Best ball for accurate ES Tour Plus.

[Chuck]

I've been using Srixon since I first bought my ES Tour Plus a year or so back. It's been good, but I noticed on several occasions misreads were happening and so
like others, I began experimenting with different golf balls. The ES Tour Plus reads the ball logo and uses it to measure ball spin on launch optically. Logos that are straight work the best. I've been using Srixon labeled balls because the logo is straight and bold. Others also work, but I always fell back to Srixon. Curved logos like Calaway don't work at all. Then I discovered I had a couple of range balls in my bag. Two types and have great logos, TopFlite Pro Range Balls and the Wilson Staff Premium range balls. I've been so impressed with the Wilson Staff premium range I've concluded it may give the best ball flight I've seen on the ES Tour Plus. I've been so impressed with the results using them I may never go back. The advantage is that it seems like the ES TP can find the logo in nearly all stages of the ball launch. It finds it quickly and gives more accurate spin rates. Here is what they look like, but note that the logo wraps all around the ball. It's a yellow ball, but apparently, under Infrared lighting, that doesn't matter. Try these or the TopFlites if you can find them. It may surprise you how well the ES Tour Pro will work just with a simple ball replacement.

[Chuck]

Also as a note, that logo wraps all the way around the ball which maybe why this works so well. It's like having ruler markings all the way around the ball.

[Chuck]

I have to say, this is the only ball I use now on the ES16TP. However, I now play it consistently with the lines squarely facing the Launch Monitors (LM) front AND aligned vertically. My reasoning is that it will see backspin easier and make fewer errors on side spin. In practice, it seems to work well with the ES16.

[mrpriceisright]

I'm curious if you've tried marking any balls with a sharpie in a straight line, I would think it would achieve something similar. Some of the newer TM TP5's have that wide band all the way round would be worth trying too. I've recently obtained a Tour Plus but haven't set it up yet.
Not that its difficult to find the Wilson range balls, find them often on the course🤣

[Chuck]

I did try marking the ball with a Sharpie early on with my ES16, and it worked. I quit and don't recommend it. Using a Sharpie marker in a sim environment (really) will leave marks on your impact screen that you can't get off. Black finger-nail enamel paint does good. The new version 2 ES16 upgrade does read spin much better on regular balls. I still use the Wilson range balls.

[CraigD]

I just became a member here and found this post. It's funny because I have been using the same Wilson ball for my ES. I stumbled on it on accident. I tried everything from sharpie to ball dot stickers. I honestly think it is the yellow ball that is helping.

A couple things I have noticed though that I'm going to start a post to talk about

[Chuck]

Haha. I'm glad I'm not the only one. Lol. I bought a 100-ball box of these from a golf ball recycler, and that is all I use with the ES16. Even with all the improvements to the ES16 tour and upgrade, it still seems like the best ball for good spin numbers. Two aspects I like about the ES16 Tour over my other LMs are the incoming-outgoing Doppler radar for incoming club speed and outgoing ball speed. You can almost guarantee those are right. The other club data always looks very good when you add the optical ball data. I've found that putters with soft plastic/nylon inlays (Calaway's soft White-Hot, for example) don't set off the audio-trigger, and it results in misreads. But an old-school steel metal putter will, which is what I use with the ES16. One weirdness I have found, is the audiotrigger is sensitive to the audio level, so if your putting and yell "BANG" really loud at the point of contact, it will send the ball flying.