Inside Your Ball Fitting Report — what’s free and what $29 unlocks

In one line: Every answer you gave, on one page, in the units a fitter would use.

The report opens by showing you what it thinks it heard. Driver speed band, 7-iron carry, playing handicap, greenside spin need, feel preference, and the temperature you usually play in. It's deliberately boring, and it's the section people re-read most — because if the fitting is wrong, it is almost always wrong here, and one edited answer fixes the whole report.

In one line: Compression, cover, spin, and flight — as requirements, before any ball is named.

This is the section that turns answers into a spec sheet. It states the compression band, cover material, spin profile, and flight window your game calls for, and it gives the reason for each one in a sentence. A mid-range compression at 85–99 mph is a statement about whether you are compressing the ball or just hitting it. A urethane cover is a requirement that falls out of your short-game answers, not a preference. Read this section and you could shop for yourself without us.

In one line: The ball’s effect on your score, broken into the four places it shows up.

Short game, feel and consistency, ball flight, and speed optimization — each with an estimated stroke figure and an explanation of the mechanism behind it. For the sample profile the largest single block sits in the short game, which is exactly why cover material outranks compression for that golfer. The figures are estimates based on published research, not measurements of your rounds, and results vary by player.

In one line: How much of the shelf your fitting eliminated — as a count, not a leaderboard.

Every ball in the catalog is scored against the spec in Section 2, and this section reports the result as a number: for the sample profile, 61 of 72 balls came in below 80% of the ideal, and 11 cleared. That count is the honest part of the free report. It tells you how narrow the real shortlist is without handing over the shortlist, and it is the clearest evidence that "any premium ball is fine" is not true for a specific golfer.

In one line: The protocol — so the report survives a catalog change, a new release, or our disappearing.

A sleeve, not a dozen. Play the same two holes with your current ball and the candidate — one shot each, alternating, so course and conditions match. Judge it on chips and pitches first, since cover material shows up around the green long before it shows up off the tee. Ignore driver distance on a single round; wind and turf swing it more than the ball does. And re-test when the temperature drops below 55°F, because compression behaves differently in the cold. This section is written so it works on a ball we have never heard of, which is the point of putting it in the free half.

In one line: The five claims on the box that tell you nothing about your fit.

"Tour proven" describes a paid contract and an individual fitting, not your swing. Dimple counts have no consumer-meaningful difference between designs at amateur speeds. "Longest ball" comes from a robot test at one speed, usually not yours. Compression as a headline number is meaningless without a speed to compare it to — plenty of golfers are wrong for a "low compression" ball. And price is not a proxy for fit: a $25 ball beats a $50 one often enough that the shelf position tells you nothing.

In one line: The answer: your #1 ball by name, plus #2 and #3, the near-misses, and a buy plan.

Sections 1 through 6 describe the golfer. Section 7 is the answer, and it is the only part behind the $29. It names your #1 ball and gives the reasoning — which of your spec requirements it satisfies and which it trades away — then names your #2 and #3 so you have real alternatives when a model is out of stock or on sale. It lists the near-misses, the balls that failed on one axis and why, so you can tell whether a friend’s recommendation is close or nowhere near. And it ends with a buy plan: which to sleeve-test first, and in what order.