This week’s Tour Winner is the Titleist Pro V1 golf ball played by Ryan Palmer, who won the Sony Open in Hawaii at Waialae Country Club, Honolulu, Hawaii. Palmer beat Robert Allenby (Srixon Z-Star) by one stroke to secure his third career PGA title.

Top 10 Finishers: Sony Open in Hawaii

1 Titleist Pro V1 (Ryan Palmer)
2 Srixon Z-Star (Robert Allenby)
3 Titleist Pro V1 (Steve Sticker)
4 TaylorMade Penta TP (Retief Goosen)
T5 Bridgestone Tour B330-S (Charles Howell III)
T5 Nike One Tour (Carl Pettersson)
T5 Titleist Pro V1x (Davis Love III)
T8 Titleist Pro V1x (Omar Uresti)
T8 Srixon Z-Star (John Rollins)
T8 Titleist Pro V1x (Chad Campbell)
T8 Titleist Pro V1 (Nathan Green)

GolfBallSelector.com Season Leaderboard: (through 2 events)

Tour Winners:
1 Titleist (2 wins)

Season Standings – Top 10 Finishers by Model:**
1 Titleist Pro V1 (295)
2 TaylorMade Penta TP (225)
3 Titleist Pro V1x (135)
4 Bridgestone Tour B330-S (120)
5 Srixon Z-Star (100)
6 Callaway Tour i(z) (80)
7 Nike One Tour (55)
8 Callaway Tour i(s) (40)
9 Nike One Tour D (10)

Season Standings – Top 10 Finishers by Manufacturer:**
1 Titleist (430)
2 TaylorMade (225)
T3 Callaway (120)
T3 Bridgestone (120)
5 Srixon (100)
6 Nike (15)

** Standings determined by points awarded for Top 10 PGA Tour finishes. (100 points for first place finish, 80 for 2nd, 70 for 3rd, 60 for 4th, 50 for 5th, 40 for 6th, 30 for 7th, 20 for 8th, 10 for 9th and 5 for 10th)

Next Event: Bob Hope Classic, January 20 – 24, 2010

Presented by:

The new 2010 release of GolfBallSelector.com includes a newly designed User Interface that helps each member better tune and track their fitting session. We have added video help aids throughout the site to help you understand how you should think through the fitting questionnaire and input data and weightings from the interactive system.

New swing profiling features and tools have been incorporated, such as an innovative “Angle of Attack” module that helps the system adjust for how spin is created by your unique swing. A golf ball trajectory simulator is built in as an aid in helping you think through how best to describe your golf ball flight path in getting the most out of GolfBallSelector.com.

As always, GolfBallSelector.com is a member-supported / advertisement-free service. We conduct independent and rigorous testing of golf balls and are brand-agnostic when it comes to our recommendations for each specific member.

We are currently completing testing of a new group of 2009/2010 golf balls and expect to release a new ball update in the coming months. This update will include new balls from Bridgestone, TaylorMade and Wilson, as well as the most recent releases from Callaway, Nike, Srixon and Titleist. So, join today as a Premium Member and gain access to these balls and additional balls to be tested and incorporated into the data base over the next 12 months.

Finally, we want to extend a very sincere thank you to all our current and former members for your support and for helping make GolfBallSelector.com a success. We look forward to continuing our work and providing the premier independent golf ball fitting advice to you and all our new members as we move forward in 2010 and beyond.

The GolfBallSelector.com Team

This week’s Tour Winner is the Titleist Pro V1 golf ball played by Geoff Ogilvy, who won the SBS Championship at The Plantation Course, Kapalua Resort, Maui, Hawaii. Ogilvy beat Rory Sabbatini (Callaway Tour i(z) ) by one stroke to secure his second straight season opening win and seventh career PGA title.

Top 10 Finishers: SBS Championship

1 Titleist Pro V1 (Geoff Ogilvy)
2 Callaway Tour i(z) (Rory Sabbatini)
3 Bridgestone Tour B330-S (Matt Kuchar)
T4 TaylorMade Penta TP (Sean O’Hair)
T4 TaylorMade Penta TP (Martin Laird)
T6 Titleist Pro V1x (Kenny Perry)
T6 TaylorMade Penta TP (Retief Goosen)
T6 Callaway Tour i(s) (Ryan Moore)
9 Nike One Tour D (Stewart Cink)
T10 Titleist Pro V1 (Steve Stricker)
T10 Nike One Tour (Paul Casey)
T10 TaylorMade Penta TP (Pat Perez)
T10 Titleist Pro V1x (Angel Cabrera)

GolfBallSelector.com Season Leaderboard: (through 1 event)

Tour Winners:
1 Titleist (1 win)

Season Standings – Top 10 Finishers by Model:**
1 TaylorMade Penta TP (165)
2 Titleist Pro V1 (105)
3 Callaway Tour i(z) (80)
4 Bridgestone Tour B330-S (70)
5 Titleist Pro V1x (45)
6 Callaway Tour i(s) (40)
7 Nike One Tour D (10)
8 Nike One Tour (5)

