New Srixon Q-Star Golf Ball | Tour Yellow Review

What's up fellow beach lovers?  It's been a while...been on the road, sorry.  Played a very enjoyable round in London, stay tuned for a short piece on that to follow.  At the Bunkers Paradise Charity Tournament last week, Ken was so nice as to hand me a dozen balls. Not that he's not a great guy, but I knew there would be a review to follow, and I was happy to oblige.  Read on for my review of the awesome Srixon Q-Star in Tour Yellow...just be prepared to wear your sunglasses...at night...these things are bright...in a good way. (Compared to TaylorMade Lethal) Great looking product.  Nice soft cover, dimple pattern was designed and laid out well and once you get past the color (it is a bit much at first, but easy to get over that).  You know you have a solid ball on the tee, around the green, or wherever you're unlucky enough to find yourself after an errant tee-shot...or approach...or, well, I don't know how good - or bad - you are, so suffice to say, no matter your skill level, this ball performs.  Read on...

Driver:

This thing is not only long, but the feel at impact imparts a feeling of control.  And control this thing you can.  I could easily control the direction and height of the ball flight with minor swing changes, and contrary to other balls I've tested, the ball performs like a high quality tour level ball should; a small swing change results in a small change in ball flight.  A big swing change results in a big change in ball flight. Not only is it easy to control, but it cuts through wind nicely when trying to keep it low and holds its line very well.  I got a decent amount of roll on all shot types and even after bouncing one off the cart path for a whopping 340, the cover was still in great shape.  This thing is long.  I noticed no loss of distance, but can't say I noticed any gain either, when averaged over the course of a round. http://youtu.be/fiDYKzXPHuw

Woods, Hybrids, Long Irons:

This ball performed wonderfully under most conditions, but I did notice a bit of a loss in distance when compared to my normal weapon of choice.  Not huge, maybe three or four yards (ten in one case, but that couldn't have been me making a bad swing could it?) but noticeable.  In two cases, it had me hitting a cut off 3-wood instead of a full hybrid, but that's NOTHING to hold against the overall quality of the ball.  Same wonderful control and consistency in ball flight as with the driver.  The sound of this ball coming off the clubface is wonderful.  I think the yellow material just hisses a little more and I like that.

Short Irons and Wedges:

Again, we go back to control.  And this thing is under it.  For sure.  Left, right, high, low, runner, spin back, you name it, it does it and with the same reliability as the driver.  Want a little fade, that's fine.  Want a big one, open a up a bit more and the ball reacts to the amount of change in your swing beautifully.  Can't say enough, so that says it all.  This thing rocks, but I did lose about three to five yards per club...not necessarily a bad thing when I rarely hit full shots with anything below a seven iron anyways.

Putter:

Soft feel, holds its line well and end over end roll is each to achieve with a solid strike.  I didn't like how big the alignment aid was, however.  The letters are tall and it's not very wide.  I would have liked them to add some longer arrows a la ProV1 or something like that, and I will say that it is soft enough to make you rethink your distance control after a bit, but that't easy enough to adapt to after a while on the practice green.

Conclusion:

If I was given this ball to use for the rest of the season, and through next year, I wouldn't complain and I'm a pretty picky guy so that says a lot.  Overall, I think Srixon has improved hugely on the Star line beginning with the Z-Star of a few years ago, and any player, endorsements aside, from a high single digit handicap to a plus-index tour pro could take full advantage of this ball and shoot the round of their life.  I love these things, and may just put them in play more often.

Bunkers Paradise Rating:

             

By Nick Paster