TaylorMade SpeedSoft vs Callaway Supersoft: level off the driver, split by iron height and consistency

Off a slow driver swing, MyGolfSpy's robot clocked the Callaway Supersoft at 122.81mph of ball speed and the TaylorMade SpeedSoft at 122.76. That is five hundredths of a mile an hour, which is nothing, and it is why every argument about these two that starts on the tee goes nowhere. The TaylorMade SpeedSoft at around $30 a dozen and the Callaway Supersoft at around $30 are the two softest balls the big brands make, they are built the same way, and off the driver they are the same ball. Where they differ is further down the bag, and inside the box.

One housekeeping note first. TaylorMade's older value soft ball, the Soft Response, has been replaced by the SpeedSoft, so if that is the name you remember, this is its successor.

Same recipe, two cooks

Both are two-piece balls: a large, very low-compression core under an ionomer cover. TaylorMade builds the SpeedSoft around what it calls PWRCORE and puts its compression under 50, roughly a quarter below its TP5 tour ball. MyGolfSpy's Ball Lab lists the 2026 Supersoft at 44 compression. Neither has a urethane cover, which is the material that grips wedge grooves and stops a ball on a firm green, and neither pretends otherwise.

That construction is a deliberate trade. A soft core lets a slower swing compress the ball properly, and the ionomer cover keeps spin low, which straightens the curve on a slice and adds roll. The cost is speed at the top end and stopping power around the green. MyGolfSpy's line on this is blunt: soft is slow. In its 2026 test the softest ball of all, the Supersoft, was the slowest off the driver at high speed, and at its 86mph driver condition the Supersoft and SpeedSoft were both among the four slowest balls tested. The same write-up adds that less than two miles an hour covered the whole field at that speed, so slow here means slightly, not badly.

The irons are where these two earn their place

This is the result that should interest anyone over sixty, anyone who swings in the 70s or 80s, and anyone playing a heavy winter course. Off a slow 7-iron swing, MyGolfSpy's three fastest balls were the Callaway Supersoft, the TaylorMade SpeedSoft and Amazon Basics. The testers' own reaction was that it was not a typo. The softest balls in the test, the slowest off the driver, were the quickest off the iron. At mid speed the Supersoft tied for fastest off the 7-iron with TaylorMade's Tour Response, and the SpeedSoft was just behind.

So for a slower golfer the case for either ball is not driver distance, which both give away by a fraction. It is iron distance, which both hand back.

Here is the first real split. The Supersoft flies higher. At the slow 7-iron speed it was among the highest-flying balls in the 2026 test, and at mid speed MyGolfSpy picked it as one of the best balls for pairing distance with height, with the caution that it flies high but spins very little, so stopping power is still a question. If your irons come out low and run off the back of the green, that height is a real asset. If you already hit it high enough, it is not worth paying for in spin.

Around the green: neither, but one less so

On MyGolfSpy's 35-yard wedge test the bottom of the spin chart was all ionomer. Of the 48 balls, the Supersoft spun second-least, behind only the Titleist Velocity. The SpeedSoft was fifth from bottom. That is not a big gap, and both are a long way short of any urethane ball, but the direction is consistent with what other testers have found: the SpeedSoft gives you slightly more to work with on a chip. We made that case at length in our SpeedSoft review, including why autumn is when a low-spin ball costs you least, so I will not run it again here.

Inside the box

The second split is the one that does not show up in a launch-monitor average. MyGolfSpy's Ball Lab cut open and measured 36 Supersofts from three boxes this summer. It gave the 2026 ball a quality score of 74, a C grade and a Not Recommended verdict. The driver was compression consistency: individual balls ran from about 40 to about 54, a spread Ball Lab put in the bottom quartile of its database. Three of the 36 were flagged as bad, two for compression and one for uneven layer thickness.

It is worth keeping that in proportion. A 14-point compression spread in a 44-compression ball is not going to wreck a round for someone who loses three balls a side, and plenty of Supersoft loyalists say the ball goes further for them than anything else they have tried. But consistency is the main thing you are buying when you commit to one model, and on the evidence available it is the Supersoft's weak spot. I have not seen an equivalent Ball Lab report on the SpeedSoft, so this is a mark against one ball rather than a pass for the other.

One more data point leans the same way. In its 2026 picks for mid swing speeds, MyGolfSpy named the SpeedSoft as its ionomer choice.

Who should buy which

Buy the SpeedSoft if your driver speed sits somewhere in the 90s, your irons already get airborne, and you would like a chip to do something rather than nothing. It is the more rounded of the two, and the one I would buy for a golfer moving down from a firmer two-piece. It is also the safer default if you are unsure.

Buy the Supersoft if you are at the slow end, your irons come out low, and a slice is the miss that costs you most. Its extra height off the irons and the lowest spin of the pair are aimed squarely at you, and the colour range is wider than anything else at the price. Accept that one dozen may vary more than it should.

Skip both if you swing the driver much over 100mph, because MyGolfSpy's data says a firmer ball will be faster off the tee, or if your short game can use urethane spin. The Golf Ball Finder will steer you in three questions, our TruFeel vs Supersoft comparison covers the slightly firmer Titleist alternative, and the rest of the field sits in the soft feel balls guide. Whichever you pick, buy it by the dozen and keep playing it. Changing balls every month costs more than the gap between these two ever will.