Speaker 1: The guys from paying.
Speaker 2: They've kind of showed me how much the equipment matters.
Speaker 2: I just love that I can hit any shot I
Speaker 2: kind of want.
Speaker 3: We're gonna be able to tell some fun stories about
Speaker 3: what goes on here to help golfers play better golf.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the Pining Proving Grounds Podcast. I'm Shane Bacon.
Speaker 2: That is Marty Jertsen. Marty is escaping the Arizona summer heat,
Speaker 2: staying in Arizona, but not at the proving grounds right now?
Speaker 2: Is can we call this like the remote proving grounds
Speaker 2: when you when you get get away from Phoenix.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean not joking. If me and a few
Speaker 3: co workers were playing a little research around at seven
Speaker 3: five hundred feet this afternoon and we're gonna be testing
Speaker 3: the impact of altitude and it's windy outside, on on
Speaker 3: on on ball flight, see what happens.
Speaker 2: Do you when you play golf? Can you check away
Speaker 2: from it? Like I mean, you know, you're you're talking about,
Speaker 2: you know, thinking about altitude, or it's a windy day,
Speaker 2: or you have a shot in the rough. Are you
Speaker 2: able to kind of separate that type of stuff from
Speaker 2: your brain always thinking and churning out ideas around what
Speaker 2: could come from this shot or that shot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a good question, shit, because as you know,
Speaker 3: and I think all the all the listeners out there
Speaker 3: are getting some insight into you know, I can be
Speaker 3: pretty analytical about my decision making and preparedness. But the
Speaker 3: framework that I like to have, which is the answer
Speaker 3: to your question, is very much. You know, I was
Speaker 3: a big fan of p and Len and Vision fifty
Speaker 3: four in their concept and they're amazing ping ambassadors for
Speaker 3: us now and have really helped us bring in some
Speaker 3: different thinking when it comes to our club fitting process.
Speaker 3: They have this concept called the think box in the playbox,
Speaker 3: and it's part of your preshot routine. And so I
Speaker 3: do all my analytical work, my math, my calculations, my flyers,
Speaker 3: my wind green reading in what I call the what
Speaker 3: they would refer to and what I kind of think
Speaker 3: of as the think box, and then in my routine,
Speaker 3: I have a method of breathing based and all this
Speaker 3: visualization based where I flip that switch and I go
Speaker 3: to what they called the playbox. And so I feel
Speaker 3: like it's literally I feel like I'm flipping a light switch,
Speaker 3: like I'm going from analytical mode to athlete mode.
Speaker 2: I feel like we need to have them on the
Speaker 2: pod soon because I'm fascinated by what they do and
Speaker 2: I kick myself a lot for not maybe taking more
Speaker 2: advantage of them being out in Arizona when I live there,
Speaker 2: because what you're talking about that stepping over the line
Speaker 2: and getting into the golf shot, and it's something I
Speaker 2: struggle with, Marty. I mean, I have times playing tournament
Speaker 2: golf or competitive golf where I'm getting into my shot
Speaker 2: still kind of thinking about how I either want to
Speaker 2: play the shot or is this the right shot? When
Speaker 2: you're over the ball or when you're in the what
Speaker 2: is it the think box or the playbox, it's like
Speaker 2: you that's all done, Like we're done with that part.
Speaker 2: Now it's time to execute the golf shot.
Speaker 1: Yeah you're going to reaction mode.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we got to have them on because they have
Speaker 3: some great ways to frame and think about it. Regardless
Speaker 3: of how much experience you have as a tournament golfer, right,
Speaker 3: everyone's going to get a little inside out of their methodologies,
Speaker 3: their research, which are time tested. I mean you just
Speaker 3: look at the players they've worked with and how good
Speaker 3: they play. That's the ultimate judge of a coach in
Speaker 3: my opinion, you know, do they coach players and do
Speaker 3: they play good? And they got the ultimate record? They're
Speaker 3: them and butch, I guess.
Speaker 2: Yeah, does that Marry? Are you? Are you benefitting from
Speaker 2: what we're telling you? Then it's a success and this
Speaker 2: partnership works. Uh. Interesting topic today because when you think
Speaker 2: about Ping. Now, if you're an old school Ping you know, fan,
Speaker 2: or someone that's been involved with the brand for decades,
Speaker 2: you probably remember the Ping golf balls. We've discussed it
Speaker 2: a couple of times on the podcast. Not in manufacturing anymore,
Speaker 2: the Ping golf balls not a thing. We're going to
Speaker 2: talk about golf balls today, but more specifically ball fitting.
Speaker 2: And again, very interesting to talk about that about Ping
Speaker 2: podcasts because when you think about golf balls, you're going
Speaker 2: to think about other golf brands out there. How much
Speaker 2: time do you guys spend on the golf ball, even
Speaker 2: with Ping not manufacturing golf balls.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it is a great question, Shane, And a
Speaker 3: lot of what we do goes back to our founder
Speaker 3: Carson Soolheim. He had this famous quote that the golf
Speaker 3: ball is the tuning fork for club design. Okay, right,
Speaker 3: and man, that statement was very profound and ahead of
Speaker 3: its time, because as the golf ball has evolved, if
Speaker 3: we're not in the business of making balls right and
Speaker 3: selling balls, if we aren't paying attention to what they're doing,
Speaker 3: we're flying blind into what is optimal in our driver design,
Speaker 3: what is optimal in our iron design. So we've always
Speaker 3: had to test balls. Obviously, back in the days, we
Speaker 3: used to make balls and do R and D on them,
Speaker 3: but we've always tested them, and the main motivation is
Speaker 3: to stay in touch with what is the golf ball
Speaker 3: kind of on average doing so that we could optimize
Speaker 3: our clubs. Now, what's been very interesting is over the
Speaker 3: last like ten years or so, we noticed that golf
Speaker 3: balls started to have very diverse and unique performance characteristics.
Speaker 2: Okay, so is this like brand a brand? I mean,
Speaker 2: if you're thinking about a Titleist versus a Taylor Made,
Speaker 2: or is it even within brands, like a prov one
Speaker 2: X versus a prov one Exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So you got a you know, I think that's
Speaker 3: a good example. You got the pro v one X,
Speaker 3: which now they kind of reverse the X and the
Speaker 3: V one and the V one there. But now the
Speaker 3: pro v one X is the highest flying then you
Speaker 3: got the V one and the AVX that are low flying.
