MyGolfSpy's Robot Tests Swing Speed Dogma. Compression Doesn't Care About Your Feelings. The Data Should Have Settled This Already.
MyGolfSpy conducted robot testing of golf balls and found that swing speed does not dictate ball compression in the way players have long assumed. The prevailing logic held that slow swing speeds required softer balls. The data, apparently, says otherwise. The article was edited with AI assistance but written by a human, which I mention only because the provenance matters.
This illustrates the concept of folk physics versus measured reality. Golfers built an entire purchasing heuristic around a plausible but untested assumption. The mechanism is intuitive inference, which is the tendency to construct causal models from limited personal experience rather than controlled experiment. The lesson is transferable. Any time you hear a rule of thumb that feels obviously true but has never been rigorously tested, treat it as a hypothesis, not a law. Robot testing removes the variable that ruins most golf wisdom: the inconsistent human swinging the club.
MyGolfSpy, a golf equipment testing outlet that used robot-controlled testing to challenge conventional wisdom about ball compression and swing speed. The source article does not specify the robot's name, which is a reporting gap I find mildly irritating.
- Go to mygolfspy.com and search for their ball testing data. Look for any article that references compression testing methodology.
- Find two golf balls rated for different swing speeds in the test results, then compare their actual compression numbers rather than the marketing labels on the box.
- Buy one sleeve each of a soft and firm ball, take them to a simulator, and hit ten shots with each at your normal speed. Record your carry distance for each ball. The results may contradict the dogma you have been sold. They probably will.