2006 Golf Ball Review
Pinnacle Gold Long Drive
by Chuck Quinton

Out of all the balls I tested, this golf ball was the most surprising. I felt from the initial results that it had great potential to actually make a difference in a mid to high handicappers score and was excited about this prospect. While I think it still is a very good ball for the double digit handicappers, better golfers will want to steer clear.

There is nothing subtle about the performance of this ball; it is the Humvee of golf balls. Subtle spinny chips, touchy downhill putts, delicate draws - forget about them. If you only wish to hit the ball straight, it does that well and still goes a long ways. It played 1/2 club longer on every shot which left me above the hole on almost every shot, leaving me with numerous delicate downhill putts. I was scared to death of these putts and missed three birdie putts inside 5 feet that were above the hole. Every wedge shot released past the hole, the only shots that stopped were short irons that were hit very hard to hit them high enough and with enough spin to stop them on the green. It was a lot of work to get the ball to move small amounts left to right or right to left when precision was paramount. During the test it was more free wheeling and I was more aggressive moving the ball around, but on the course when I needed precise distances and touchy little fades to get close, this ball required me to make an exaggerrated movement to get it to do what I wanted. Granted, I slowly got used to this and I'm sure I could over time, but playing this ball immediately after the Hogan Hawk was like taking me out of a Ferrari and putting me in Mack Truck at Sebring Raceway.

Around the greens was a nightmare. Instead of having tap ins for par saves, I had 5-10 footers as it was very difficult for me to judge how much the ball would release. Couple this with the fact that I was afraid of putting with the super firm feeling ball and you get a frustrating day of golf. While I'm still looking for a ball that doesn't spin back off the green on every wedge shot, the Pinnacle Gold will not be back in my bag anytime soon. It's definitely not solely the ball's fault I shot a higher score as I hit some poor shots and was mentally not there, but I feel I could have made several more putts than I did with a softer cover ball. The number of putts for the round (31) was 2.25 strokes higher than my putting average in StatTracker at the time of the test.

Overall, it is a good ball for those still struggling with ball striking. I hit 12 greens and 11 fairways, both numbers being better than my averages, and my driving distance average was also longer by about 5 yards. This is with very wet fairways with no roll, other wise I'm certain the driving distance would have been more significant.

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copyright 2006 Quinton Holdings