Speaker 3: Then you got the left dash in the middle right.
Speaker 3: So uh, the question for the everyday golfer is, you know,
Speaker 3: what is the right ball for them? And what are
Speaker 3: these things do?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 3: And for us on the equipment side, and I started
Speaker 3: taking a look at this scenario seeing how much golf
Speaker 3: balls varied in performance. And then again Shane under that
Speaker 3: on that that kind of motivation that we want to
Speaker 3: pass tools that are available for the tour player to
Speaker 3: the everyday golfer. That's kind of like our motivation. We
Speaker 3: saw our tour players when we were fitting and this
Speaker 3: kind of started for me. That aha moment was when
Speaker 3: we were working with Tony fe Now on the G
Speaker 3: four hundred Max driver and he loved this driver. Everything
Speaker 3: was perfect, but it was spinning a couple hundred RPMs
Speaker 3: too much and his ball speed. That's a big deal
Speaker 3: because for sure we got our optimal launching spin chart.
Speaker 3: He's a couple hundred. He's like two hundred and fifty
Speaker 3: three hundred RPMs too high. He sees it kind of
Speaker 3: having that little rise in the flight that he doesn't
Speaker 3: like if it gets wind he's gonna make him nervous, right.
Speaker 2: And Marty, real quick, when you're talking to somebody like
Speaker 2: Tony fen now and you're talking two hundred RPMs different,
Speaker 2: what is that equate to in terms of maybe distance
Speaker 2: for him, even outside of it spinning or the look
Speaker 2: of it. What's that distance loss for somebody like Tony
Speaker 2: with that minimal variation.
Speaker 3: If there's no wind, it could only be like five
Speaker 3: yards on the driver. Oka, But I think it's really
Speaker 3: when you for him, when you get that puff a wind, right,
Speaker 3: you get that breeze, you get that cross wind, you
Speaker 3: want the flight to be stable, and it could affect
Speaker 3: not only your distance, but also then your dispersion. Right,
Speaker 3: Let's say you got that little rise in your flight
Speaker 3: that crossed when then it starts to bleed offline a
Speaker 3: little bit in that pain we've all kind of seen
Speaker 3: and felt in our ball flight. So what Tony did,
Speaker 3: working with our tour reps was he didn't. He was like, okay,
Speaker 3: let's not change the driver. And one of our tour
Speaker 3: reps went in and got this new ball. You know,
Speaker 3: it goes lower at might work, and he pulled out
Speaker 3: the pro V one left dot ball. He hit that
Speaker 3: thing and actually we looked this was the most interesting
Speaker 3: part Shaine. He hit it and he was like, WHOA,
Speaker 3: that's amazing. And it flew lower, it took the rise
Speaker 3: out of the fly. He's like, this thing's perfect. Then
Speaker 3: he worked it around the greens. It spun a lot
Speaker 3: around the greens, which he liked, so he wanted that combination.
Speaker 3: But on the track man, the spin rate of that
Speaker 3: ball was almost identical to what he'd been playing. I
Speaker 3: think he might have been playing the Ax at the time,
Speaker 3: and so we're like, why is that, Like the spin
Speaker 3: is the same, but they're flying different. And then we
Speaker 3: started diving into some other test data that we did
Speaker 3: on our ping man robot, and we found that balls
Speaker 3: could have very similar initial spin but fly aero dynamically
Speaker 3: very different. And there was actually another ball in the
Speaker 3: market that was coming out, and this is kind of
Speaker 3: when tour players are all popping the fore side down
Speaker 3: yep and measuring everything, as we've seen on TV. As
Speaker 3: we've seen on tour, they're measuring every shot. And another
Speaker 3: ball came out that was super high spin, but they
Speaker 3: go play it on the course and it fly really
Speaker 3: really low, and that really confused the tour players. They
Speaker 3: start to ask us about it, and we go, holy moly,
Speaker 3: the aerodynamics is a really big deal. It's not just
Speaker 3: the initial spin. So I think as golfers we all say,
Speaker 3: and as fitters we all say, oh, this ball spins
Speaker 3: a lot, This ball spins a little spin, drives height.
Speaker 3: That's kind of okay to say in slang. But that's
Speaker 3: only half the equation. There's the initial what's happening. Then
Speaker 3: there's the down range aero dynamics, and that is a
Speaker 3: really big deal. So this whole Tony fen Now thing,
Speaker 3: you know, we we were kind of perplexed, like.
Speaker 1: What should we do? What? What?
Speaker 3: What ball should we design our clubs for? And we
Speaker 3: kind of turned that question on its head and said, hey,
Speaker 3: let's instead figure out how to deliver club fitting like
Speaker 3: Tony got with club ball, fitting synergistically to the everyday golfer.
Speaker 3: And that's that was kind of the you know, the
Speaker 3: genesiss of where we got this idea to to to
Speaker 3: turn our ball testing that we do into a product
Speaker 3: and being able to fit club and ball together synergistically.
Speaker 2: Marty, I'm starting to get the sense that you like
Speaker 2: solutions in golf I'm starting to kind of feel like
Speaker 2: that's one of your favorite things. I almost feel like
Speaker 2: when a problem pops up like something like this with Tony,
Speaker 2: you're going, oh, yeah, no, I'm in on this project.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, So is this is this Ballnamic? Is this
Speaker 2: where ball Namic started at Ping?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm We've We've always done a lot of testing
Speaker 3: on balls. We even built this, you know, you've seen
Speaker 3: it there at the proving grounds. We have ping Man.
Speaker 3: Then we have another machine. We call it sling Man. Yes, yes,
Speaker 3: and we built that machine to sling golf balls out
Speaker 3: at any combination of ball speed, launch, and spin. We
Speaker 3: can send out knuckleballs but no spin at two hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty miles an hour if we wanted to. We
Speaker 3: don't do that, but that allowed us in My colleague,
Speaker 3: doctor Paul Wood, who is literally a solar physicist. He's
Speaker 3: the VP of Engineering at Ping, who went to the
Speaker 3: University of Saint Andrews and as a solar physicist. His
Speaker 3: first job when we hired him from Saint Andrews was
Speaker 3: to develop a ball model which is hey be able
Speaker 3: to predict the flight using you know, lift and drag coefficients.
