TaylorMade Soft Response: Discontinued

The TaylorMade Soft Response is discontinued. As of our 2026-08-21 check the Amazon listing returns “currently unavailable” and there is no new dozen for sale, so we have removed the buy link from this page rather than send you to a dead product. TaylorMade’s current ball in the same soft, low-compression, value slot is the TaylorMade SpeedSoft, and that is what we would buy instead. It is not the same ball — the differences are set out below — so we have written it up on its own page rather than quietly repointing this one at it.

What the Soft Response was

TaylorMade built the Soft Response as a three-piece ball with an ionomer cover over a low-compression core: a soft, straight, durable value ball aimed at a moderate swing, competing directly with the Callaway Supersoft and the Srixon Soft Feel. It was a good ball with one small problem, and we said so at the time — it never clearly beat the two rivals it shared a shelf with, so the honest advice was always to buy whichever of the three was cheapest the week you shopped. Cover material and relative compression were manufacturer and widely-published facts, not numbers we measured; we don’t run a lab, and we say so on how we rank.

What replaced it, and how it differs

TaylorMade’s soft-value slot now belongs to the SpeedSoft, and it is a genuinely different ball rather than a rebadge. Where the Soft Response was a three-piece, the SpeedSoft is a two-piece built around a large, low-compression PWRCORE, and TaylorMade publishes it at a 35 compression— the softest ball they make, and the first they have built below a 50. The cover is still ionomer, so the value-ball spin ceiling that applied to the Soft Response applies here too. In short: softer feel, simpler construction, same aisle, same money. Whether that is an upgrade depends entirely on whether you valued the Soft Response’s extra layer or its softness.

What to buy instead

If you liked the Soft Response for its feel, the SpeedSoft is the direct answer and it feels softer still. If you liked it because it was the cheap soft ball that week, nothing has changed about the right way to shop: the Callaway Supersoft, the Srixon Soft Feel— our overall value pick — and the SpeedSoft are close enough that price should decide. And if what you actually want is greenside bite rather than soft feel, none of them is the tool; a urethane ball like the Srixon Q-Star Tour is. The full field is ranked in our best golf balls for slow swing speeds roundup.