Grade: B
Teacher’s Comments: Good distance, but with a ball flight off the irons that keeps me from switching.
At the instigation of a couple of my readers, I bought a fifteen pack of the new Top Flite D2 Distance balls and tested them for a round. I played two balls, using the Top Flite on every hole and alternating between the HX Hot and the Bridgestone E6 for the other.
My initial impression of the Top Flite D2 is that it’s pretty good. It had excellent distance off the tee with driver and fairway woods; indeed, I hit a couple of titanic drives with it. The D2 outflew the E6, but generally didn’t seem to go as far as the HX Hot (with a couple of exceptions). I couldn’t detect any difference in the feel between the balls off the tee.
I liked the D2s less with irons off the fairway, though. There, I don’t think that they held up as well as either comparison ball in terms of flight. I like my iron shots to soar into a green, stopping quickly. I get that shot with both the HX Hot and the E6. I thought the Top Flite noticably lower, leading to shots that skipped off the back of the green. It’s something that I could adjust to, but I’m not sure I want to.
As for feel, I honestly can’t be sure whether or not these are the rock flites of old. I want to say that I didn’t like the feel of the D2 as much as the HX Hot or the Bridgestone, but dont know how honest I can be about that. LIke many golfers, I was traumatized by the Rock Flites. The idea of them being a “feel ball” just sounds absurd.
Durability of the ball was good. My irons didn’t tear it up (unlike Nikes) and I bounced one off a cart path with little effect.
The core technology of the new Top Flites is the Dimple-in-Dimple pattern on the cover. And it’s exactly what it sounds like. There’s a smaller dimple inside of each of the regular ones. Top Flite says that’s supposed to preduce drag and create more lift. Their mantra is “distance through aerodynamics, not hard ball compression.”
In the end, I don’t think I’d switch to the D2 Distance. Still, for the price, I can recommend that you give them a try. There’s enough there that you may find a ball you really like to play.
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My comparison is pretty much like yours. I think the E6 clearly flies highest of the bunch, with the HX Hot next, and the D2 lowest. My problem too is the running off the end of the green. Today we are seeing our first rain (drizzle) in 3 weeks, and the greens are hard as a rock and won’t hold a dog poop on them.
I need to give more comparison time to the HX Hot vs the D2 though. The E6 is out, unless it can make an impression on me as I play through the last 9 or so of those balls in my garage—My distance is improving, but not so much that I don’t need something that goes as long as at least the D2 or the HX Hot. —but I might even have a new ball on the horizon…
Given the hard & fast greens, I played with a found ProV1 about three rounds ago, and was actually spinning the ball and it was sticking to greens. So Friday and Sunday I started playing with a giveaway ProV1 sleeve I had and after 36 holes I am very impressed about the distance and the spin ability. I am (amazingly) still on the first ball and it looks about new (even the scramble logo still looks good). There is a reason I leave all those free ProV1 sleeves in my garage is that I don’t want to like a $4 ball, but I sure do. I am probably going to try out the D2-Green, which is what everyone is comparing to the ProV1. I have about 15 ProV1s, and when I do start losing them I do not want to be buying another $40/dozen ball.
I have used the Top Flite D2 Feel ball and they produced very spin with a wedge. They are not a long as the distance once but I prefer spin over distance.