Speaker 3: And they done a bunch of research on bounce and roll,
Speaker 3: and the physics of that is quite tough. So that
Speaker 3: was his kind of first project, and we've continued to
Speaker 3: evolve and make that better and better and leverage our
Speaker 3: test data that we've done on golf balls.
Speaker 2: You mentioned ping Man, I just want to tell people,
Speaker 2: and hopeful we have video we can lay over this,
Speaker 2: but there's literally like a sprit seen mechanism now that
Speaker 2: can sprits the golf ball with water if you guys want,
Speaker 2: obviously the ball to react like that. To see those
Speaker 2: processes through the technology, to see how much available variability
Speaker 2: there is in terms of just simply testing a golf
Speaker 2: ball or a swing or wind. What time you guys
Speaker 2: go out there and test balls, I mean normally it's
Speaker 2: in the middle of the night, which is just so wild.
Speaker 2: I think it's like two or three in the morning,
Speaker 2: because obviously that's the least amount of a variable in
Speaker 2: terms of wind or temperature or whatever. It is so
Speaker 2: wild to see. Can you dive a little deeper in
Speaker 2: how balnamic works in terms of a player like myself? Right,
Speaker 2: I played the Provy one X. I've played it basically
Speaker 2: since the Provy one X became a golf ball I mean,
Speaker 2: I remember I was in I was in high school.
Speaker 2: I would play and you'll probably appreciate this. I either
Speaker 2: played the professional from titleist or I would dabble occasionally
Speaker 2: in the Royal MAXFI. Do you remember that same Royal
Speaker 2: Same No way, that golf ball is so cool. We
Speaker 2: found them at Sam's once and talked our and talked
Speaker 2: our coaching to buy at them. But I was always
Speaker 2: like more of a titleist golf ball guy. And when
Speaker 2: the prov one popped up and then obviously moved into
Speaker 2: the X, I've been an ex guy. So I come
Speaker 2: to you, Marty, and I say, this is the golf
Speaker 2: ball I typically play. How does this golf ball work
Speaker 2: for the pink clubs that I'm being fit for? Or
Speaker 2: is it the other way around?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think the way we look at golf ball is
Speaker 3: we we want to do it synergistically with your club fitting.
Speaker 3: So if you've already had your clubs kind of dialed,
Speaker 3: you can go into Balnamic and the process flow for
Speaker 3: Balnamic A. It has this underlying database of our ball testing,
Speaker 3: which we kind of touched on. This is where we
Speaker 3: test in the middle of the night. We use a
Speaker 3: radar that can measure lift and drag. We do things
Speaker 3: like sprits them with water because balls can have very
Speaker 3: big differences in being more prone to flyers, so if
Speaker 3: that's important for you, we can take that into consideration.
Speaker 3: We test them on short wedges, full wedges, putting feel.
Speaker 3: You know, balls can fly high on the driver and
Speaker 3: low on the irons and vice versa, so we take
Speaker 3: all that into consideration. So that's kind of the underlying
Speaker 3: database or engine that drives Balnamic, and then the process
Speaker 3: when you go through Balnamic, which is at ballfitting dot com,
Speaker 3: we created a kind of an interview in a fitting
Speaker 3: flow that we literally modeled after the way tour players
Speaker 3: think about golf ball. So it's an educational experience if
Speaker 3: nothing else. Go through it and you'll be educated on
Speaker 3: things you as a golfer should probably be thinking about
Speaker 3: in your golf ball performance. And you can weigh in
Speaker 3: on the results and say, ah, that's really not that
Speaker 3: important to me. This is kind of overkill for me.
Speaker 3: That's totally fine, but that's kind of the process flow.
Speaker 3: So Shane, when you get started through Balnamic, you can
Speaker 3: tell it which golf ball you're currently using if you want,
Speaker 3: or a lot of folks out there are like whatever
Speaker 3: my wife got me for Father's Day, Christmas, right, whatever
Speaker 3: whatever I find on the course. So you don't have
Speaker 3: to put that in, but if you do, you'll get
Speaker 3: comparisons on your best football to your current ball. And
Speaker 3: then what we do is we have you go in
Speaker 3: and you talk about your driver, what you want or
Speaker 3: need on your driver, and it's really cool. You can
Speaker 3: either put in your launch monitor numbers, but you don't
Speaker 3: have to. So if you just got a fitting or
Speaker 3: if we're using it live in a fitting environment, we
Speaker 3: put in your ball speed, launch and spin. And here's
Speaker 3: where that Tony going back to that Tony Feno example
Speaker 3: comes in when we put his launch condition numbers in
Speaker 3: there and he was spinning his driver at twenty eight
Speaker 3: hundred rpm, and we could put that into the app.
Speaker 3: And we have a button that says, well, figure out
Speaker 3: for me if I should be playing a ball that
Speaker 3: flies higher lower, and you click that and it's like
Speaker 3: you should be playing a ball that flies lower, and
Speaker 3: that's what he would get recommended. Right, So it's reverse
Speaker 3: engineered what the tour player can already do, right, And
Speaker 3: being able to do those things. So you kind of
Speaker 3: go through the driver. Is performance in the wind important
Speaker 3: to you or not? Do you need to hit it
Speaker 3: kind of high? Medium, low? And then you tell the
Speaker 3: same thing with your irons. And so this is where
Speaker 3: it gets really cool to marry club fitting and ball
Speaker 3: fitting together. So it kind of talked about on the driver.
Speaker 3: Those are a few good examples, like let's say you
Speaker 3: really like the MAX driver like Tony did, or the
Speaker 3: opposite scenario where you really like the LST driver, right,
Speaker 3: like what I'm playing, right, you really like the LST driver,
Speaker 3: but maybe the spins a little low. Actually, right, you
Speaker 3: can pick a ball that actually spins a little bit more, Shane,
Speaker 3: I know you like to hit that little cut, like
Speaker 3: you want to see that ball move a little bit
Speaker 3: off the tee. You can say, you know, I want
Speaker 3: to see a little bit of that with a little
Speaker 3: bit more height, and you'll get a ball recommendation specifically
Speaker 3: for you. So we kind of have the driver side.
