The Titleist Pro V1 and Pro V1x have been the most popular and arguably the highest performing golf balls across all skill levels, and Titleist wants to keep it that way.
Improving icons like the Pro V1 and Pro V1x is a tricky proposition. The professional touring staff are adamant about keeping what they like about both balls, but all want a little more length to better tackle the ever-longer golf courses that host the professional events. A difficult situation for the engineers at Titleist.
A key consideration was to create more parity between the Pro V1 and Pro V1x when it came to distance off the tee with a driver. On the PGA Tour the split is roughly 25 percent of professionals favoring the Pro V1 and 75 percent that prefer the Pro V1x. Most aren’t willing to sacrifice distance for the increased performance coming into the green.
Titleist started by creating a new cover that’s 17-percent thinner than the old one. This in itself doesn’t contribute to additional distance gains, but it allowed Titleist to find the desired distance in other parts of the golf ball.
The thinner cover allowed Titleist to increase the thickness of the inner casing (also known as the mantle) by 14 percent in the Pro V1 and 11 percent in the Pro V1x. According to Titleist, the thicker casing is part of the reason both balls are faster and spin less on longer shots.
Both balls also feature a new core, using what Titleist calls a 2.0 ZG process to make the core of the new balls. The new formulation results in a firmer outer portion, while the innermost portion of the core is softer. Like the thicker casing, the new core also adds speed with a bit less spin on long shots.
Although the same changes were made to both balls, the relationship between the two remains unchanged. The Pro V1x launches higher, and although it spins more than the outgoing Pro V1x, the Pro V1x still spins a bit more. But the new Pro V1 is longer on full shots than the previous Pro V1 and is the equal of the Pro V1x with a driver off the tee.
The BusinessMirror Golf was fortunate to get a sleeve each of the prerelease prototypes of both balls, and in the course of our testing, both balls are indeed much closer to each other in terms of distance off the tee. Both balls performed very similarly on shots into the green.
There is no discernible difference in feel. Both balls feel heavy on the club on full swings, but the Pro V1x did feel a bit firmer on shorter shots with the wedges. We’re talking about minute differences here. Although there’s still a bit of separation between the balls, they are more similar than ever before.
Oh, and the new Pro V1 and Pro V1x are finally available in yellow.