This recent retirement of Nike golf balls and my ensuing and ongoing transition to a new ball has done 2 things.
First it has made me realize how lazy I had gotten with my approach shots, because I almost always knew I could pull off a shot to save par. In other words, I knew what my club/ball combo was going to do in most situations.
Second it has given me an idea of how WGT could help themselves and players at the same time. Instead of forcing players to buy an entire sleeve of expensive balls just to see how they like the characteristics of the club/ball combination. I think they should offer single balls for sale. They could reduce the durability of these balls to say a 0.5 which would give a player close to a full 18-hole round with them to see how they react with different clubs. That way a player could get a feel for a ball without laying out $5 to $10 bucks for a sleeve of balls that they may not like and would rather not have.
Take a 750 credit sleeve of balls with a durability of 2.5 and do the math it would be 50 credits for a single ball with a durability of 0.5. So, sell the single ball for 75 or 100 credits. I would be willing to do this in order to experiment with new equipment. They rent clubs to help sales so why not sell test balls. They could even make them for practice rounds only if they wanted, that way players could not just buy a single high-level ball to play a tournament with.
I thought about this because I have just finished gambling on my second sleeve of different balls that cost over 600 credits, only to once again feel that they don’t fit my play style. The first sleeve for all its similarity to the specs of my old Nike’s just had too much roll out after landing for me. This second sleeve reacts well to the clubs on a ding, but even a near miss on the meter shows almost no forgiveness.