Speaker 3: Then you progress to irons. What do you need in
Speaker 3: the irons, And again you can either put in your
Speaker 3: launch num or just kind of describe how you hit them,
Speaker 3: say hey, I hit them this far launch it kind
Speaker 3: of high spin, it kind of low. Now that's really
Speaker 3: important in the modern day because irons have such big
Speaker 3: differences to how much they spin. You know, both us
Speaker 3: and you know the rest of the market. There's low
Speaker 3: spinning irons, there's high spinning irons. This gets really cool
Speaker 3: on irons when you can marry ball together because we
Speaker 3: have this iron landing angle chart when we talk about
Speaker 3: iron fitting. Hey, I really like the I five twenty
Speaker 3: five irons. Everything about them. I like them.
Speaker 1: I'm hitting them far, but I'm not quite landing.
Speaker 3: Him steep enough. Maybe you don't even change the irons,
Speaker 3: you can switch. Golf Ball is your final little lever
Speaker 3: to kind of tune in your overall performance.
Speaker 2: It feels like the kind of balnamic golf ball portion
Speaker 2: of this is like the dessert to an amazing dinner,
Speaker 2: right where perfect you know you've got, you know you're
Speaker 2: you're fitting if you will is probably the apps. And
Speaker 2: then you start to get your clubs and you're set
Speaker 2: built for you, and that's the entree. And in the
Speaker 2: back end of it, you say, Okay, what's the final
Speaker 2: tweak to make sure all of this stuff plays together?
Speaker 2: Because again, like for you Marty, you go to your
Speaker 2: boss or you start to look up, you know, funding
Speaker 2: for ball Namic and some of these you know, some
Speaker 2: of these tools you're working on, and somebody might say
Speaker 2: to you, we don't even sell ball as a ping
Speaker 2: and you're going, yeah, but this is helpful for our
Speaker 2: equipment because it makes the average golfer's entire experience better
Speaker 2: because now we're making that dessert, that final portion of
Speaker 2: the dinner fit and kind of it's almost like going
Speaker 2: to the French laundry, right, like the yeah thing is
Speaker 2: going to march together, so you know that what you're
Speaker 2: tasting after this is meant to taste like this versus
Speaker 2: what you just had that was maybe a little bit
Speaker 2: more salty, or maybe it was it was not as sweet.
Speaker 1: Oh Man, Shane.
Speaker 3: That's the perfect analogy, and that's how our fitters at
Speaker 3: the proving grounds do it. So when they do their
Speaker 3: club fitting for a player, they're aware of the golf
Speaker 3: ball changes, but they're not necessarily recommending it live in
Speaker 3: real time, right right, we do that at the end.
Speaker 3: It is like the dessert, and in fact, we go
Speaker 3: into that cool locker room where you change and shoes, relaxing,
Speaker 3: getting in from the heat a little bit, using the
Speaker 3: massage gun if you need to, and on the big screen, well, well,
Speaker 3: the fit our fitters at the proving grounds, our master
Speaker 3: fitters will have ball namic and walk you through it
Speaker 3: while you're cooling down. Absolutely, like the dessert of the fitting.
Speaker 2: Just amazing. You know, It's been interesting to kind of
Speaker 2: watch the golf ball landscape change over the last few
Speaker 2: years because I feel like there were three or four
Speaker 2: brands that were always the major golf ball brands, and
Speaker 2: there's a lot more brands popping up even over the
Speaker 2: last year or two.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Are you guys always introducing the new balls and even
Speaker 2: kind of the random companies that make golf balls into
Speaker 2: what you guys are doing, so you're aware of everything
Speaker 2: on the market.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, We have a criteria. It's all documented when you
Speaker 3: go to ball fitting. I't com a witch balls. We
Speaker 3: test okay, so they're the premium kind of eurethane balls
Speaker 3: over twenty dollars and that's a lot. We have to
Speaker 3: do a lot of testing to make sure the database
Speaker 3: is up to date. We update the database at least
Speaker 3: twice a year, but in practice we do it about
Speaker 3: four times a year. The tricky part, Shane is getting
Speaker 3: a zero wind weather conditions that actually is quite challenging
Speaker 3: for us. It's the hardest part of doing our ball testing.
Speaker 3: So yeah, we are, we are. I think one of
Speaker 3: the funnest things about balnamic and a lot of people
Speaker 3: ask that question, well, hey, how often should I go
Speaker 3: through it? I think anytime you do a new club
Speaker 3: fitting would be a good time to go through ball namic.
Speaker 3: So you get a new driver, get new irons, it's
Speaker 3: a good time, or and or just like once a
Speaker 3: year beginning of the playing season. Okay, I got my
Speaker 3: playing season coming up. Because balls change a ton, So
Speaker 3: one thing I think is very important for the listener
Speaker 3: is that just because you always played one model your
Speaker 3: whole life for the last generation, that next time it
Speaker 3: comes out, the performance can totally change. It can change
Speaker 3: in an area you might not even be aware of.
Speaker 3: Like one year the model could be very low spin
Speaker 3: around the greens, and then the next generation that toggle
Speaker 3: goes and whatever the designers did and the manufacturers did,
Speaker 3: it's very.
Speaker 1: High spin around the greens. That may or may not
Speaker 1: be good for you.
Speaker 3: You might be a bump and run type of player
Speaker 3: and having that extra spin might be bad, and that's
Speaker 3: one of the questions that we ask in ball namic.
Speaker 3: So aerodynamically things change, green side spin change, how it
Speaker 3: feels off the putter can all change a year over year.
Speaker 3: So I think a good kind of habit and best
Speaker 3: practice would be either go through it when you're getting
Speaker 3: a club fitting, or at least once a year at
Speaker 3: the beginning of your playing season.
Speaker 2: It's so interesting to talk about the iterations of a
Speaker 2: singular golf ball because kind of going back to the
Speaker 2: prov one X, you know, they're tour players that are
Speaker 2: playing like the twenty eighteen version and the twenty nineteen version.
