Dear Larry,
The only info I have about the Carbite Tru-Trak ball is from the Carbite site,
http://www.carbitegolf.com/GolfBalls.asp, and a press release from June 13, 2001, to the effect that Wilson will make the ball for Carbite. The ball will be made by Wilson and will be released in 2002.
Here are the claims made by Carbite:
"No matter what golf ball you've used, even the high priced versions, most are not perfectly balanced. The reason? Ball manufacturers have not yet discovered a way to keep the ball weight-centered while developing the core and surface area. Just the slightest variances in either the ball or cover can cause the ball to "drift" in flight, or while on a roll towards the hole."
"Carbite has solved this problem with it’s Wolfran-Alumina technology that keeps the TruTrak ball perfectly balanced and weight-centered. This means that when you drive or putt the TruTrak ball, it will dramaticaly improve accuracy to the hole - 100% of the time. Enjoy your game, and enjoy the 4-5 strokes you will save."
So Carbite claims 1) all other balls are not perfectly balanced; 2) the Carbite ball is perfectly balanced; and 3) due to this, in driving and putting, the Carbite ball will save you 4-5 strokes per round.
Viewing these claims with healthy scepticism, let's examine them one at a time.
1st -- Balls are not "perfectly" balanced. True, but what difference does it make? A perfectly balanced ball is one where the center of gravity coincides with the center of the "sphere" of the shape. (Actually, golf balls are not technically spheres because of the dimples. We assume the center of the ball is in the center of the total shape, whatever that s, just as if it were a sphere. Probably close enough.) The trouble comes from the interior design of the balls.
A golf ball is not a spehere with a perfectly uniform distribution of a substance throughout its interior. This would give a ball with a center of gravity in the sphere's center. Instead, golf balls have cores and layers and covers all made of different materials in different sizes. And the material is not perfectly uniform, but only fits within certain manufacturing tolerances for each batch of product.
For example, depending upon the performance characteristic emphasized, balls have different size cores. The largest right now is 1.590" in diameter. That is 0.795" in radius. The Rules require the ball to be at least 1.68" in diameter, and almost all balls are no larger than this in order to get distance. That's a radius of 0.84" - leaving only 0.045" for layering and cover thickness. These balls are over 95% core.
In addition, some cores are "perimeter weighted" for low-spin, high-distance performance. These cores have a larger angular momentum than cores with concentrated metals like titanium, which give high-spin and less-distance performance. A larger angular momentum helps prevent a ball from getting knocked off line by spike marks, wind, etc. For putting, the perimiter weighted would seem preferable, but how much more so?
For these considerations, even if all balls are NOT perfectly balanced, the question is what difference does it make. Perhaps a certain type of Titleist ball has an imperfection in balance such that for 95% of a batch of ball, 1 out of a box of 12 will have a maximum imbalance that might cause the ball to wander off line 0.5" in a 10-foot putt in 1 out of 20 putts with that ball, and all other balls are better than this. If you played golf with this box and changed balls once each round, you might not hit ANY putt off line in the slightest, or you might hit one putt out of 12 rounds of golf (about 360-400 putts) that curls 0.5" off-line. But this putt still went in the 4.25" wide hole! You have to have numbers to judge the importance.
Also, even if every single ball has this same degree of imbalance, does it matter at all, or are the problems of the surface much greater, or are the difficulties of stroking with a putterface perfectly square much harder, so that the ball imbalance gets swamped by bigger problems and doesn't end up mattering on the score card at all?
2nd -- Carbite balls are perfectly balanced. Says who? We'll have to wait for testing by independent people to get this answer. It is VERY unlikely that EVERY ball made by Carbite/Wilson will be "perfectly" balanced, but let's hope so.
Even if the balls are perfectly balanced, they still have dimples and a seam. The dimples may cause a bigger problem in line that any conceivable problem in balance these days -- you have to check the magnitude of the effect. It could be that the dimples wash out any gain you get by improved balancing.
3rd -- Carbite balls will save 4-5 strokes. This has to be total "marketing PR." Scoring improvement depends on where you start -- your skill, your equipment, your course, your body. Maybe some people will have a 4-5 stroke improvement in their scoring while also playing with this ball, but establishing a causal relationship between the ball's balance and score improvement is extremely problematic. And only bad golfers ever improve 4-5 strokes over a reasonably short period of time anyway. And obviously they have many more ways to get better other than by using a different ball -- so making the connection is the case of bad golfers is even more difficult. So forget this claim.
In the meantime, you have to trust your eyes. If you make what feels like a perfect stroke, and you perceive no break, but the ball wanders off to the side anyway, are you confident that the ball is at fault? If so, put it in a test bath and see, or just toss it and use another ball.
In sum, the IDEA of "perfect" balancing sounds great, but it's probably not worth worrying about much. Let's all check our driver's licenses -- mine says Missouri, so "show me"!
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
The PuttingZone
http://puttingzone.com
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