Season Standings – Top 10 Finishers by Manufacturer:**
1 TaylorMade (165)
2 Titleist (150)
3 Callaway (120)
4 Bridgestone (70)
5 Nike (15)

** Standings determined by points awarded for Top 10 PGA Tour finishes. (100 points for first place finish, 80 for 2nd, 70 for 3rd, 60 for 4th, 50 for 5th, 40 for 6th, 30 for 7th, 20 for 8th, 10 for 9th and 5 for 10th)

Next Event: Sony Open, January 13 – 16, 2010

Presented by:

Now through January 4, 2010, you can purchase GolfBallSelector.com as a gift card at the GolfBallSelector Web Site and receive the Membership Card packaged in a COMPLIMENTARY Gift Tin with a FREE Golf Ball Marker Pen (a $5.50 value). Buy 2 Gift Sets and receive FREE shipping too (Standard shipping, within the Continental U.S.). Buy 3 Gift Sets and the Fourth set is FREE, along with FREE Gift Packaging and Standard Shipping in the Continental U.S.!

As always, GolfBallSelector.com offers pre-paid Membership Cards for both the Premium Annual Membership Plan and Standard 30-Day Membership.

Learn more about these special offers by visiting us at Give GolfBallSelector as a Gift and make the holiday season brighter for the golfers in your life!

This week’s Tour Winner is the Srixon Z-Star X golf ball played by Jim Furyk, who won the Chevron World Challenge at Sherwood Country Club, Thousand Oaks, California. Furyk shot a final round 5-under 67 to beat Graeme McDowell (Callaway Tour ix) by one stroke. The win was Furk’s first win since the 2007 Canadian Open and moved him to No. 6 in the world ranking.

Full Field: Chevron World Challenge

1 Srixon Z-Star X (Jim Furyk)
2 Callaway Tour ix (Graeme McDowell)
T3 Titleist Pro V1x (Lee Westwood)
T3 Titleist Pro V1x (Padraig Harrington)
T5 Titleist Pro V1x (Zach Johnson)
T5 Nike One Tour D (Stewart Cink)
T5 TaylorMade Penta TP (Sean O’Hair)
T5 Titleist Pro V1x (Ian Poulter)
9 TaylorMade Penta TP (Y. E. Yang)
10 Titleist Pro V1 (Steve Stricker)
T11 Nike One Tour (Paul Casey)
T11 Titleist Pro V1x (Kenny Perry)
13 Nike One Tour D (Lucas Glover)
T14 Nike One Tour (Anthony Kim)
T14 TaylorMade (Martin Kaymer) **
T14 Titleist Pro V1 (Camilo Villegas) (Titleist Pro V1x)
T14 Titleist Pro V1 (Mike Weir)
18 Nike One Tour (Justin Leonard)

** Kaymer played a Titleist Pro V1x most of the 2009 season and since signing with TaylorMade earlier this summer he has been reportedly testing a TaylorMade golf ball to put in play for the 2010 season.

Summary Regular Season Leaderboard: (through 37 events)

Tour Winners:
1 Titleist (17 wins)
2 Nike (9 wins)
3 TaylorMade (5 wins)
4 Callaway (4 wins)
5 Srixon (2 win)

Summary Regular Season Standings – Top 5 Finishers:***
1 Titleist Pro V1x (1545)
2 Titleist Pro V1 (855)
3 Nike One Tour (490)
4 Srixon Z-Series (330)
5 TaylorMade TP Red LDP (315)
6 Callaway Tour i (210)
7 Nike One Tour D (165)
8 Callaway Tour ix (145)
9 Bridgestone Tour B330-S (110)
10 TaylorMade TP Black LDP (90)
11 Bridgestone Tour B330 (35)

*** Standings determined by points awarded for Top 5 PGA Tour finishes.

Presented by:

CLICK HERE FOR A FREE BALL FITTING

Wilson Staff FG Tour Golf Ball

The FG Tour golf ball, designed for the competitive golfer, joins the forged family of Wilson Staff equipment alongside the FG Tour irons. The three-piece, multi-layer ball is a low-compression distance golf ball covered in a thin, soft veneer of urethane to deliver maximum traction control for iron and wedge shots. It has a 75 compression rating and features a 318-dimple pattern on its cast urethane cover. The FG Tour is Wilson?s softest, highest-spinning multi-piece urethane ball and was created as a low compression solution for competitive players looking for tour-caliber spin, maximum greenside control and excellent distance. In internal testing, the Wilson Staff FG Tour golf ball has tested with longer and straighter ball flights than other leading premium golf balls.

Wilson Staff C:25 Golf Ball

The latest edition to the “C” family of golf equipment, the Wilson Staff C:25, a low-compression three-piece ball delivering minimal spin off the driver, is best matched with the Wilson Staff Ci9 iron. The C:25 promotes progressively higher spin as the player approaches the pin for shots inside 150 yards. The golf ball features a 302-dimple pattern to provide high lift conditions for more height on tee shots and from long distances.