Speaker 2: You know, there are certain yeared balls that they still
Speaker 2: play because again that one works the best for their
Speaker 2: equipment and the way they like to hit the golf ball.
Speaker 2: And they're not always upgrading to the brand new golf
Speaker 2: ball because again things are changing and it's incremental and
Speaker 2: maybe the fifteen handicap it's not going to totally change
Speaker 2: who they are on the golf course, but for Tony
Speaker 2: Finow or Justin Thomas, it is, and they want to
Speaker 2: be playing the one that they feel like is the
Speaker 2: most comfortable for the equipment, they're playing. You made a
Speaker 2: joke earlier about the guy saying, I play the golf
Speaker 2: ball my wife got me for Christmas or Father's Day.
Speaker 2: What do you say to that fifteen handicap that says, Ah,
Speaker 2: the golf ball doesn't really matter. It doesn't matter which
Speaker 2: ball I play, as long as I'm playing a high
Speaker 2: end golf ball. They're all the same, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it could totally matter. I think.
Speaker 3: For example, you can go into Balnamic and put in
Speaker 3: that you need the driver. The biggest thing that the
Speaker 3: high handicappers do is they curve the ball more, not
Speaker 3: on purpose, they curve the ball more right, and we
Speaker 3: see this when you're trying to hit a stock trajectory shot.
Speaker 3: They just have a lot more curve. You can go
Speaker 3: into Balnamic as a high handicap golfer and put in
Speaker 3: that you need low flying on your drive, and you'll
Speaker 3: get a ball that literally flies straighter. If a ball
Speaker 3: flies lower, it's also going to fly straighter, okay because
Speaker 3: the lift and drag components, so that can straighten out
Speaker 3: your dispersion. That's like a ball fitting hack right there
Speaker 3: for the high handicap golfer. So if you do that
Speaker 3: and then you also say one of the big things
Speaker 3: high handicappers struggle with, oh, how do you spin it
Speaker 3: around the greens? Well, they're not playing a ball that
Speaker 3: can generate the spin around the greens. So those two
Speaker 3: things alone are very low hanging fruit that can really
Speaker 3: have an impact. You know, your on your high hand
Speaker 3: for your high handicap player.
Speaker 2: Marty, it's so crazy to play with golfers in that
Speaker 2: let's say ten to twenty handicap range that play two
Speaker 2: or three times a week and they get the new
Speaker 2: driver every year. Maybe they upgrade their irons every couple
Speaker 2: of years, but they don't have any grooves left on
Speaker 2: their wedges, or they don't clean the faces of their
Speaker 2: wedges that often. And to your point, they're never paying
Speaker 2: attention to what golf ball works for them, what golf
Speaker 2: ball should be playing. Maybe they need to regrip their
Speaker 2: golf clubs. There are little things to every golfer. Again,
Speaker 2: I say this to my friends all the time about fitting,
Speaker 2: and it's been a big part of what we talked
Speaker 2: about on this podcast. But golf is something you're invested in,
Speaker 2: not just financially, but obviously it's your hobby. You know,
Speaker 2: if you're listening to this podcast, there's a very good
Speaker 2: chance that golf is your number one thing you think
Speaker 2: about outside of work in your family. Yet you're not
Speaker 2: willing to put in the time. And it's not a
Speaker 2: lot of time needed to make sure all of your
Speaker 2: equipment matches who you are on the golf course. And
Speaker 2: this is just another step. It's another one of those
Speaker 2: throwaway steps. Like if I called my dad and I said,
Speaker 2: what golf ball are you playing right now? He'd be like, oh,
Speaker 2: I got four in my bag that are different. But
Speaker 2: if he spent an hour on this, it would benefit
Speaker 2: his golf game and it would improve the scoring, which
Speaker 2: is what everybody's looking to do anyway.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, Shane, That's what I think. Again.
Speaker 3: What makes Bollnamic very exciting is that, you know, the
Speaker 3: testing that we have no golfer can practically go out.
Speaker 3: You know, we have like sixty balls in the database, okay,
Speaker 3: and we've hit hundreds of shots on the The most
Speaker 3: repeatable thing of.
Speaker 1: All time was zero wind.
Speaker 3: I mean, imagine how much we've actually run the math
Speaker 3: on this. For like, let's say Victor Hoblin Tony Feenow
Speaker 3: to be able to hit ball, hit all the balls
Speaker 3: in Balnamic and test them and measure the differences like
Speaker 3: we would with ping Man. Ping Man is so repeatable.
Speaker 3: To measure those golf balls, they would have to hit
Speaker 3: like a hundred balls to ping Man's five. Okay, right,
Speaker 3: because ping Mia can hit it delivered exactly the same.
Speaker 1: And so we've kind of built that.
Speaker 3: Going back to your point there with your dad, he
Speaker 3: can go through Balnamic and it only takes like five minutes, okay.
Speaker 3: But the fact that it's kind of short doesn't mean
Speaker 3: it's not valuable and detailed. It just means we've packed
Speaker 3: a lot of intelligence and we have a lot of
Speaker 3: good underlying data that's driving everything. And then you you
Speaker 3: kind of mentioned earlier, well what about you know, price
Speaker 3: point in all the different array of balls on the market,
Speaker 3: you can actually go to that results page and filter
Speaker 3: by one, two, or three dollars signs gotcha. So if
Speaker 3: you're in there, you're like, Okay, I'm gonna try all
Speaker 3: these premium balls. What does it get me if I
Speaker 3: drag this down some lower price point options? And when
Speaker 3: you get to that results page, Shane, you can you
Speaker 3: can kind of play around and compare things and I
Speaker 3: think a really good way to use Balnamic's Balnamic is
Speaker 3: we don't give you just one ball. We give you
Speaker 3: we give you four or five rank ordered options. And
Speaker 3: on that results page you can see, Okay, this ball
Speaker 3: goes further off the driver. So that's really important to me.
Speaker 3: Even though it's the number two match, that's really important
Speaker 3: to me. I'm gonna try that one first, or go
Speaker 3: out and by a dozen of each of the top three,
Speaker 3: go compare and contrast them yourself.
Speaker 1: It helps you kind of.
Speaker 3: Narrow the focus from the sea of confusion that exists
Speaker 3: and in the golf ball.
