If one of the best golfers in the world can hit a bunch of balls into the water on the same hole, well, that just proves this is not an easy game.

Bridgestone and TaylorMade have paid a huge amount of money to have two of the biggest stars in the world of golf – Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy – play their balls and it is starting to pay off significantly.

Can a colored golf ball produce better results than a conventional white ball? That is really hard to know because you would need a huge sample size, but Bubba Watson is providing anecdotal evidence that white might be better.

The 2018 Masters is shaping up as one of the most exciting editions in years in the battle for the green jacket because of so quality competitors – arguably the best in more than 10 years.

It seems hard to believe but the Masters is only five weeks away. Where did the time go? It seems like only yesterday the 2016-17 season was concluding, one which may have been one of the most important in years because of the shift of new players vying for top spot in the Professional Golf Association World Golf Ranking.

Golfers, particularly the elite ones on the professional tour, are finicky about their equipment, including balls, so it’s always interesting when one of them decides to switch brands. The most recent example is Sergio Garcia, the spectacular Spaniard who last year won the Masters. It officially ended the albatross he carried around as the best player on the PGA Tour not to win a Major. It also was a year in which he married. But for more than just his historic win and his marriage, Garcia made news in October, 2017 when it was announced he was ending a 15-year partnership with manufacturer TaylorMade in what was to become a move to Callaway early in 2018.

If you are looking to buy a gift for a golfer that just might make an improvement in his or her game, I recommend the TaylorMade TP5 and TP5x ball. TaylorMade introduced both balls to the market in 2017, essentially to compete with the Titleist Pro V1 and Pro V1x, and the manufacturer had instant success with both if you take into account the men’s PGA Tour and the current world rankings.

When Tiger Woods announced recently he was planning to make his latest comeback, I wondered if the golf world and, to an even greater extent, the sports world cared. This will be the second time Woods tries to launch his return to the game through the Hero World Challenge, Nov. 30-Dec. 3, at Albany, Bahamas.

Bobby Charlton loves golf, in particular playing and collecting balls. The 68-year-old retired resident of Collingwood, Ontario, Canada has been playing recreationally for 30 years. He plays about 75 times a year at various courses in North America, has an eight handicap and usually hits the ball straight.