and I usually only buy balls if I find a deal. I'd take the previous version just the same.

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Agree with you 100% the other balls (Monsta Golf and ChromeSoft) that I was considering are both >$30 I was able to get a good President's Day sale deal on my E5s and they only cost me $23 a dozen plus free shipping which puts them in the Duo and VL price range.

Also as another point in regards to price, the new model of the E Series balls are all at $28.99 the previous model was $26.99 If these balls go above $30 I think I will be moving on to a different ball, it's my gamer and it performs, but for $30 and higher I'd go with a competitor or go B330 RXS.

MBurnham and I played 18 in a simulator on Saturday.

I played 6 holes with the E5, Monsta Golf Ball and a Titleist Velocity Ball. I played the first 6 holes with the Monsta, the middle 6 with the Velocity and final 6 with the E5.

Putting and chipping in the simulator was crap so this review won't mention those aspects of the balls performance.

(Full disclosure, we didn't warmup at all so the performance might be slightly skewed)

Monsta Golf Ball:

The Monsta ball was a good ball, my distances were about 5 yards less than both the Velocity and E5, the ball flight was a higher ball flight very similar to the E5 and higher than the Velocity. I was seeing more side spin, more hooks out of the Monsta than I saw out of the Velocity and E5.

The Monsta felt softer off of the putter face of both my Ghost SI (insert) and my Nead (milled face) than both the Velocity and E5 as well.

Titleist Velocity Ball:

The Velocity ball had a lower ball flight than both the E5 and Monsta ball (I would say it was a mid trajectory compared to Mid-High from the other two).

The Velocity had the most roll out of the three balls as well. I feel like this would have been the ideal ball in very windy conditions.

Performed very well off the tee, most shots were very straight with minimal right to left movement. Seemed to have more rollout on the greens as well compared to the other two balls.

Bridgestone E5:

The E5 had the higher launch that I liked seeing, I did have a couple of bad hooks with it off the tee, one with a hybrid and one par 3, caught the left edge when the the pin was on the right edge.

Also seemed to hold greens better than definitely the Velocity but also the Monsta.

Had my best shot of the day with E5 though, the simulator said I had a 240 carry 280 total distance with my 3W on one hole (obviously taking with a grain of salt) but I totally pured the ball and it felt great, ideal trajectory, just amazing.

Final Thoughts:

Tough considering I had no warmup and split the shots not comparing them one to one, but I still liked the overall performance of the E5 compared to the other two.

All three ball held up pretty well in the simulator, no scuffs, scratches etc.

Also received my years supply today, so I'm pretty excited to continue gaming the E5.

I have a lot of confidence in this ball on those 30-40 yard pitch shots. When i do my Job i am getting some nice action and can attack some pins, i play it right at the flag and results have been very good.

I posted these pics in another thread, but I was using the new E5 and it flat out performed for me in the simulator with the new J15 DPFs, nice high ball flight some good spin, really made me want to get outside.

PW



8I



6I

I had a good practice session on one of Whisper Rock's chipping complexes last week. They have ProV-1x range balls there, and I alternated between those and the e5 across a wide variety of shots.

The e5's did grab and release on chips the way I like, but with just a touch less spin and a touch more runout than the ProV's. Similarly with flop shots, the e5 would release just a bit more than the ProV.

I hope to get a round in Saturday here in Humble, TX; and finally I should be able to see how the e5 will roll on drives (it's been wet all winter).

I played the front 9 with the E5 and then switched to the Chrome Soft for the back yesterday. Here are a few thoughts.

Driver: E5- High ball flight but still rolls out pretty good. I tried twice to keep the ball down off of the tee but no matter what I did this ball would rise to the sky. For downwind drives I love this ball but in to the wind not so much.
Chrome Soft- Medium to high ball flight with reasonable roll out. This ball I couldn't keep down very well either but it doesn't rise as high as the E5.

Irons: E5- The high ball flight continues here and is a nice benefit for the longer irons off the deck. Full wedge shots would bounce once and roll out a touch before stopping
Chrome Soft- Pretty high flight here as well but can be flighted down if need be, relatively easy. Full wedges with the CS landed and backed up a bit from the pitch mark.

Short Game: E5- All greenside shots seem to roll out more than I would like but since I was expecting this, it wasn't an issue for me.
Chrome Soft- This ball shines around the greens with the ease of spin control and soft feel. I really felt comfortable hitting this ball from the sand, high lob, and low runner because of the consistent spin control.