Speaker 2: World only growing, by the way, only growing exactly.
Speaker 1: Marty.
Speaker 2: I mentioned that I'm a prov one X golf ball guy,
Speaker 2: and I've been for a long time. I'm interested in
Speaker 2: what golf ball you play. But I heard a story
Speaker 2: that recently you you switched multiple times throughout a round
Speaker 2: the different golf balls. This is one of the question
Speaker 2: I asked to start about your brain always churning. Can
Speaker 2: you tell the story about you winning? Did you win
Speaker 2: a golf tournament changing balls?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I won a little Southwest section event here at
Speaker 3: It was at Los Sende's. Okay and at last send it.
Speaker 3: There's not a lot of the lost send to get
Speaker 3: out there though, Classic Target Desert golf course. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I found out actually during the PGA Championship, I think
Speaker 3: it was Phil Nicholson had switched balls during the round
Speaker 3: and then I asked. I was like, whoa what They're
Speaker 3: not playing the one ball roll? He made like a
Speaker 3: random comment on on Twitter or something. So I asked
Speaker 3: our our tournament director at the Southwest Section, Uh, hey,
Speaker 3: are we playing by the one ball roll? Because I
Speaker 3: didn't read the fine print in our in our rule
Speaker 3: sheet there, and he's like, oh, yeah, we were not playing.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, this is amazing because we've I've
Speaker 3: done a lot of stuff on win Because we have
Speaker 3: this engine, Baldnamic engine, we can do a lot of
Speaker 3: things with wind. How does wind affect your ball flight?
Speaker 3: I've made some people have seen these really cool sheets
Speaker 3: that say, Okay, if the wind's hurting fifteen miles an hour,
Speaker 3: it's going to play twenty yards further and things of
Speaker 3: that nature. That's specific to me, my location, my golf ball.
Speaker 3: So I know that if you change balls, it would
Speaker 3: have a real it would have a really big impact
Speaker 3: on your performance in the wind. Right, that's kind of
Speaker 3: that's one of the lowest level things that I was like,
Speaker 3: I'd always want to do if I could in a tournament.
Speaker 3: I've done it in practice, Like downwind, I'm gonna hit
Speaker 3: a ball that flies high into the wind, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: play a ball that flies low, and it makes an
Speaker 3: enormous difference. So I was like, I'm doing this in
Speaker 3: a tournament, So this is a fresh thing for me.
Speaker 3: Is now I'm gonna play like probably between three to
Speaker 3: five balls and switch them, switch them right there in
Speaker 3: real time in the tournament. So I did that in
Speaker 3: Los Aendas won the tournament. So into the wind holes,
Speaker 3: I play the AVX titlis AVX flies very low and
Speaker 3: the new version still spins a good bin on wedges
Speaker 3: and around the greens, so it wasn't like I was
Speaker 3: sacrificing a lot there. Right then I'd get down wind
Speaker 3: and I'd play the Tour BX or the prov one X,
Speaker 3: depending on where the pin was and how from the
Speaker 3: greens are, because the BX spins a little bit more
Speaker 3: on the wedges and flies low.
Speaker 2: So I mean this is like if it's a front pin,
Speaker 2: you're literally changing complete brand of a golf ball. If
Speaker 2: it's front pin versus a backpin, backpin, you're playing the
Speaker 2: pro v and the front pin you're playing the.
Speaker 1: What is it the bridge the Tour BX.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Tour BX very high spin, so fly signed the driver,
Speaker 3: but it's super high spin on the wedges.
Speaker 1: Okay, right, I'm like, well that I need that downwind.
Speaker 1: That's my perfect down wind ball.
Speaker 3: And then on and then if it was like a
Speaker 3: medium hole, I'd played my normal ball prov one left dot. Now,
Speaker 3: the thing I haven't done yet but I want to
Speaker 3: get into is that in our testing, we see balls
Speaker 3: fly a little bit shorter or further on your irons.
Speaker 3: So let's say I'm between clubs on a par three.
Speaker 3: There's a hard skill for me as a working player,
Speaker 3: Like the tweener yardages are hard, right for me because
Speaker 3: I'm not playing a lot of golf or playing a
Speaker 3: lot like golf. It be easy, but I'm gonna switch
Speaker 3: a ball that either goes further or shorter when I'm
Speaker 3: in between clubs on the par three. So I'm still
Speaker 3: kind of dialing that in. But I think the every
Speaker 3: I mean, I think what I'm doing is a ne
Speaker 3: excellent level of nuance. The everyday golfer might not need
Speaker 3: to play like three to five. But think about this, Shane,
Speaker 3: going back to your high handicapper, they should be playing
Speaker 3: a ball that flies straighter and goes far on par
Speaker 3: fours and fives because distance off the tee is at
Speaker 3: a premium. And then they should play a ball that
Speaker 3: spins more land steeper on par three's. They should definitely
Speaker 3: have a par four part five ball and then a
Speaker 3: par three ball. I think that would be super helpful
Speaker 3: for your everyday player, Marty.
Speaker 2: There's a scene in Rounders. I don't know if you've
Speaker 2: seen the movie Rounders before. There's a scene where Matt
Speaker 2: Damon's character goes into the I think it's like the
Speaker 2: Lawyers or whatever's poker game, and he basically calls everybody's
Speaker 2: hand and they're like, you're officially never allowed to play
Speaker 2: in this game. Before. I feel like this with you
Speaker 2: about playing for money. If you've got five different balls
Speaker 2: in your bag, I'm assuming you're not carrying this bag.
Speaker 2: If you're playing with five.
Speaker 1: We're playing cards. It's one hundred degrees.
Speaker 2: Five or six sleeves in the bag. You're going, hey,
Speaker 2: han me the sleeve that those sleeves are in the
Speaker 2: left side of the bag. This is I mean, my
Speaker 2: mind is blown right now thinking about all this.
Speaker 3: It was really funny walking up to the tee and
Speaker 3: and being and I'd have multiple clubs and multiple balls
Speaker 3: on some t shots okay, and then having to tell
Speaker 3: you're playing partners. I'm switching to a AVX two on
Speaker 3: this whole. Next all, I'm switching to a you know,
Speaker 3: a left dot four.
