Bridgestone Tour B XS Review

The XS is the model Bridgestone builds around one famous customer, and the brief has never changed: soft cover, maximum spin on a wedge, control ahead of raw yardage. What changes in this generation is that the yardage is no longer a sacrifice. Ball speed off the driver still measures a fraction under the fastest balls on the market, but the aerodynamic work recovers most of that in carry, and the flight is high and stable rather than the low bullet the old XS produced.

The cover is the interesting part. Bridgestone tunes the urethane to firm up under the violence of a driver strike and stay soft under the gentle one a wedge delivers, so the same ball can be quick at the top of the bag and grabby at the bottom. On a firm green that shows up as a full wedge taking one hop and sitting down. This is a soft compression ball, so the feel is plush off the putter and quiet at impact, and fast swingers who want a firmer strike are pointed at the X instead. Fifty five dollars a dozen puts it at the top of the market, and that price is the only real mark against it.