One of the goals for this site is to help you guys get top notch performance at a reasonable price. One of the most over looked piece of equipment is the ball. Most folks say whatever ball works then they go grab a Callaway Supersoft for 25 bucks a dzn or even worse they grab a tour level ball and pay 50 bucks a dzn. We have seen a major influx in DTC and inexpensive performance golf balls. This test is here to see if golfers can get close to tour ball performance for Super Soft money. Let me get this part out of the way, Its me I am the decider. There is no formula, there is no panel. Its me. If you have a problem with that…. not much I can do for you. With that being said here are the contenders

THE CONTENDERS

• Chrome Soft X LS-$3.56/ball (entered to see if cheap balls were as good as a tour)
• Kirkland Signature Performance+- $1.04/ball
• Spalding SD Tour X- $2.08/ball
• Mizuno RB Tour X – $2.91/ball
• Maxfli Tour X- $2.50/ball* If bought as part of 2 for $60 sale
• Quantix F18 Tour- $2.75/bal

My goal was to keep it to golf balls under $35/dzn. 3 of the 6 tested are sub $30 a dozen which is incredible. The Kirkland Signature is a Costco special. If you already have a membership you can find these in 2 dozen packs for $25.

Feel

I want to remind everyone feel is subjective. What feels good to me may not feel good to you BUT this could be a starting spot for you.

1. Mizuno RB Tour X
2. Kirland Signature Performance+
3. Maxfli Tour X
4. Callaway Chrome Soft X LS
5. Quantix F18 Tour
6. Spalding SD Tour X

I prefer a softer feeling golf ball. The Mizuno was a great feeling ball. Sometimes a ball can get too soft but that wasnt the case. Off the putter it felt really good. Off the driver it was soft enough to be in my wheel house in terms of feel but wasnt so soft I felt like I was hitting a marshmallow. On the opposite side of the spectrum the Spalding is designed for you if you like a firm golf ball. When I hit my first ball with it my first comment was “oh shit thats firm”. It doesnt feel bad per se but it wasnt my favorite. The most surprising was the Kirkland. They did a great job of getting that thing to feel soft. It could feel a little too soft off the putter in my opinion. The only reason the Quantix scored so low is because it was too soft off the driver. It almost felt dead. There is a certain sound and feel I expect from a golf ball and the Quantix didnt make that sound. Its rare to think a ball is too soft but the Quantix was in my opinion

On Course Performance

I will break this down into 3 categories: Wedge, Iron and Driver performance on course. Lets start around the green and work our way to the tee box

Wedge Performance

1. Maxfli Tour X
2. Mizuno RB Tour X
3. Quantix F18 Tour
4. Callaway Chrome Soft X LS
5. Kirkland Signature Performance
6. Spalding SD Tour X

The Maxfli Tour X is an absolute treat in this category. Greenside the ball performed exactly as I remember when I first tested it. Every ball checked up exactly as I expected it to. On full wedge shots the ball does what it needs to do. The ball would land take a hop and just stop. In some cases I could actually get the ball to spin back a little bit too. I felt fully confident standing over the ball with a wedge. I cant exactly say the same about the Spalding. It just didnt feel like it spun like the others. It was still pretty good but the ball would just roll out a little more than I wanted around the green. I tend to be pretty aggressive with my green side shots and the Spalding didnt allow me to be as aggressive as I like. The other surprising performer was the Quantix F18 Tour. The first few shots with the Quantix around the green wasnt great but I quickly figured out that it was a swing issue. Once I got it all squared away the ball was really good around the greens. Full wedge shots were great as well. Less spin it seemed than the top 2 finishers but pretty damn close

Iron Performance

1. Mizuno RB Tour X
2. Callaway Chrome Soft X LS
3. Maxfli Tour X
4. Quantix F18 Tour
5. Spalding SD Tour X
6. Kirkland Signature Performance+

This category was the hardest to decide. Out on the course they all performed really well. I think the reason I liked the Mizuno the most was the fact it spun a lot. I did lose a little distance but I’m talking maybe a couple of yards. I never seemed to hit it way left or way right. The Chrome Soft really begun to show off at this point. Distance wise it felt much longer than anything else besides maybe the Spalding. Honestly though all 6 of these golf balls were acceptable with the irons.

Driver Performance

1. Callaway Chrome Soft X LS
2. Spalding SD Tour X
3. Maxfli Tour X
4. Quantix F18 Tour
5. Kirkland Signature Performance+
6. Mizuno RB Tour X

The driver was a big differentiator with these balls on the course. The Callaway just exploded off the face and I was seeing a couple of drives that I hadnt hit in a very long time. The ball was crushed. The downside though was it had a tendency to move off line a little more. Not so much that it was going OB but the left rough vs the left side of the fairway. The distance though more than made up for it. The Spalding just pierced through the sky. I never really got that high spinny floater with the Spalding. The big disappointment was the Mizuno. It was probably 5-6 yards behind the Callaway and Spalding. I liked it with my wedges and irons because of its spin and I would have to imagine the spin is what killed it with the driver

Overall on Course Ranking

1. Mizuno RB Tour X
2. Maxfli Tour X
3. Callaway Chrome Soft X LS
4. Quantix F18 Tour
5. Kirkland Signature Performance+
6. Spalding SD Tour

While the Mizuno didnt perform great with the driver it was the ball I always felt most comfortable standing over. The longest stretches that I played with one ball were with the Mizuno. I couldnt seem to lose one. The ball just flew straight. Was it as long as the Callaway? Absolutley not but it did everything I wanted it to do. The Maxfli was a close second. It was a perfect blend of the Mizuno and Callaway. It didnt quite have the distance of the Callaway or the stright flight of the Mizuno.

