NEWS FROM THE TOUR VANS
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Regarding the only piece of equipment that a player uses every single shot, Titleist continues to dominate the honor roll of winners on the PGA Tour this season.
Eleven of the 12 events in 2024 have been won by players using the Pro V1 (Scottie Scheffler, Austin Eckroat, Jake Knapp, Matthieu Pavon, Nick Dunlap and Grayson Murray) or Pro V1x (Peter Malnati, Nick Taylor, Wyndham Clark and Chris Kirk) golf balls. Only Hideki Matsuyama has bucked the trend using the Srixon Z-Star XV in his charging victory at Riviera.
There have, however, been a number of notable ball switches this season.
In conjunction with his move to the new Qi10 driver, Rory McIlroy made the switch this season to the TaylorMade TP5x ball, which is engineered to help reduce spin on long shots while enhancing spin around the greens. TaylorMade said that offseason testing revealed McIlroy gained distance with his irons and ball speed with his driver as the ball produced a flatter and lower peak trajectory with the driver and a softer feel with more spin around the greens.
“I think the sort of lower launch with the short irons and then the little bit more of a softer feel around the greens was sort of the big selling point to me,” McIlroy said of the TP5x. “I like to play a low-spin ball, but not so low-spin that when you’re hitting a 6-iron or something into the green that you can’t hold it.
McIlroy called it a “a really, really fast golf ball” and noted its lower launch and spin.
“Definitely feel like I've picked up a little bit of speed with it, especially off the tee,” he said in Dubai, where he won and finished runner-up in the DP World Tour events to start 2024. “And it’s a little – it’s funny, it's a lower-spinning ball, but it feels a touch softer to me around the greens, so I like that feel of it.”
Collin Morikawa made the same move from the TP5 to the TP5x during last summer’s FedEx Cup playoffs, and it paid off in helping him snap a two-year winless streak at the Zozo Championship in October. The firmer, lower-spin ball in conjunction with some added loft in his mid and short irons helped enhance Morikawa’s strength of controlling his shots into the greens.
That combination, however, hasn’t been working as well so far in 2024, as Morikawa’s strokes gained approach ranking has plummeted to 52nd after being among the top three in each of his previous four seasons on tour. His relative struggles led to gaming a new Logan Olson prototype blade putter at the Players Championship.
Callaway introduced its newest Chrome Tour and Chrome Tour X balls in 2024 with its HyperFast soft cores and seamless covers, engineered to increase ball speed while stabilizing flight.
Xander Schauffele uses the new Chrome Tour, which combines soft feel with balanced distance. It suits him, as he ranks third in strokes gained total with five top-10 finishes this year including runner-up at the Players Championship.
“It can be tricky to find a ball that performs so well with every club in the bag, but that’s exactly what Chrome Tour does,” Schauffele said.
Min Woo Lee got fitted into the Chrome Tour X, which is designed for more distance and lower spin on long shots. The 25-year-old Australian raves about his dispersion window with the ball and hadn’t missed a cut until Valspar, finishing runner-up at PGA National on the Florida Swing.
Justin Thomas switched to the 2023 edition of the Titleist Pro V1x ball in December after two years of playing the 2021 model with which he won that year’s Players Championship.
The move has helped Thomas rebound from the worst season of career by finding more reliability and control with his irons, especially in windy conditions. He’s improved from a career-low 39th in strokes gained approach last season to sixth so far in 2024 with the new ball.
The lower-spinning 2023 Pro V1x is more similar to the 2013 version that Thomas used successfully for years.
“It just kind of matched up a little closer to that ’13x that I’ve played so well with for so long,” Thomas told GolfWRX.com.
There’s not much to go on so far with Tiger Woods’ big change to the latest edition of the Bridgestone Tour B X ball, as he played only 24 holes at Riviera before withdrawing with the flu and he opted not to tee it up at Bay Hill or the Players in Florida. Woods touted the Tour B X ball as delivering “the Holy Grail” of distance and control in his offseason testing. Judgment of its performance likely will come at the Masters.
Scott Michaux