The Srixon Q-Star’s two-piece construction isn’t what you would think of for a tour-level ball, but a deeper look into the design reveals some of the same guiding technologies found in the company’s tour-played Z-Star and Z-Star XV balls.
While the ionomer-covered Q-Star won’t ever be a choice of elite players who prefer the versatility of a multilayer design with a urethane cover, the latest Q-Star’s improvements are in the areas two-piece ball players are looking for: Distance and approach shot spin. How it gets there is straight from the tour-level recipe book, however.
Now in its fifth generation, the Q-Star features a redesigned core (called FastLayer) that’s both softer in the center and progressively firmer as it moves to the perimeter. While the company’s balls have featured that concept of graduated firmness in the core (“Energetic Gradient Growth”) in the past, it’s been upgraded in the same way as this year’s Z-Star and Z-Star XV, said Srixon’s vice president of research and development.
“We talk about it as performing as though it has infinte layers in the core, but the key is it’s really progressive in going from soft to firm,” he said. “The variation from how soft to how firm it is is pretty dramatically different than where we were. We made a major change in that. We’ve been able to make it more extreme to unlock the really good ball speed of a high compression ball but maintain the efficient launch conditions of a lower compression ball.”
The distance equation is further helped by the same 338-dimple pattern found on the Z-Star ball for more lift and less drag.
For two-piece ball users, the distance boost is only half the equation. The second element is building a cover that improves spin on approach shots. Srixon says the new Q-Star again borrows the technological advances seen in its tour balls, this time with microscopic molecular formulation to the ionomer cover material that allows the cover to be soft yet durable. Known as slide ring material or SeRM, the superpolymer strengthens the molecular bonds in the cover material. Combined with the company’s proprietary SpinSkin coating, the blended cover is designed to get more grab from the grooves on short irons and wedges.
The new Q-Star will be available at retail on June 28 ($27 a dozen).