Simulator Performance

This section I will have 3 overall break downs Driver, Iron and 75 yrd wedge. In this section I am looking for certain numbers. The closer to those numbers frankly the better. Ill point out some of those numbers as we go along. This is the part where it becomes less about me and more about the cold hard numbers. These were all hit on a Foresight Sim.

Driver Sim

The first thing I notice when looking at these numbers is the ball speed. I didnt think I was hitting driver that much better with the Chrome Soft but the fact it is 1.5 MPH faster than anything else is CRAZY. I use carry distance because frankly simulators dont replicate real life roll out. Another big surprise here was the Quantix. 3rd highest carry with the 5th best ball speed. Incredible. I always say the key to distance is high launch low spin and it did that. Highest launch 2nd lowest spin. If the Spalding could produce more ball speed it would kill it. It is a low spin machine. Just like I saw out on course though the Chrome Soft X LS is a machine off the driver

Iron Sim

These were all hit with a 7 iron. When hitting my 7 iron I am looking for a spin rate around 6k. I was always trained to get the spin to the number on the bottom minus 1 multiplied by 1000. Sounds really complicated but its not. 8 iron is 7k spin. 6 iron is 5k spin etc etc. I notice a couple of things almost right away. The first being that the Mizuno had the most ball speed but fell in distance because it actually spun a bit too much. 338 RPMS more than the next nearest competitor is a ton. The biggest surprise was the Quantix. 2nd highest ball speeds but somehow 4th in distance. When I dive deeper its because it had more spin than the Callaway so it will go a bit shorter and the Maxfli was launched higher and spun more so its not a surprise it carried more. You can also see where the Callaways lack of spin may become a bit of a problem. The interesting note though is that it came in with a higher descent angle which means its probably still landing soft.

Wedge Sim

For the 75 yard wedge shot I really wanted the spin number to be around 10,000 but I know how difficult that can be. I also wanted to take a look at descent angle. The higher the number the steeper the descent that combined with a high spin number will help get the ball to stop on the green as quickly as possible. That spin number from the Kirkland is very impressive. While I didnt put dispersion on here because thats more of an indicator of how I hit it the Mizuno was on the flag every single time. It was almost like a laser guided missle. The big miss was the Spalding. Not much spin and the descent angle was the lowest. Granted it wasnt much lower than the Maxfli but the Maxfli was spinning much more.

Winners

In this section I will rank the best overall ball and then rank them based on their performance vs price!

Overall Ranking

1. Callaway Chrome Soft X LS
2. Maxfli Tour X
3. Mizuno RB Tour X
4. Quantix F18 Tour
5. Kirkland Signature Performance+
6. Spalding SD Tour X

I will be honest I was really hoping I would see just incredible performance from one of the more inexpensive balls. The Callaway though just came out and proved why they cost so much. Overall with cost not being an issue the Callaway went further off the driver and did well enough on the short game side. I havent talked a ton about the Maxfli throughout this but if you look through the rankings it was consistently in the top 3. The one I struggled the most with was the Mizuno. Off the driver it was really bad and it didnt do great on the simulator but man there is something to be said about its on course performance that I cant overlook. I could have easily put the Quantix in the Top 3 and if I had to do the test all over again it just might make the top 3. On the bottom side the Spalding didnt feel great and didnt spin enough. It ranked near the bottom of every category. Out on the course I also found that it scuffed easily and I was burning through golf balls. I was surprised by how I ranked the Kirkland. I played the ball almost all last year. I didnt feel like I was losing anything until I hit the other golf balls and found other golf balls just did everything a little better

Best Ball by value

1. Maxfli Tour X
2. Kirkland Signature Performance+
3. Quantix F18 Tour
4. Mizuno RB Tour X
5. Callaway Chrome Soft X LS
6. Spalding SD Tour

The Maxfli really takes the cake if purchased for $30 a dozen. At 35 it becomes a much closer race and the Quantix may jump it but at 30 a dozen it cant be beat. You give up almost nothing to the Callaway and at a $1 less per ball than the Callaway it is amazing. The Kirkland Signature frankly wasnt even close to being the best ball but for a dollar a ball it is impossible to beat. 25 bucks buys you a dozen Tru Feels from Titleist. Id take these over the Tru Feel ANY DAY OF THE WEEK. Hell Srixon Soft Feels which I have gotten as a give away are 22 bucks for a single dozen. If you are playing Tru Feel Or Soft Feel and have a Costco Membership stop buying those golf balls and buy the Kirkland.

Final Thoughts

This is obviously tailored to me and what I like and how I play. If you are someone who wants to knock spin off as much as possible then the Spalding may be the right ball for you. I always say I want to see people playing a urethane covered ball no matter what. I also know that means a jump in price. If youre playing the cheapest golf ball you can find and dont really care too much about your score, then keep playing the 24 pack of Softfli golf balls. If you are buying the Tru Feel from Titleist because it says Titleist and that means its the best then please read this over and reevaluate your choice!