The Maverick
MITCH VOGES, 58
Making the right ball for you a mere click away, at Golfballselector.com

"I may be about to ruffle some feathers and change the way people buy balls. Companies like to say, 'We have the longest, softest ball!,' but I'm putting their claims to the test. Even before I gained prominence as a player, I was a gear junkie. Last year, my club-fitting company, Max Out Golf, decided to figure out how we could help the average player find the right ball for him without having to hit every one on the market. Now, you might say, 'I'm not good enough to know the difference between balls.' Well, I say, 'Are you good enough to ignore the difference?' Low handicappers can adjust to any ball, but higher handicappers have less control, which makes the ball choice vital. We spent nine months having robots and testers hit thousands of balls. More than 40 brands. We recorded how balls perform, then took this mountain of data and turned it into an interactive Web experience. The result is something that's never existed before. You just fill out a 10-minute survey that tells you — backed by hard science — what brands work best for your game. And yeah, it took a lot of balls to do this [laughs]."

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Credit: Robert Beck