ERC Soft
ERC Soft is easily the most ambitious of the new offerings, Bartels said: “What if we could take all the innovations we’ve developed thus far and combine that with what we’re currently working on— how different could we make a ball at this price point?”
The difference in the ERC Soft comes from bringing to the distance category the two-piece core introduced last year in the company’s tour-proven Chrome Soft balls. That core uses graphene, a one-atom thick nanoparticle in the outer core layer to increase the difference in compression between the outer core and the inner core to help full shots launch higher with less spin. On the ERC Soft, the graphene-infused dual core is larger, including a larger inner core.
“That helped us achieve soft compression with low spin without sacrificing ball speed,” Bartels said. “In parallel to that we’ve been working on a new cover material that’s kind of a hybrid between the conventional surlyn and our tour premium urethane material. It’s kind of a base Surlyn foundational recipe where we add two unique proprietary ingredients to that to increase ballspeed and increase durability.
“Those together really increase the ball speed and allow us to achieve some level of spin around the green that isn’t really seen in distance golf balls.”
Bartels said the new “hybrid cover” is aimed at satisfying the needs of most golfers, even on shots around the green where typically balls with a urethane cover have a spin advantage.
“This ball will provide a certain level of spin that satisfies the majority of golfers out there,” he said. “It really does perform better around the green than many urethane balls on the market.”
Completing the ERC Soft’s features is a three-line alignment graphic that is based on hyperacuity science and how the eyes focus on the relative position of an object. “It’s scientifically proven that it helps your eyes align the product better when you have three lines in parallel with a certain spacing and a certain color configuration that we’ve put on this golf ball,” Bartels said.
