Nike golf balls are back. But this time without the swoosh let me explain [Music] so this story starts back in 2011 when nike moved away from a rubber core to a resin core now the idea that it was lighter that could manipulate the material to make it a bigger core to make the ball faster to make you hit the ball longer distances in 2014 they brought out another new version. And then.
In 2016 they brought out the final version because as you know nike stopped making golf equipment in 2016. now these golf balls i've got in my hand right now with the very final edition of the nike golf ball from 2016 and they're really hard to get hold of luckily my good friend dan from instagram who's a massive nike fan sent them over now i must admit of all the times i've tested nike golf balls i was never the biggest fan. But i felt like they were getting better. And better each time and certainly this golf ball i thought was their best product. So far as you know 2016 these vanished now a couple of weeks ago somebody sent me a link to some new golf balls so i thought i'd check them out and i bought some under these now does that box look familiar resin the rzn even look at this got the same design on the golf ball. So i did a little bit of digging. So this box of golf balls cost me 22.99 as soon as they arrived i took them out of the box and had a proper look at them and i couldn't believe how similar they looked compared to the nike golf ball that dan sent me i mean literally exactly the same same dimple pattern same dimple in dimple by the logos there is no big difference. So i went on their website to find out a little bit more information and what i found is very interesting. And this is what i found on the website in 2011 we worked closely with the customers r d team to develop the first tour level urethane covered golf ball with resin technology from 2011 to 2016 golf ball with resin technology helped elite golf athletes claim more than 50 wins in professional golf tours around the world which included pga tour lpga tour pga european tour ladies european tour. And including four majors since our customer made its strategic business decision to transition out of golf equipment in august of 2016 sounds familiar right we have made our commitment to take over the production of golf balls and keep supplying premium golf balls to golfers of every level so my suspicions true they were facts the guys who were making the nike golf ball fente enterprises the business they bought the painting in 2016. And they now make that same golf ball but under their own branding so in the uk there's three models available there's a tour a star and a force golf ball i actually bought all three of them but for me the tour was the one that probably intrigued me the most now since buying those i also saw in the us they actually have a four piece golf ball this is only three one in the us is four piece which i'd love to get my hands on potential to review it's a little bit more expensive at 35 a dozen i want to see if these were any decent a 22 pound 99 that is a good price if the ball performs. So i want to talk about looks first because a couple of things i really like first off this line that's painted on the side really clean really clear great for alignment the other big thing i like is the fact it's not perfectly pearly white it's a slight off-white which always gives me the feel it's going to be a very soft urethane cover. So the first place i went to was the putting in chipping green i wanted to see what the feel of this golf ball is like i've gotta say this golf ball feels really nice it's not super soft. But it's soft enough again reminds me of the nike golf ball i also hit some little chips with it felt great with the wedge and actually spun really nice into the green one thing i was always really impressed with the nike golf ball is the durability i test this golf ball. For durability as well i'll tell you that in a while you gotta remember why did they use resin in the first place why was that a big talking point because it was about speed it was about distance it's about getting the best energy transfer. So i jumped here in the home simulator to test that i hit it with sand wedge seven iron and driver and the performance was very nice indeed i felt like i've got really good control off the wedge my spin numbers were nearly 10 000 rpm which is exactly what i want from a premium golf ball. And then.
With the seven iron good distances again 173 yards of carry the spin numbers were just a fraction lower than i've seen with some premium golf balls. But again i don't think that's going to make a massive difference. And again they felt fantastic on full shots and then.
We moved on to driver so i wanted to see if this golf ball was going to be super long. And as much as it wasn't the longest golf ball i've ever tested it wasn't disappointing either around about 280 yards of carry again really good spin numbers decent ball speed it comes back to my other point the durability i hit 10 shots in a bunker and a lot of the time on a soft urethane covered golf ball you do see scratches you do see some damage the 10 shots honestly the golf ball still look brand new there was a there was maybe one. Or two marks i've got to give huge credit for the durability and that's sometimes where a lot of brands that are cheaper price point i've tested other balls in that category do really struggle this didn't struggle there. So so far i've done all the tests i wanted to do feel distance durability everything was good. So far the last thing to do is chop it in half let's see what the center looks like is it nice. And symmetrical and also what does it even look like. And inside that's really interesting three layers i kind of expected it to look blue or to look different but it doesn't there's not loads and loads going on it looks very symmetrical there's nothing that concerns me at all there that is the resin ball chopped in half. So in summary it's a good golf ball and you think. For the price it's a very good golf ball it got me thinking when nike were making this golf ball with the swoosh on it it was nearly 40 pound a dozen nearly double the price. And was that because of the extra r d. Or was it to pay. For tiger woods's wages something to consider we'll see you next.
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