How much do you think about the golf ball that you’re using? Probably not as much as you should be. After all, you use a golf ball on every shot, every round you play. It’s arguably the most important piece of equipment you have. So how should you go about choosing the right one for your game?
Enter Marc Leishman. The Aussie golfer finished T5 at the Masters, and is the star of a recent Callaway video which I found both interesting and informative. Asked whether golfers should think about golf balls from the green backwards, or from the tee forward, Leishman gave a thoughtful reply.
“I’m always from the green and then back to the tee,” he says. “If I have a 30, 40, 50-yard shot and I can’t spin it a lot or stop it on a dime, I go to the next ball.”
Leishman says: Think about the green first, the tee second
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It’s worth noting that while you may not be generating as much spin as a tour player, Leishman is making an important point nevertheless: Squeezing an extra yard or two out of your ball off the tee, shouldn’t come at the expense of predictability around the greens.
If you want to get up and down more, Leishman says, you simply need to know how your golf ball is going to react.
“I make most of my money around the greens. If I can’t get up and down, I can’t win tournaments,” he says. “I’m not going to sacrifice that.”
And that doesn’t necessarily mean playing the softest golf ball you can find, either. It’s all about finding the right golf ball for your swing numbers, and matching it with the conditions of the courses you tend to play on the most. Playing firm and fast greens may require something different than soft and slow ones.
It’s all stuff a good fitter, like our sister company True Spec Golf, can help you get dialed-in. If you want to watch Leishman’s full video, check it out below:
