Tour Edge Is Getting Into The Golf Ball Business

A new entry on the USGA conforming ball list suggests that Tour Edge is gearing up to join basically everybody else in selling a golf ball … or at least trying to.

Predictably, I suppose, the upcoming ball is called the Tour Edge Exotics.

While USGA listings are never as detailed as we could hope, here’s what it shows.

A couple of details stand out here. First, this isn’t the Tour Edge logo we’re used to seeing and while the new ball doesn’t appear on the Tour Edge website, the updated logo is featured throughout. It’s hard to say what that means as a whole. Whether it’s just an effort to freshen things up a bit or a full-scale rebranding effort remains to be seen.

Whatever the reason, hopefully it will go better for Tour Edge than it did for Cracker Barrel.

More importantly, the 3P-1C (three-piece, one core) description suggests a urethane ball. While there are ionomer balls with the same listed construction (Callaway ERC Soft, for example), they’re few and far between.

Pair that with a 318-dimple cover and one might reasonably surmise that Tour Edge has turned to Foremost to produce what I think is the first ball in the company’s history.

A quick introduction to Foremost

For those of you new to the finer details of golf ball manufacturing, Foremost is the Taiwan-based factory that produces urethane balls for Maxfli, Vice, Wilson and OnCore. Some of TaylorMade’s production is also housed at Foremost. Generally, the balls test well (among the best, actually). They’re popular with golfers and the quality is arguably second only to Titleist.

About the spin rating

If you’re wondering about the Spin Rating (L-m), loosely that should suggest low driver spin paired with medium short-game spin rates. That said, companies get to decide what those values are and there’s no rule that they must be even slightly tethered to reality. So, while the urethane cover alone suggests reasonable short-iron spin rates, take the rest with a grain of salt.

We reached out to Tour Edge for more details and while representatives were willing to provide only slightly more details than the USGA list, they did confirm that the company is planning to launch a three-piece ball with a cast urethane cover.

That last bit (cast urethane) all but confirms the Tour Edge Exotics Golf ball is being made by Foremost.

Instant credibility?

Tour Edge has a heavy presence on the Champions Tour and I suspect it won’t face quite the same headwinds trying to get a ball in play there as it might on the PGA Tour. While not all tour play is equal, if Tour Edge can claim balls in play on any tour and if they can actually win an event or two, it would give the company an instant leg up on its competitors. The simple fact is that Maxfli (Ben Griffin, Lexi Thompson) is the exception. Most DTC brands don’t get play where anyone other than the biggest gear nerd in your foursome is likely to notice.

Do we really need a Tour Edge ball?

There’s a reasonable argument that we already have enough golf balls to choose from. While balls are added and removed from the list constantly (monthly, anyway), the most recent revisions list more than 1,300 balls. One would think that’s enough to satisfy any need within the market. That hasn’t stopped anybody else so why should it stop Tour Edge?

At this point, with the exception of COBRA (and PING … somehow I forgot PING), every mainstream, well-established golf brand offers a full bag’s worth of gear, including the golf ball (and most offer at least two of them). While it’s not strictly necessary, the addition of a golf ball to its catalog suggests that Tour Edge wants to be seen as a complete golf brand with absolutely no holes in the bag.

How much will it cost?

For a brand like Tour Edge, navigating the pricing side of the golf ball market is tricky. While there’s generally enough quality in a Foremost made product to justify a $50 per dozen price tag (you could spend more and do plenty worse), there’s not much of a value proposition to be had there. That’s especially true with brands like Maxfli and Vice already established at +/- $35.

Even if Tour Edge plans little more than to break even (a golf ball is an inexpensive way to get your name and logo out there), my guess is the Tour Edge Exotics golf ball will be sold for around $40 a dozen, and likely direct-to-consumer only until it gains enough traction (and the sales volume that comes with it) to sacrifice margin to retail.

Whether that’s enough of a discount to generate interest and, ultimately, create repeat buyers remains to be seen.

But wait, there’s more

Are you even a ball company if you don’t have a discount offering in your catalog? Also on the conforming list today is a Tour Edge Hot Launch golf ball. Hot Launch is traditionally Tour Edge’s low-tech, bargain franchise, so it certainly checks out that the namesake golf ball is a two-piece offering, presumably with an ionomer cover.