Speaker 2: You did you ever have a hole where you were
Speaker 2: kind of going up in the fairway going which one
Speaker 2: did I play? What was the way I'm playing? I'm
Speaker 2: assuming you mark all of them the same, like the
Speaker 2: same sharpie mark on whatever the ball, But I would
Speaker 2: get confused in a heartbeat, I I I have a
Speaker 2: hard time remember what hole we're playing when I'm looking
Speaker 2: at the whole location sheet and you've got seven golf
Speaker 2: balls in place. Amazing stuff, but it is fun.
Speaker 3: So we've ran some on what would your optimal launch
Speaker 3: condition We have that beautiful fitting chart, but it's based
Speaker 3: on no wind for driver fitting okay, to maximize distance.
Speaker 3: Now we've run the numbers on Okay, what would your
Speaker 3: launch conditions need to be for like twenty miles an
Speaker 3: hour down wind, and you need to launch it like
Speaker 3: two to three degrees higher with four or five hundred
Speaker 3: rpm more spin into the wind, you want to launch
Speaker 3: it at a degree or two lower and bring your
Speaker 3: spin down another four or five hundred. So the spin
Speaker 3: difference for to maximize distance for into the wind and
Speaker 3: downwind at twenty miles an hours like a thousand RPMs
Speaker 3: of spin. Now, golf ball, just switching ball can cover
Speaker 3: about six hundred RPMs of that difference without having to
Speaker 3: play two drivers or change your swing or hit way
Speaker 3: up or do something crazy. So that shows how much
Speaker 3: of an impact switching ball can be into the wind
Speaker 3: and downwind.
Speaker 2: You gave a tip to the everyday average golfer out
Speaker 2: there about the two golf balls, the par four par
Speaker 2: five ball and par three ball. How best for them
Speaker 2: to figure out which one the par four par five
Speaker 2: ball and when which one's the par three ball when
Speaker 2: they're when they're using balnamic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So a good way to go through balnamic is
Speaker 3: if you if you buy it once, you get five
Speaker 3: fittings in there and you can go tweak things. So
Speaker 3: that's definitely the thing to do. So, go in there
Speaker 3: and put that you want low flight and maximize driver distance. Uh,
Speaker 3: you can put your irons stopping powers kind of medium
Speaker 3: and go get results and that can be your par
Speaker 3: four part five ball. Then go back through and put
Speaker 3: in there that you want your irons to land steeper,
Speaker 3: your wedge is to spin more, and and use that
Speaker 3: to kind of help pick out your your par three ball.
Speaker 2: This feels in a way kind of hold school. And
Speaker 2: when I say that, I mean and you'll appreciate this.
Speaker 2: If if the younger listeners are jumping in, they probably
Speaker 2: aren't going to understand this, but forty fifty and older
Speaker 2: golfers will understand this. There was a time where you
Speaker 2: would kind of use like a pinnacle off the tee
Speaker 2: and you there's a blata kind of like what you're saying.
Speaker 2: It was almost like you'd use the softball on the
Speaker 2: par threes around the greens, and you might use back
Speaker 2: then a harder, firmer golf ball for like longer t shots,
Speaker 2: especially if you're playing in something like a scramble. It
Speaker 2: almost feels like a more advanced version of what used
Speaker 2: to be relatively standard for players. Was you kind of
Speaker 2: had the which ball is going to go far and
Speaker 2: which ball's going to land soft around the greens?
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, Shane.
Speaker 3: I think it's interesting now we're talking about obviously some
Speaker 3: of the rules talk about golf ball and that type
Speaker 3: of thing. Just the value of knowing what you know
Speaker 3: if your tournaments, and it could be high level like
Speaker 3: our section stuff, which the tournaments are adopting different modified
Speaker 3: local rules. You know, it's not that many tournaments are
Speaker 3: adopting the forty six inch rule and the driver for example, Right,
Speaker 3: it's not till you get to a certain levels. So
Speaker 3: now this one ball rule is it's a whole new
Speaker 3: new area of performance. So now that's getting it. That's
Speaker 3: getting pretty nuanced there. I think the biggest takeaway on
Speaker 3: balls is fit your ball to the club synergistically. You
Speaker 3: can't really fit balls that well indoors, Sadly, I wish you,
Speaker 3: I wish we could. I wish launch monitors could. The
Speaker 3: way to do it is to take your launch conditions
Speaker 3: from indoors and feed them into Balnamic and that'll simulate
Speaker 3: your down range flight. So that's another value out of
Speaker 3: Balnamic is being able to get visibility as to what
Speaker 3: would happen outdoors when you're getting numbers and use it
Speaker 3: on a launch monitor indoors.
Speaker 2: Marty, what's your yardage book look like when you play
Speaker 2: tournament golf?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: How many pieces do you have it with you right now?
Speaker 1: Man?
Speaker 2: I don't well, I mean, I'm just wondering, like how
Speaker 2: many sheets are in there? How much information do you have?
Speaker 2: I think I have a note I wrote five years ago.
Speaker 2: They're like, it's like, have fun, good temper. I'm assuming
Speaker 2: yours might be a little more advanced.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll post on social media that win try to
Speaker 3: make is pretty cool.
Speaker 1: It's okay.
Speaker 3: It's kind of like aim point for wind, so it's
Speaker 3: kind of has uh when the winds and if.
Speaker 1: I travel, it's super valuable.
Speaker 3: I think, for sample, when I've played the Colorado Open,
Speaker 3: I always knew anecdotally experientially that the ball curved less
Speaker 3: and it flew a little bit, or the wind affected
Speaker 3: the ball a little bit less. And then I go
Speaker 3: play a tournament at man TPC Harding Park, PGA Championship
Speaker 3: or black Horse Bayonet. We play big tournament there and
Speaker 3: the wind really affects your ball flight, and so we
Speaker 3: have these calculations that we can run and generate how
Speaker 3: much for those conditions and how I hit the ball
Speaker 3: and the ball I'm using the wind affects the ball flight.
