Review – TaylorMade LETHAL Golf Ball

What’s In A Name

Quite frankly I don’t know what TaylorMade’s deal is when it comes to the golf ball. It’s not that their tour-level balls haven’t been pretty good (or better) over the last several years, but what’s with the total inability to maintain any sort of consistency with the name?

TP red and black…TP LDP (also red and black)…Penta TP (good one)…Penta TP3 (not such a good one)….Penta TP5 (at least it made sense). Project 5 would have been awesome if they had run with it.

They didn’t. They went Lethal.

Stop snickering…apparently this ball is deadly.

For the love of dimples, TaylorMade, find a name and stick with it. It’s a concept that has worked pretty well for, oh, I don’t know…the Titleist ProV1.

You might simply know that one as many golfers do; The #1 Ball in Golf.

Seriously, TaylorMade, stop it. You’re confusing the consumer, and it’s a shame because, as it turns out, the Penta series was actually pretty damn good, and Lethal; it’s even better.

The Evolution to Lethal

In case you’re struggling to keep up with TaylorMade’s nomenclature, Lethal is the evolution of the TP5, which was the evolution of the original Penta TP, which was spawned from the TP  (Red/Black) series.

The 2013 RocketBallz (not reviewed here today) is basically the evolution of the Penta TP3, and is a very different ball from the non-urethane-covered 2012 RocketBallz.

Got it? I’m not sure I do either.

Doesn’t matter. What you really need to know is that Lethal is TaylorMade’s top of the line, 5-piece (that whole Penta thing) tour ball.

The Marketing Angle

Rather than have me spell it all out for you…just look at this pretty picture (click to enlarge).

Lethal Competitors: Titliest ProV1x, Callaway HEX Black, Callaway HEX Chrome+, Nike 20XI, Nike 20XI X, Srixon Z-STAR XV, Bridgestone B330, Bridgestone B330-S

Feel

Given Lethal’s position on the shelf next to the other top-tier tour balls, the expectation is – and rightly should be –  that Lethal will shade a bit towards the softer side. While no one is going to mistake the Pro V1s and Z-Stars  (and Lethals) of the world for Wilson’s crazy soft DUO, we’re not exactly talking about a Titleist Velocity or original Nike 20XI-X either (for those unfamiliar with either, they’ve basically replaced the Top Flite XL Series as the gold standard for golf balls that feel like rocks).

When rubber is paired with Urethane the results while not identical, are generally pretty similar. Lethal is no different.

While one of our on-course testers describe the Lethal as offering “more feel” (presumably softer) than the Pro V1, for feel alone I’d be hard-pressed to tell you I could tell the two apart regardless of the club in my hand.

There are definitely softer feeling golf balls on the market, but that shouldn’t suggest the Lethal is firm. It’s basically average for its class…and that’s cool, I guess.

Durability

Everybody wants a more durable ball right (because none of us ever lose a golf ball…ever)? And that same group of everybody also wants more spin – particularly around the greens, right?

When you consider that there’s a fairly close relationship between cover softness and greenside spin, you start to see where those two ideals are at odds with each other.

If you want greenside spin you want a soft cover, and when the cover is soft, it’s generally not as durable.

Damn.

Quite frankly, the Lethal isn’t among the more durable golf balls I’ve had in play this season. Don’t get me wrong, you can pound on it with your driver all day and it’s going to hold up as well as anything out there. The same is basically true for long and middle irons as well. Once you start hitting with grooves designed to grip and  spin (short irons and wedges), well, you’re going to leave behind some scars.

I still carry a pre-2010 groove rule wedge in my bag. One swing (3/4 to full) that makes flush contact, and the ball is nicked sometimes cut through to the outer mantle. While not to the same extent, Lethal doesn’t hold up particularly well to repeated strikes (again…3/4 to full) with my conforming sandwedge either.

That’s just how it is.

For the money you might want more durability, but what I’ve found is that that the balls that cut the easiest are the ones that produce the most spin inside of 100 yards, and do it with the most consistency. Those are the balls I want in play.

The Current TaylorMade Ball Lineup

*Both Lethal and the 2013 RocketBallz feature Urethane covers.