Wilson Staff D:25 Golf Ball

Wilson Staff’s “D”, or distance, golf balls are introduced in conjunction with Wilson Staff Di9 and D-FY irons. The D:25 is a low-compression two-piece ball delivering minimal spin off the driver face. A 302-dimple design provides high lift conditions for more height on tee shots and longer carry distances. The D:25 golf ball was designed for players looking to hit longer drives and minimize mis-hits.

All Wilson Staff golf balls are built on a low-compression platform featuring ultra-soft, high-velocity cores for the softest feel with no sacrifice in distance. All three golf balls utilize Wilson?s breakthrough Traction Control Technology which is specifically tailored for the new and less aggressive groove specifications. The Traction Control Technology provides golfers with a 17 percent higher surface contact area and 13 percent more grooves that are engaged during impact.

“Wilson Staff is proud to offer a variety of golf balls to improve the game of players at every level,” said Bob Thurman, global director of R&D. “We are confident that the FG Tour urethane ball will compete with the most popular golf balls on TOUR. Our low-compression technology tests as long as anything and softer than everything else on the market.”

The suggested list price for Wilson Staff FG Tour golf ball is $49.99 per dozen, $34.99 per dozen C:25 golf balls and $29.99 for one dozen D:25 golf balls. The new line of Wilson Staff golf balls will be available in fall 2009.

For more information on the new FG Tour, C:25, and D:25 golf balls, visit www.wilsongolf.com.

CLICK HERE TO READ OUR REVIEW OF THE TAYLORMADE PENTA TP

In our initial review, the Penta TP was subjected to bench testing for compression and cover hardness, and limited player testing using the driver, 6-iron and sand wedge. The testing was conducted by GolfBallTest.org.

According to TaylorMade, the new Penta TP “is the first 5-layer Tour ball engineered to deliver optimum performance in five key areas: feel, spin, control, launch and distance.” TaylorMade states the benefit of each layer as follows:

• The core promotes high launch/low spin off the driver for maximum carry and distance, as well as more ball speed for long-hitters.
• The inner mantle delivers soft feel, high launch and low spin off the long-irons for exceptional distance plus a high, soft-landing flight.
• The middle mantle gives you more control with mid-irons, and prevents up-shooting, ballooning and falling short of the green.
• The outer mantle promotes optimum spin off short-irons, as well as higher ball speed and increased distance.
• The urethane cover delivers a soft Tour feel plus a combination of higher spin-rate and lower launch angle on wedge shots.

Notable Observations

Initial player testing indicates that the Penta TP exhibited more spin off the 6-iron and sand wedge while slightly less spin off the driver when compared to the TaylorMade TP Red LDP at the relatively higher ball speeds in the range of 140-155 mph.

In 6-iron testing, the spin rate of the Penta TP was approximately 200 RPM’s more than the TaylorMade TP Red LDP. In comparison to other soft cover “Tour” balls the Penta TP performs in the same general spin range for a 6-iron as the Titleist Pro V1 and Nike One Tour. In sand wedge testing, the Penta TP generated approximately 500 RPM’s more of spin than the TP Red LDP. This finding indicates a spin rate similar to the Titleist Pro V1 and slightly less spin than the Nike One Tour, which places it in the group of the highest spinning balls we have tested to date.

Initial bench testing indicates that the Penta TP has a compression range of 98-100 compression points which is similar to the 2009 Titleist Pro V1 compression as posted in the comprehensive compression and cover hardness schedules of GolfBallSelector.com. This is approximately 7% higher than the TaylorMade TP Red LDP and 4% lower than the Srixon Z-Star X, meaning it is an above average compression ball by comparison to most golf balls, and similar to other “Tour” balls. However, with the new 5-piece construction of the Penta TP, such comparative evaluations of compression using these few measurements are limited. Additional bench testing measuring cover hardness revealed that the Penta TP exhibited similar cover hardness to the 2009 Titleist Pro V1 but was 5% softer than the TaylorMade TP Red LDP.

We found the durability to be similar to other premium golf balls. We subjected the Penta TP to approximately 60 strikes in our testing. Here is a comparison of a new golf ball to the ball that was tested.

GolfBallSelector.com believes that golfers interested in the TaylorMade Penta TP should consider its “best fit” potential for their own game in the context of their own preferences and the trade-offs they are prepared to take for distance, control and feel and according to their own unique ballistics measures of ball speed, launch angle and general spin rate. Learn more at GolfBallSelector.com.

About GolfBallSelector.com
Heralded by Golf Magazine as one of the best innovations in golf, GolfBallSelector.com is the independent resource for information and assistance in selecting the right golf ball for individual players. Through this online golf ball fitting system, golfers set their own game objectives and goals as well as their individual preferences for distance, control and feel attributes in a golf ball to derive individualized rankings of recommended balls, from a database of 60 leading golf balls. Annual Memberships are available for $29.95 and 30-Day Memberships are available for $19.95.

About GolfBallTest.org
GolfBallTest.org (GBT) is owned and operated by GBT Technologies LLC. GBT conducts continuous testing of leading golf balls sold primarily in the United States, utilizing swing robots and real golfers, and publishes its scientific findings at GolfBallTest.org.

Media Contact
Gary Esayian
1+646-316-1956
gary.e@golfballselector.com