Wondering about all the options and the best ball for your game? Callaway Golf has got the answer for you.

There are only five simple USGA conformance rules golf ball manufacturers must adhere to in golf ball design:

1. Weight – no more than 1.62 ounces
2. Size – no less than 1.68 inches
3. Spherical Symmetry – it must fly the same way in different orientations
4. Initial Velocity – it can only go so fast when hit a specific way
5. Overall Distance Standard – it can only go so far when hit a specific way

Virtually all balls sold in the United States meet those criteria and earn a place on a document known as the United States Golf Association (USGA) Conforming List — which includes many hundreds of models at any given time.


That’s a lot of golf balls. How do you choose the right one for your game? Start with what you need. If it’s distance, talk to your retailer about a distance, or a firmer covered ball. If you are a confident player who hits the ball far enough, you may benefit more from a softer covered ball that will give you more control around the green. But what exactly makes balls fall into one camp or the other? Please read on.

Most golf balls are 2-piece or 3-piece designs. Most 2-piece balls have a rubber core and a firm ionomer cover. They are designed to maximise distance through high speed and low spin on all shots. For a majority of golfers desiring distance and durability, a 2-piece ball is a good fit, but if you’re a player looking for more spin and control around the greens, you may prefer a three-piece ball. 3-Piece balls typically have a cover, boundary layer and a core. How the boundary layer interacts with the core and cover tremendously influences the speed and driver spin characteristics of the ball. The material and thickness of the cover also affects golf ball performance: making softer layers thicker generally makes the ball feel softer, go slower and spin more; making firmer layers thicker generally makes the ball feel firmer, go faster and spin less.




Another material factor in golf ball design is, well, material. Almost all golf balls use some form of rubber on the inside and some forms of plastic or urethane on the outside. It’s the mix that makes the difference. Most cores are around 75 to 80 percent rubber, giving them resilience, soft feel and speed.

The boundary layer of a three-piece ball is mostly ionomer – a type of plastic and is similar to the cover of a 2-piece ball: it increases ball speed and reduces spin off the driver for more distance.

The cover of a modern high-performance golf ball like the HX Tour Golf Ball from Callaway Golf is soft urethane, which allows players to spin 3-piece balls much like the wound balls of the last century, without sacrificing distance.


The new HX Hot Golf Ball is a 3-piece ball with a firm cover over a soft boundary layer. This design is meant for speed. Added speed gives you distance. The cover is a firm ionomer material and the boundary layer is very special HPF™ ionomer from DuPont™ that is considerably softer than typical ionomers, but is very resilient which adds to ball speed, while keeping the soft feel most players like in a ball. The final piece to the golf ball design puzzle is aerodynamics, or the dimple pattern on the cover. The number of dimples, their shapes, depths and sizes, and even the way they are grouped have profound influence over the way a ball flies and how it performs in the air.


The edges of dimples do a lot of the work aerodynamically. They help reduce the wake behind the ball which greatly decreases distance-robbing drag. Some golf balls, like the HX family of golf balls from Callaway Golf, don’t even have dimples: they’re geometries, hexagon and pentagon-shaped and designed by molding a lattice-work into the cover of the ball rather than cutting a dimple. Using hexagons and pentagons allows the entire surface to be covered by the edges of the geometries, making a much more aerodynamically efficient surface. The result is a ball that flies longer and straighter than most, even in the wind.


See your nearest Callaway Golf retailer to find a better ball and a better game.