First Impressions
Folks, we have a winner! Every tester loved the IQ Tour Ruby!

Check out our friends Jeff Miller and Ron Hoppe at Haley’s Pro Shop for world class drilling and coaching!

Tamer Elbaga (Lefty)
Style: Tweener
RPM: 375 rpm
PAP: 5 & 3/8 up
Average Speed: 18.5 mph (at release)
Axis tilt: low
Axis rotation: medium/high
Test Equipment: 14 Pounds
Layout: 50 x 5 x 45

Bryan Hoffman (Righty)
Style: Stroker
RPM: 280 rpm
PAP: 4 1/2 & 1 1/2 up
Average Speed: 18.5 mph (at release)
Axis tilt: high
Axis rotation: medium
Test Equipment: 14 Pounds
Layout: 50 x 5 x 45

Tyler Church (Righty)
Style: Power Player
RPM: 450 rpm
PAP: 5 1/2 & 1/2 up
Average Speed: 19 mph (at release)
Axis tilt: med
Axis rotation: medium
Test Equipment: 14 Pounds
Layout: 50 x 5 x 45

“Keep in mind that coverstock accounts for 70% of ball reaction, but the core creates the dynamic shape of the reaction. Your driller will alter the shape to suit your game.”

Pattern
THS: 42ft, 23ml
Sport: TBD

Specs
The Storm IQ Tour Ruby uses the C3 Centripetal Control symmetric Core inside the R2S Pearl coverstock.

15 pound = RG of 2.49, diff of .029
14 pound = RG of 2.54, diff of .034
Coverstock finish: 2000 grit abralon

Overall
Few of things to address. First, this is yet another remake of the IQ Tour pearl. We’ve seen it in Gold, 30, and Emerald, all in the R2S cover. So identical aside from color. Second, we’ve tested the others and we didn’t have a unanimous and resounding enjoyment across all testers before for whatever reason. That segways into third topic which maybe the reason for the second. I am not sure what’s going on with the factory finishes from Storm but we haven’t been happy with any reactagloss OOB finish. With that said, a somewhat simple but slightly annoying solution is to refinish before we put holes so we took it to a hard 1000 then Step 2 compound, then light 3000 scuff by hand. This is likely to be our go to for all Storm pearls for the foreseeable future.

Now let’s look at the ball reaction. As we’ve come to know R2S very well, it’s a great cover for the late and strong ball reaction. It glides downlane quite easily but has a good responsiveness to friction. Traditionally, I haven’t been able to play any R2S ball up the outside in the friction and that’s the case with the Ruby as well. But once I open up a bit, it’s magic. Despite the typical high over/under we see from this wet dry house pattern, the IQ Tour Ruby just worked amazingly well. Yes clean but that round shape that booms controllably from the C3 Centripetal core just creates a blend that is hard to get sometimes out of skid/snap type shapes of Mid Late balls. In the zone somewhere between 2nd and 3rd arrow, I had good forgiveness. Could miss in and out but out was better. I had to be careful with speed as if I hit it a bit and didn’t keep the speed up, it can dive. The nature of the cover. What distinguishes this ball from other mid late balls for me is what it does as you get in or on sport shots. It becomes a little smoother when you throw it into the volume. That as opposed to just puking completely. So as you move in, you start to see a more arcy shape that still gives you pocket. Many Mid Late balls have what I call a thin shape which is obvious when you move in and you just leave buckets once you surpass that fine line. Just watch the ball reaction as I move in. Even past the 4th arrow it looks soft but still struck. It just means I have the confidence to be able to move deep with no issues when the pattern calls for it.

Let’s have a look at Tyler throwing the Ruby. It looked awesome for him. Just seems to split the 8-9 so often. It just seems to balance the cover strength with the core shape and specs so well. We’ve struggled at times to work these mid late balls on this house shot due to it’s heavily cliffed characteristics as I’ve mentioned so it was so refreshing to test a mid late ball that was like, what cliff? Again, I have to attribute some of this to our resurface to really taking better advantage of the coverstock characteristics and better blending on this pattern. But Tyler could easily see the Ruby in his arsenal because of how confidence inspiring the shape was. Many times as mentioned you risk a bucket when missing in on the house shot but here, the ball somehow even with the R2S seemed to kind of ignore that, almost pretending to be bigger than it is. In fact, the miss in could be punishing especially if you aren’t super careful with speed. Same as I saw. This is a pretty traditional Mid Late shape that Storm has always been able to perfect and hard to replicate in other brands.

Now let’s look at Bryan with the IQ Tour Ruby. I already made it clear that it looked good for all of us so it shouldn’t be any surprise here. Honing in on the Ruby’s use case, it’s really for those higher friction conditions or later in the shift when a pattern opens up and you need a clean and strong shape. The IQ Tour Ruby as you expect is clean but is a bit of a chameleon with the backend reaction but in a great way. Bryan struck a lot. He could go anywhere between 8 and 12 at the arrows. The closer he played to the friction, the sharper the reaction and entry angle. The more in he played the more arcy the shape was but they all struck. The test was proving successful in terms of identifying strengths and weaknesses. He was able to keep edging in and really had all kinds of goodness happening. It was refreshing to find a ball so versatile that all 3 of us liked it and from many different parts of the lane.

Final Thoughts
The IQ Tour Ruby is really a very strong Mid Late option. I said this recently in that the Storm family has huge overlap with the Mid Late balls including the Night Road, Fate, Phaze V, Hyroads, Electrifys, Revenant, Hyped, Hustles, Wolverine, Burner pearl. Yes they are slightly different but as I’ve said before, when building an arsenal it’s about use case. For me, the Night Road really stood out to me from the recent crop. Now with the IQ Tour Ruby, subjectively it’s as easy to recommend as it is objectively.

Thanks for watching.