Overall: Both balls are great performers. If you are willing to spend a little extra money, it's hard to beat the all around performance of the Chrome Soft.

Thread readers:

I apologize for my lack of updates last weekend and this weekend. 2 weeks of abnormal horrendous weather has wreaked havoc around here. I still have 5 of the original e5's from the testing dozen and will be on course a week from today with THP'ers and will provide additional feedback.

Same here cookie. Apologies guys. No golf for me due to weather and some other stuff. I'll try to have something as soon as I can.

Yeah I apologize as well; I will get actual outdoor testing next week and should have a simulator round this week to report on as well.

I've played a few rounds with my usual gamer, the Srixon Z-Star XV, since I returned from Scottsdale a couple of weeks ago. I wanted to see how they felt again after playing with the Bridgestone e5's.

Like the Srixons, the e5's are absolutely great in the air. They hold a great line with very little side spin, and if I over-cut or over-draw the ball, they will tend to fall straight.

They also hold the greens very well, though they release just a bit more than the Srixons.

I've said before that my main concern with the e5's is with wind performance. With the Srixons the last couple of rounds, I must say that they perform much better on shots into the wind or downwind. Crosswind, there isn't much of a performance difference.

I have let many of my higher-handicapper friends play with the e5's, and they generally like them. They are pleased with the height they can achieve. With me, I am a high ball hitter anyway, and the e5 really doesn't fly higher than normal for me.

I still have 4 or 5 e5's left (I lost 2 and my friends lost the rest - lol). I'll switch back to playing them again for my next round this coming weekend.

I was able to get out yesterday and had the 2015 e5 in play for the entire round. It was a soggy day out there with intermittent showers during the round.

Overall, the e5 continues to thoroughly impress me. When I look at how Bridgestone describes this ball, I’m seeing in my game what they intended for the most part.

“Low ball flight got you down? The all new e5 is engineered to provide more lift for longer carry and added distance.”
- I definitely agree with the “more lift” intent of the ball. I’m already a high ball hitter and I can see an even higher flight when hitting this ball. Does it hurt me? As much as I think it does from a visual perspective, when I actually get to the ball the distance is where I would expect it to be. This really tells me that the new WEB dimple technology helps the ball cut through the air.
- As far as distance goes, I’m not seeing anything crazy in that regard. Carry numbers are about where I expect them…..I did notice a few shots yesterday where I was almost certain I would come up short of the green after hitting it a tad heavy only to find myself still getting onto the green.

The most impressive part of this ball for me is still how it performs into the greens. What Bridgestone calls a “Tour Caliber Urethane Cover”. I’m the first to admit not knowing anything about golf ball technology. I know that urethane is good and typically that a 3 piece ball is better although the e5 is a 2 piece offering. I’ve played a ton of balls in the sub $30 category such as the previous e5, Duo’s, and my prior gamer the Q-Star. This one undoubtedly gives me more stopping power/spin into greens. Had 2 different iron shots yesterday backup a solid 5-6 feet and that was just unheard of for me with the prior balls I’ve played. Heck, I couldn’t even do that with the previous B330-RX (but I can with the new hydrocore).

Lastly I will touch on the durability. It is absolutely fantastic and has continually caught me by surprise after hitting a tree/cart path/blading a wedge, etc.

I’ve said it numerous times that I still prefer a yellow ball but that aside, the e5 is the best ball I’ve ever played under $30 and could easily be my gamer for a long long time.

The spin you got on those shots into the green was cool to see for sure.

Nice Cookie - hard to argue with the value there for what it is. I've been hitting this quite a bit indoors lately and it's definitely going to make it in the rotation when I need more golf balls.

Anyone here who has traditionally been an e6 player switching to these? Just wondering if anything with this version makes anyone consider switching? I've always been tempted to give the e5 a try but I've never hit one.

gmiller598 said:

Anyone here who has traditionally been an e6 player switching to these? Just wondering if anything with this version makes anyone consider switching? I've always been tempted to give the e5 a try but I've never hit one.

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I was an E6 player before I was an E5 and the reason I switched was that I couldn't get the E6 to check on any kind of shot. The E5 is a lot better for me in that regard.

I also put the 2015 versions against each other and it was the same story as before for me.


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