Ballnamic Review – Golf Ball Fitting Tool
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If you’ve ever been unsure which golf ball you should use, Ballnamic may be the tool for you. If you’re like me, you might have randomly picked a golf ball based on what others use or what you heard is a good ball rather than getting fit. In this Ballnamic review, I’ll cover the process of using Ping’s fitting tool and if it might be helpful for you.
What is Ballnamic?
Ballnamic is Ping’s golf ball fitting tool. It takes data you input about your driver and seven iron and applies it to Ping’s golf ball data to determine which golf balls are best suited to your unique ball-flight characteristics. The tool costs $39 to cover their effort in gathering the data and provides access to the tool for one year.
The Ballnamic Process
When using Ballnamic, you can input specific ball data numbers (if you can access a launch monitor) or general information. If possible, I think it’s a good idea to get the actual numbers by finding a simulator, but the tool will work either way.
Before starting, gather the following data points:
- Your handicap
- Current ball brand and model
- Playing temperature and altitude (this can be added by typing in your zip code)
- Driver: ball speed, launch angle, and spin rate
- 7-Iron: ball speed, launch angle, and spin rate
- Wedge: no numbers are required here, just if you prefer more spin and how important it is to you
Make sure to use the specific ball you selected to do these measurements, as the results are based on how that ball performs in their dataset.
After entering this information and paying the fee, Ballnamic will present you with a list of the five best golf balls.
My Fitting Results
After inputting my data, I can see that my ball speed tends to be in the middle range, I launch the ball too high, and my spin rate is around the middle to slightly higher end. Input my data using a Pro V1, which I’ve played most often, but I have experimented with AVX, Pro V1x, Chrome Soft LS, and some Vice balls.
Ballnamic recommends the Titleist AVX for me as a 96.8% match because it performs near the top in distance, has good wedge spin, and doesn’t go quite as high as the Pro V1 I had been using (a 92.4% match, so I had done a pretty good job of selecting my current ball). They estimate this gains me a few extra yards on a standard shot and 5.5 yards in the wind.
The tool also provides four other ball matches I could try out if I don’t go with the top selection and gives data about what I can expect from those balls. For example, if I wanted to maximize my distance, I could choose a Pro V1x Left Dash for an extra couple of yards, or if I played in the wind often, a Chrome Soft might be a good match.
I can also go back and tweak my data to see what other results it gives me. For example, if I work on lowering my launch angle, I can see that the Left Dash becomes an even better option while the AVX continues to be a good choice.
Ballnamic Review – My Thoughts
Overall, I found this tool very helpful in narrowing down what golf balls I will test and giving me confidence that I’m using the right one. It’s a bit expensive (a little less than buying a dozen balls), but I like having confidence in my selection.
If you wanted to save money, you could do some tests on a launch monitor yourself (and refer to our golf ball compression chart), but that’d require getting different balls and spending time, and it isn’t easy to detect all the slight differences in the balls this tool covers. Manufacturers offer some free ball selection tools, but they’re biased toward their brands, where this tool is agnostic.
If you’re spending hundreds of dollars annually on golf balls, this is an excellent option to help you find the best match for your game.
Pros
- Find the best ball for your game
- Detailed stats and charts to compare golf balls
Cons
- Somewhat expensive
- Access for only one year
