TaylorMade-adidas Golf, which has been fairly quiet with its Maxfli golf ball franchise the past couple of years, is stepping up to the plate with the new BlackMAX golf ball. The new premium ball is engineered to compete with the Titleist Pro V1, Titleist Pro V1x and Callaway HX Tour on the PGA Tour, company officials said.
BlackMAX, according to TMaG, is a multi-layer ball whose parts include a large Neodymium rubber core, a firm, thin ionomer mantle and an ultra-thin cast thermoset urethane cover.
Neodymium rubber is an uncommon core material because it is the most difficult polybutadiene rubber to process, company officials said, yet Maxfli chose it because it offers a superior combination of high Coefficient of Restitution (COR) and low compression.
BlackMAX's thin ionomer mantle serves a dual function, officials said. Off the driver, it works with the core to help minimize backspin. And off the irons, especially short irons, its soft urethane cover is compressed between the mantle and the clubface, giving the clubface traction as it strikes the ball with downward force. That creates sufficient backspin, according to TMaG, to make the ball "grab" the green and quickly come to a stop.
"The degree of spin that BlackMAX delivers off wedges is crucial," said Dean Snell, TmaG Senior Director of Golf Ball R&D. "Many players find that other balls in this category tend to spin too much, making it difficult to put the ball close to the flag.
"BlackMAX is engineered to bounce once and stop quickly without rolling too long but also without spinning back too far. We call it 'spin control,' and it makes it easier to put the ball near the hole on shots in the scoring zone -- from about 100 yards and less."
The secret to BlackMAX's spin control, Snell said, lies in the composition and thickness of the mantle, the composition and thickness of the urethane cover, and the way in which the mantle and cover are engineered to work together. Developing the proper mantle-cover relationship, Snell said, took hundreds of hours of research, player testing and computer modeling.
The BlackMAX (suggested retail $50 per dozen) also incorporates a new 372 Dual-Radius dimple design. The depth of the Dual-Radius dimples and the angles of their edges, according to the company, are specifically engineered to combine with the low spin-rate of the BlackMAX off the driver to promote a ball flight that results in longer carry and longer roll.
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