Orange You Glad...?

So I tried out the new Volvik Vivid orange balls. As you may know, I like playing with color balls (or "balls of color," as I like to say) because they're fun. When you're playing a ball of color, it takes the guesswork out of who blasted that tee shot furthest down the fairway when everyone else is playing a boring old white ball. I've been playing the hot pink Callaway Supersoft and the tour yellow Srixon Soft Feel balls for a few years now, but a few weeks ago, I noticed that another lady in my golf league plays the same pink ball, and a few others play yellow balls. So I thought I'd try out another ball in a color no one has. This led me to the Volvik Vivid orange ball.

I've played with Volvik Crystal balls before, and I found them too pastel and glittery to be easy to find on the course. But the Volvik Vivid balls are the first-ever ball with a matte finish. And the color promised to be, well, vivid.

The verdict? Well, they have a compression of 80, which is higher than my usual pink and yellow balls, and I did notice the change in feel. They didn't roll out as much on my driver shots, leading to less distance. But they did feel grippier around the greens. I felt my putts were easier to control and rolled somewhat truer. However, the matte finish made them seem to attract and hold dirt more, so if any mud got on the ball (and lately it's been rainy and muddy out there), I had to spend more time cleaning the ball once I got on the green.

And what about the promise of greater visibility? Yes, they are more visible, almost glaringly, annoyingly so -- once you can actually see them. On the course, from a distance, these orange balls actually seem less visible than white or yellow balls. Perhaps it's due to the matte finish, which absorbs light instead of reflecting it.

On the plus side, if you can spot the orange ball in the distance, you will never mistake it for something else, the way you sometimes do with white balls. (How many times have we been given false hope, spotting something light-colored in the rough, only to find that it's just a crumpled receipt or piece of trash?) So unless you're playing in a grove of trees bearing tiny citrus fruits, the Volvik Vivid orange ball will solve at least that common problem.