FIELDREPORT
Soſt Sell
“The ball that changed the ball” is a pretty serious claim – but that hasn’t stopped Callaway from making it. Here Dave Bartels, the brand’s head of ball innovation and R&D, explains why he feels Chrome Soſt could change the way we look at the golf ball
T
here was a time not so long ago when we seemingly chose a golf ball’s compression based on
what we could bench press. Ninety was just about acceptable; but real men used 100 and, every now then, you’d hear dressing-room whispers of some category-one ogre who apparently used 110. But today, Callaway are trumpeting
the message that even the most boisterous of back-tee blasters will do absolutely fine with a compression of just 65. The ball in question is the Chrome Soſt, launched at the back end of 2014. Originally conceived as a ball for the average club player, Chrome Soſt took a change of direction when
Callaway staffer Phil Mickelson trialled it and pronounced it as long as the Speed Regime 3 ball he gamed… but with a soſter and, for him, a preferable
But in early
tests, we were also getting reports of how much longer the ball was with irons.
feel. “We learned from Phil that even the very elite player can experience similar if not better performance to a tour ball with a ball that’s some 30-40 compression points soſter,” says Dave Bartels, the brand’s head of golf ball innovation and R&D. “The ball offers the same power, with as much spin, feel and control around the green. But vitally, it does it without giving the firmer feel of the solid-core, multi-layer balls that form the basis of current premium balls. This is why we consider Chrome Soſt a paradigm shiſt in golf balls.” Bartels feels that to understand
Chrome Soſt, you must first park the preconception that a soſt ball is a spinny
34 SGBGOLF
Dave Bartels, Head of innovation and R&D
ball. “That notion has been around since the days of wound balata,” he says. “But in fact, the more you compress the ball, the more it deforms and the less it spins. “Traditionally, however, the
disadvantage with soſter cores is that, as they deform at high driver speeds, you lose ball speed and energy. That is why solid core balls have always had a firmer feel, ever since 2000 when we brought out the Rule 35 and Titleist the Pro V1. Those balls created a step change in distance, with 10-15 yards added almost overnight.”
But in developing Chrome Soſt, Bartels and his team came up with a new and more resilient core formulation that retained its soſtness while mitigating energy loss. “The SoſtFast core enabled us to build a three-piece ball that offers very low spin off the tee, the same initial high ball speeds of a firmer core, and plenty of greenside performance through the urethane cover.
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