Speaker 3: So I have this really cool sheet and people think, oh, man,
Speaker 3: you're on the tee doing taking a lot of time,
Speaker 3: slowing down pace of play. You can do the calculations
Speaker 3: really quick. Okay, you know, so it doesn't really. In fact,
Speaker 3: it saves me time. I think, you know, kind of
Speaker 3: like if you know what you're doing with a point,
Speaker 3: it really doesn't slow people down.
Speaker 1: With priace speeds people up a little bit.
Speaker 2: Where is your brain in terms of what is next?
Speaker 2: Because every time we have these conversations, Barty, I'm just
Speaker 2: floored by the way you are thinking about the game,
Speaker 2: not just personally but obviously for everybody that's thinking about it,
Speaker 2: wanting to play it, wanting to get better. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's basically been kind of your life goal is to
Speaker 2: make golf easier and more fun for people out there.
Speaker 2: Where is your brain in terms of what's next or
Speaker 2: where where you want to focus your attention on next?
Speaker 2: Are you always six months ahead, a year ahead of
Speaker 2: what you're thinking about rolling out or where your focus
Speaker 2: is right now?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think Shane one kind of model for that, and
Speaker 3: I'll give an analogy to another industry, is like what
Speaker 3: the you know in other industries, like what the very
Speaker 3: wealthy people have now everybody will have access to in
Speaker 3: ten years. This would be like a right. You know,
Speaker 3: a fluent person would take a limo to the airport.
Speaker 3: Now you and I take an uber, Right, everyone does. Right,
Speaker 3: It's the same thing. So I think if you back
Speaker 3: up ten years in golf. Ten years ago in golf,
Speaker 3: you know, only the early adopters of tour players had
Speaker 3: trackmen and launch monitors. Now now now the everyday person
Speaker 3: could get a mevo plus or a garment or another
Speaker 3: launch monitored habit at their house, you know. So okay,
Speaker 3: what is the next thing? The tour players have access
Speaker 3: to on course stats, on course play data that they're
Speaker 3: feeding into their practice, training, fitting, equipment strategy. I think
Speaker 3: we're going that direction for the everyday player, which is,
Speaker 3: let's take their on course play data and give them
Speaker 3: some really cool insights about their game and take that
Speaker 3: custom fitting level to the next level, which is looking
Speaker 3: at their on course play. So that's kind of a
Speaker 3: fun way to think about where we're going with technology
Speaker 3: and tools you're.
Speaker 2: Telling me in twenty twenty six you're gonna have Shane
Speaker 2: bacon Stross game putting available for a year, that that's
Speaker 2: that's a possibility. Maybe maybe a few maybe twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 3: And we'll push you a little nudge that, hey, you
Speaker 3: might want to tweak your putter based on what we're
Speaker 3: seeing out there.
Speaker 2: Listen, the putter has been awesome lately. Yeah, I know,
Speaker 2: I will say this, Marty. The golf game, I it's
Speaker 2: it's so funny how the mind is basically the driver
Speaker 2: of your golf game. Right if your mind's in a
Speaker 2: good place, goll feels very easy and right now to me.
Speaker 2: And I mean I'm not jinxed in anything because you know,
Speaker 2: I've got some qualifiers and stuff coming up, but I
Speaker 2: feel very at peace on the golf course, especially in
Speaker 2: tournament conditions. I feel very at peace on the greens.
Speaker 2: And I listen, I know this is a PING podcast,
Speaker 2: and I know I'm a PING ambassador, but there's a
Speaker 2: level of comfort I've felt with my equipment right now
Speaker 2: that I'm not sure I've ever felt because everything's kind
Speaker 2: of you know, you know, synergistically set, yeah, and put together.
Speaker 2: And I know all of it's so right for what
Speaker 2: I'm trying to do. I love the putter. I've just
Speaker 2: been such a fan of this driver. I'm in it
Speaker 2: far and it's kind of behaving the way I want
Speaker 2: it to. And when you feel comfortable with your equipment,
Speaker 2: and I mean this is any equipment out there. I mean,
Speaker 2: obviously we want you to play ping, but it's an
Speaker 2: equipment out there. If you feel comfortable with it, and
Speaker 2: you feel comfortable with your ball and you're at on
Speaker 2: the golf course, it makes the game feel very simple.
Speaker 2: And that's a nice place to be because I know
Speaker 2: inevitably I'll get to a place where it's not feeling
Speaker 2: like this. Yeah, So to kind of enjoy my time
Speaker 2: in this space has been a lot of fun.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's awesome to hear, Shane. I mean, I know
Speaker 3: it's it's especially the driver and the putter. I mean,
Speaker 3: those are the two most important clubs when you know
Speaker 3: you can lean on them and they're going to be
Speaker 3: able to you know, you know, accommodate what's going on
Speaker 3: with your mechanics your own course. Play golf is hard enough.
Speaker 3: You don't want to be making adaptations to your equipment,
Speaker 3: right and I think that's one of the biggest things
Speaker 3: we talked about, that ven diagram, like, like you know,
Speaker 3: the design of the clubs, the fitting of the clubs.
Speaker 3: If you could take care of that part. Golf's hard
Speaker 3: enough to go out there and handle the emotions and
Speaker 3: all the other preparedness and and all the other skills
Speaker 3: you need to have to play good tournament golf. That's
Speaker 3: awesome to hear keep that momentum going.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not everybody has the Marty sheets in their yardage book,
Speaker 2: but we can listen to Marty and take all of
Speaker 2: this information and apply it to our golf game. Very
Speaker 2: interesting stuff, I am. I'm fascinated every time I get
Speaker 2: a chance to chat with you on these things that
Speaker 2: I A didn't quite understand headed in and B feel
Speaker 2: like I have a new appreciation for on the back
Speaker 2: end of this. So thank you for that. Thank you
Speaker 2: for the time. Enjoy not being in the Phoenix heat
Speaker 2: for at least a few more days, and enjoy a
Speaker 2: little altitude. Golf always nice. When the ball goes what
Speaker 2: fifteen twenty percent longer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's going to go longer and straighter. The ball
Speaker 3: also goes straighter up here.
Speaker 2: See that we're gonna get it, by the way, we're
Speaker 2: gonna get into wind and altitude and water on the
Speaker 2: face in future episodes. So a big thanks to everybody
Speaker 2: for listening and subscribing, and we'll be back next week.