Bridgestone Tour B330 Golf Balls

When our samples of the Bridgestone Tour B330 golf balls arrived, we called a pro at the local golf resort where we do much of our sampling of new equipment. "I've got some of those new Bridgestone balls," I told him. "I'd like to bring some out and get your feedback." "I've already hit them," the pro replied. We asked him what he thought. "Well, let me put it this way," he said, "on my very first swing with the ball, I made a hole-in-one!"

Needless to say, our friendly neighborhood golf pro came away with a very positive feeling about the Tour B330.

Also needless to say, using the Bridgestone Tour B330 golf balls doesn't mean you'll start making aces left and right. But it's not going to hurt.

Our golf pro compared the B330 favorably to Titleist's Pro V1 balls, which have ruled by near universal acclamation as the best balls on the market. He's not alone in his reaction to the Bridgestone ball. We know many equipment aficionados who've played one of the Pro V1 balls for the past couple years but reacted the same way: the Pro V1s have some serious competition now.

The Bridgestone Tour B330 golf ball is engineered for better players and is selling for around $40 per dozen at its launch. The ball incorporates several technological features developed by Bridgestone through the research and development of the company's tires.

"The Tour B330 is like no other ball the industry has seen," said Dan Murphy, Director of Marketing, Bridgestone Golf, Inc. "The Tour B330 utilizes proprietary Bridgestone polymer science technologies that were realized through years of industry leading tire research and development. The Tour B330 will provide unparalleled distance and accuracy to better players, for whom it was designed."

He's the Director of Marketing. What else is he going to say? But the ball backs him up.

The ball's "Speed Elasticity Core" is a core of varying hardness from its inside to its outside. The core allows a larger deformation of the ball off the driver, minimizing spin, but with a faster reformation to maximize initial velocity.

The thermoplastic polyurethane cover provides a soft feel and plenty of spin off the irons. The cover also utilizes "Seamless Cover Technology" - complete dimple coverage with no seam line on the cover.

All of this is designed to create the holy grail for better golfers: less spin and more carry and roll for maximum driver distance, yet a soft enough cover to stop the ball on iron shots and particularly great spin off the wedges.

Mission accomplished. The Bridgestone Tour B330, we discovered, packs great distance. With its penetrating ball flight and shallow descent off the big sticks, the B330 rolls out to distances that most of those trying the ball for us felt were - in the least - a few yards longer than they usually get.

The ball is designed to be stable in wind. As it happened, one of our days on the course with this ball was gusty, yet the Tour B330 held its line quite well.

We still saw great spin off the wedges, from about 120-130 yards and in, and particularly on shots closer to the green. The B330 was easy to stop even on some of the harder greens we play on. The ball also prooved a little tougher to scuff than some of its high-end competitors.

Drawbacks? While having a soft urethane cover - and feeling soft compared to many other balls on the market - the Tour B330 didn't feel quite as soft to us as the Pro V1s. Which is certainly not to say it felt hard by comparison - it didn't, and as we've said, the Bridgestone Tour B330 performed great on touch shots around the green and showed great spin characteristics off the wedges.

It just feels a smidge more "crisp" than the Pro V1s - a feel that some golfers may prefer anyway.

The Bridgestone Tour B330 golf balls are optimized for better players, and higher handicappers or golfers with slower swing speeds won't get its full benefits.

But for the target audience, the B330 is a ball that is sure to win many converts to Bridgestone.