WHAT IS COMPRESSION AND HOW DOES IT AFFECT PLAYABILITY?
Another number that might appear on golf balls is the ball’s compression rating. Until solid core balls drove the wound ball almost completely out of the market – beginning in the late 90s – compression rating was a big deal to golfers. A compression rating of 70 or 80 for a wound ball was regarded as an indicator that ball was a “ladies ball.” A compression rating of 110 meant you had to swing very hard to make that ball work right (the he-man ball). We know now that compression relates much more to feel than to distance. Solid, soft-core balls are a huge segment of the golf ball market now, and the compressions today can be way down in the 30s or 40s (ranging up to 100 or so). When these low-compression balls first started appearing on the market, manufacturers felt there was still a stigma attached to low compression – i.e., that a low-compression ball would be viewed as a “ladies ball.” And so numbers representing compression were dropped from most golf balls. You’ll still l find t