Performance (FlightScope)

For the data testing portion of this review, Matt Saternus tested the Lethal side by side against the original Penta TP and the Penta TP5.  Not to kill the drama, but this might be a good time for you to grab a snack, you won’t miss much in the next few paragraphs.

Driver Performance

All three balls are fairly low spin off the driver, relative to other premium balls.  The Lethal is marginally lower spinning, roughly 100 RPMs, but then again that difference could easily be caused by my less-than-Iron-Byron swing.

Iron Performance

In past ball tests, we have seen that even very different balls (think Pro V1 vs. Top Flite range rock) perform almost identically with a 4 and 7 iron.  It should surprise no one, then, that all three of these balls are indistinguishable in terms of iron play.

PW Performance

Again, all three balls are virtually identical.  The spin rates off all three were comparable to other tour-caliber golf balls.

60* Performance – Half Swing

Of all the tests, this is where the balls were most distinct.  The Lethal spun over 100 RPMs more than the Penta TP5.  While that may sound like something, consider that we’re talking about a 100 RPMs out of 6000+ RPMs.  This is not the difference between sucking it back and the ball running through the green.

Moral of the story: the data suggests that if you liked the Penta or TP5, you’ll like the Lethal.  If you didn’t, you won’t.

On The Course with Lethal

We sent a few MyGolfSpy club testers (your’s truly included) out on the course with the TaylorMade Lethal to get their feedback on how the Lethal compares to the other balls they play with regularity.

Blake is currently a 6.0 handicap with a top driver speed of roughly 105 MPH. Admittedly he plays whatever I put in his hands, but otherwise he’s been a steady Titleist player for the last several seasons. If pressed, he’d tell you that he believes the TaylorMade Lethal is the best tour quality ball on the market today.

Joe is a senior golfer with an 8.4 handicap. His swing speed tops out at roughly 85 MPH. Like Blake, Joe was a steady ProV 1 guy before I put the Lethal in his hands. While Joe will tell you that he does like Lethal quite a bit, for him, it doesn’t play much differently than some less expensive alternatives, which makes it hard for him to justify the additional cost.

My on course experience to a large extent mirrors what Matt has found in the actual data. With a few exceptions (balls that spin too much off the driver, balls that mysteriously fall out of the air on iron shots), the majority of tour balls on the market are similar from outside of 100 yards.

As you move closer to the green the differences become more pronounced, but again in most cases we’re still not talking about the difference between a ball rolling through the green and sucking back 10 feet.

Where I’ve found the Lethal truly excels – where I see the most distinct difference between it and the other $40+/dozen balls on the market, is on those greenside chips and pitches from 35 yards and in. On quarter swings pitches and little chips, Lethal provides a more consistent and predictable result. We’re talking about differences measured in feet, and that very easily translates to differences measured in strokes.

Is Lethal Right For You?

If you’re currently spending $25 or less on a dozen balls, not much I’ve said here is going to convince you to go out and buy a box of TaylorMade Lethals (definitely add them to your Christmas list). Like everything else in the golf equipment world, there’s next to no chance that the Lethal is the best golf ball for everyone (ball fitting matters too). And, yes, if we’re putting it all out there, there are 3-piece, tour quality balls on the market today that not only will fit some golfers better, but will also save them something in the neighborhood of $10 a dozen (although now is a great time to mention you can get brand new Lethals for less than $35/dozen).

If you believe Joe’s results are typical, or you believe the Bridgestone mindset (traditional tour balls aren’t ideal for slower swing speed players), then yes, you also have a solid case for passing over the Lethal.

For the rest of us…the guys who need…or just like 4 (or 5, or 6) piece golf balls, Lethal is definitely worth a look. From the driver to the mid-irons is as good as any ball on the market, and when it comes time for short irons and wedges, I’ve believe the TaylorMade Lethal is the best golf ball on the market today (full disclosure, we haven’t tested the new Srixon Z-Star line yet). Greenside, where performance matters most, the Lethal is nothing short of exceptional.

Lethal is my go-to ball for tournaments, and if I had a bottomless supply of them (9s, and 12s guys…thanks), I wouldn’t consider playing anything else currently on the market.

I can’t promise your results will be the same, but don’t you at least want to find out for yourself?