The Amazon Basics Core Soft Golf Ball marks the e-commerce titan’s first venture into the golf ball space, one that is dominated by some icons like the Titleist Pro V1 and TaylorMade TP5.
While Amazon hasn’t come into the market to directly compete with these bigger brands (not yet, at least) I wanted to give the Basics Core Soft golf ball a fair crack at the whip. So I took them onto the course and put them to the test using my Foresight Sports GC3 Launch Monitor to see how they performed and whether you should consider using them.
(Image credit: Future)
My first impression was a little underwhelming. The balls don’t arrive in a traditional dozen box, instead, you receive four loose sleeves of three balls in a standard Amazon cardboard box. I’m still making up my mind on this – is it a clever eco-conscious design saving on unnecessary packaging, or is this outweighed by the annoyance of now having four loose sleeves rattling around my bag? I’m leaning towards the latter.
Taking the ball out of the sleeve, it doesn’t feel great in the hand, largely because the outer cover feels fairly cheap. This initial inspection immediately set my expectations of the ball fairly low, despite already knowing the $15 a dozen price point. The logo was also a little large, which detracted from the overall look.
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Out on the course, the ‘Core Soft’ name definitely rings true, especially with the scoring clubs. After just a few chips before my round, I knew I would struggle with distance control with this ball because it felt as though it really jumped off the face. I usually steer towards a firmer feeling ball as I like that ‘clicky’ feel, particularly with my wedges and putter.
When hitting a 50-yard pitch with my usual Pro V1x, I would look to see the ball spin around 7000 rpm. The Amazon Basics Core Soft Ball was around 2000 rpm less, which was a little concerning to see.
(Image credit: Future)
When moving through the bag, I started to realise centred hits with my irons would feel good, yet often fall five yards or so short of where I usually am. This trend continued when stepping back to the tee, yet if anything was exaggerated.
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