Does anyone use/endorse those gizmos that are used to balance one's golf balls (e.g. http://www.rangergolf.com/images/acc...es/checkgo.htm)
If so, do they work and worth the money?
Cheers
Mike
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Does anyone use/endorse those gizmos that are used to balance one's golf balls (e.g. http://www.rangergolf.com/images/acc...es/checkgo.htm)
If so, do they work and worth the money?
Cheers
Mike
I use one and it is difficult to determine the benefits of such a device. I like it because it shows me how well I am rolling the putter by seeing the nice straight line on my ball rolling three feet past the hole:biting: . It does also help lining it uo on the tee box and it is easy to distinguish my ball from my friends or when my ball lands in another fairway:rolleyes ! I think it does help to have the ball closer to its balanced point but it is impossible to tell by how much.
Personally I split it with a friend and we both use it so it was worth it. Get together with a buddy, its only $20/each.:thumbsup
I also have a check go ball spinner (man I have to stop buying gizzmos!!!!) and I spent about an hour at the indoor putting green putting 45 foot slightly downhill putts with balls that were lined up with the check go alignment and with no alignment but same balls. My findings were the check go balls were about nine inches closer and in tighter groups then the unmarked balls. The strange thing that I found and never would have believed is there's no correlation to the line of check go and the heavy part of the ball when marked in salt water, that kind of threw me. Also there is no need to inform me that I have too much time on my hands and obviously no life cause I am already fully aware of these facts.:rolleyes
Hey Ironmaster,
Don't worry, I don't have a life either. Anybody who's reading golf forums in the middle winter, has an addiction:P .
I was most curious with what you had said about the check-go and the salt water marking. You mentioned there is no correlation, and this really throws me, too. Just so I'm clear, you took the same ball, and marked it with salt water, and then took the same ball and spun it in the check go, and the line on the check go didn't go through the salt water mark?
I wonder if one of these two methods is a little more precise than the next. I thought I would add that in Tom Wishon's book, The Search for the Perfect Golf Club (excellent book by the way), he had this salt water tip at the end of the book. He had a fellow with a robotic putter, and demonstrated a golf ball lined up properly, and subsequent tests with it lined up inproperly....the robot sunk every putt from 10 feet with it lined up properly, and missed many with it lined up incorrectly.
I've never marked my ball, but do plan on doing some tests. But I just can't figure out how the check go and salt water methods differ!!
Thanks for sharing the research guys. I could see myself doing this soon, if the weather gets any colder. Hackzaw, your quote about the Wishon book seems to be very close to what Pelz wrote in 2000 in his putting book. For me the theory makes sense, but then you look to see what the pros do - mark along the logo on the ball - and note that the only people really promoting this are the people selling it, I become a little skeptical about the truth of it all. My line - drawn along the logo of the ball - does help, with the putting and alignment, but I've yet to be convinced that the off-center weighting of the ball will make much if any difference.
Has anyone played the Titleist GranZ?...I think it is made for the Japanese market
....As I mentioned in another thread I believe the salt water way of finding the heavy spot on a ball is the way to go in putting, put the heavy side up and putt away. The check go is finding the overall balance of the ball while it's spinning, so it's balancing all of the heavy spots in a ball and spinning on the most balanced axis. Anotherwords when you hit your ball with a iron or driver it will find this axis during flight or try to if it isn't airborn at least 7 or so seconds. So why not line it up with this axis before you hit it, theoretically the ball would try to keep this axis and fight any sidespin I guess. Have I told you lately that I gaduated 4 th grade, I'm really good at ciphering, just ask Jethro Bodine:-) :-) :-) :rolleyesQuote:
Originally Posted by hackzaw
The other benefit that Roger Maltby points out with the salt system is that you can determine those balls that are severely out of balance whereas Check Go will spin any ball to the heaviest side so you still may be playing with a severley unbalanced ball.
....good luck in keeping a severly unbalanced ball on the check go while it's spinning:-) . I had to use the back of the sharpe pen to stabilize the ball so it wouldn't fly off while spinning on really unbalanced balls.Quote:
Originally Posted by leftylucas
I have one and am amazed that each time you use it, on the same ball, the line is the same. There is no randomness in the spinning process, the "gizzmo" always comes to the same conclusion. What this means with respect to where to it on a drive or a putt, I am trying to learn from knowledgeable members on this site.
This might be of interest....
http://www.thegolfchannel.com/core.a...1603&select2=2
I've got two thoughts on potential discrepancies between the two methods.
1) Could the Check Go (or for that matter, the epsom salt method) be an indication of "roundness". In other words, if a ball were ever so slightly out-of-round (egg shaped to exagerate), then it would spin in the narrowest axis, despite where the heavy portion of the ball was located. I don't know if a pair of digital micrometers have the accuracy to detect this out-of-round, but it might be worth measuring to see if there is a "long axis" or a "short axis".
2) My second thought is again related to "axis of spinning". When a ball is spinning at high speed, the axis of rotation does not necessarily have the "heavy" end of the ball somewhere tangential to the circumference of spin. Sure the ball will have a "heavy" end, but is it entirely possible that the other "areas" of the ball, albeit each one on their own weigh less than the heavy spot, but as a whole, they contribute to the best axis of rotation. I picture a golf ball with one "heavy" spot amongst many other smaller spots. Could the sum of the small spots override the effect of the heavy spot?
Fun to think about anyhow.