The golf ball is the single most-important piece of equipment, and the reason why is simple: Golfers use a golf ball on every shot.
More importantly, golfers -- particularly competitive golfers -- can't change golf balls from shot to shot. It's against the rules to tee off with one ball and then putt out with another. The Rules of Golf, then, compel golfers to find the best match between their game and a golf ball.
Golfers need their ball to go as far and straight as possible off the tee. They need the ball to come into the green with a ball flight that will allow them to hold the putting surface. They need the ball to spin enough with a wedge in hand to make short-game shots easier. And the ball needs to feel great when it's struck with any club.
Really, golfers ask their golf ball to do a lot.
With dozens upon dozens of golf-ball models in the market, including new and old variations of the same ball from years gone by, golfers face a challenge in trying to identify the best fit for them. That's where Scan My Golf Ball can be a big help.
Scan My Golf Ball is an app, available for Android devices and iPhones, which seeks to provide golf ball recommendations that will match an individual golfer's skill, goals, use case and budget. The folks behind the free app are ball-agnostic, not favoring any one brand over another. If a ball fits a golfer, Scan My Golf Ball will recommend it.
There are two ways to get fit for a ball.
The first way doesn't involve scanning a ball at all, and it's what users will experience right away in the app. Scan My Golf Ball asks the golfer to provide basic information about them: their ball flight, their shot shape, their skill level, how their wedges land, how their irons fall. The questionnaire is simple and intuitive, including asking golfers how long they want their golf ball to last, as well as their budget for golf balls.
Immediately after answering the questions, Scan My Golf Ball gives recommended golf ball that are the best fits for a player based on their responses. Those recommendations for me -- a low-handicap, high swing-speed player -- made sense given my on-course preferences and prior experience with two of the three golf balls (I've never played the PXG Xtreme golf balls, but I'm intrigued now).
The second way is to use the app's namesake method, and that is scanning the ball. By using the phone's camera, golfers are asked to take a picture of the logo of the ball and then the model sidestamp. From there, Scan My Golf Ball figures out the ball and then tries to marry the ball to user's responses to see how good of a fit the ball is.
The app saves all of the balls you scan and categorizes them based on how good of a fit they are for your game. The app includes the recommendations they make based on either your questionnaire answers, putting those best fits front and center. The app invites golfers to rate the golf ball for themselves, helping provide feedback to the app and making a golfer's own ranking at the same time.
Users can look at a more detailed page for each ball, including ratings for swing speed range, approach and greenside spin, as well as feel. For each ball, the app shows how many layers are used in construction, the cover material and overall ball compression rating. It also shows the quality of fit to the user on a scale of 0 to 100.
In addition to scanning a golf ball to get recommendations, users can scan their golf ball for damage. While a lot of golfers know that a scuffed ball is going to cost them distance, spin and overall performance, not everyone is willing to put a new (or newer) ball into play just because their current ball is damaged. Scanning for damage is a helpful education feature for golfers who need to know just how much they're hurting themselves on the course by using balls that should be put out to pasture.
Scan My Golf Ball is a fun, easy-to-use app that can be really helpful for a player who wants more performance from their golf ball but isn't really sure where to start. The app is a great starting point to discover new brands and models that fit a player's goals and budget. Of course, it's also just the first step. Users then have to try the golf balls for themselves and see if they feel a difference in performance, and nothing can substitute getting a golf ball on a launch monitor and the golf course to experience it firsthand.
In a game where there are so many choices for the single piece of ubiquitous equipment, Scan My Golf Ball helps a golfer narrow down a big, daunting choice to a more manageable one.
