Mizuno is a well-established, globally recognized sporting goods and apparel company. From footwear to baseball gloves, bats to gym bags, Mizuno offers everything a serious or weekend athlete would need. The brand has also been selling golf clubs for years, but Mizuno didn’t bring golf balls to the U.S. market until last year — and they were 12 years in the making. Even though Mizuno is new to this space, the brand earned a spot on our ranking of the best golf balls of 2020.
Following a dozen years of wind tunnel testing at the Mizuno Technics Laboratory, the Mizuno RB 566V Golf Balls arrived with unique construction and an outer-surface never seen before. Look closely and you’ll see hundreds of micro-indentations, or “Cone Profile Dimples,” tucked inside the larger, more traditional dimples across the ball’s surface. This feature reduces drag and encourages the ball to take a higher trajectory.
The Mizuno RB 566V Golf Balls are soft (or low compression, if you want to get technical). They’re designed for players with slower swing speeds who need the ball to compress or “bounce” more at impact to get extra speed off the club. That bounce off the clubface leads to more distance for players who don’t swing quickly enough to power through a more firm golf ball. That softness also provides softer landings around the green.
What We Liked about the Mizuno RB 566V Golf Balls:
While more primitive golf balls offer two-level compression with a soft, stickier surface wrapped around a plastic or rubber core, the Mizuno RB 566V design employs three layers. A Butadiene rubber layer wraps around a soft compression core. The Ionomer cover finishes off the ball with its unique micro-dimple design.
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If you were to count, you’d find 566 of these micro-dimples, hence the name, Mizuno RB 566V.
Most Unique Feature: Dimples
Like a Hollywood starlet, the Mizuno RB 566V Golf Balls have the cutest dimples — and they serve a very specific purpose. Even a brief look at the ball reveals the smaller holes in the center of the standard dimples and at the joints between them. Mizuno’s wind tunnel testing helped to design this unique surface to get the ball up in the air easier with less aerodynamic drag.
What We Didn’t Like about the Mizuno RB 566V Golf Balls:
Designed specifically for low compression on impact, these are not the best golf balls for big hitters with high swing speeds. Low handicap players with more powerful swings looking to lay their drives out there 250+ yards or to hit a gap wedge from 120 out should play a high compression ball with a firmer core just because they can. All things being equal, a high compression ball will always travel further than a low compression golf ball if the player’s swing is strong and fast enough to hit through that more tightly wound construction.
The Verdict:
The research and development that went into the Mizuno RB 566Vs created a golf ball that feels solid and reassuring off the tee and forgiving around the green. Its low compression makes it a strong choice for mid to high handicap players with lower swing speeds looking to get the ball up in the air.
Though Mizuno has only been selling these golf balls in the U.S. about a year, the RB 566Vs are available at most major brick and mortar golf and sporting goods outlets and online via major retail sites.