This week, the PGA TOUR’s best have returned to Ponte Vedra Beach to compete for the 2023 PLAYERS, attempting to conquer one of the year’s toughest tests – the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass.
The challenge is well documented: Firm conditions, precarious hole locations and, most infamously, lots of water. In order to become THE PLAYERS Champion, you need total control of your golf ball.
Hear from #TeamTitleist on why they have chosen their Pro V1 or Pro V1x model – in terms of flight, spin and feel – and why their golf ball is the most critical variable to playing their best:
The best players in the world know exactly where they want to see the ball flying after impact. This week, whether launching a high long iron into the par-5 16th or flighting a wedge low into the island-green par-3 17th, the need for reliable and consistent flight is paramount.
• For Will Zalatoris, one of the game’s elite ballstrikers, it’s about being able to control the flight of his NEW Pro V1x and hitting his preferred window no matter the situation.
“The golf ball is the engine of everything I do equipment wise,” Zalatoris said. “So the big thing that I look for whenever I’m testing balls, is ‘Does it do exactly what I think it’s going to do?’ … Anytime I’m into the wind, I’m able to flight it under the wind. That’s huge. But the difference is when I get downwind, was it able to stop or not? And so really when I put the X in my hand, being able to have that ball fly through the wind exactly how I want it to, and it’s even that much better than with the [prior Pro V1 model] that I was playing, it was a no-brainer.”
• Davis Riley, making his first career start at THE PLAYERS after a great week at Bay Hill, made the move earlier this year to NEW Pro V1 from the lower-flying Pro V1 Left Dot.
“I was able to achieve a higher trajectory with the longer stuff like the long irons and woods, which is what you’re looking for coming into firm greens,” said Riley. “I was able to get that with this ball and getting more trajectory for the right reasons. Not because it’s up-shooting because of more spin. This was higher launch, but maintaining really good spin where I’m not going to get destroyed in the wind.”
• Cameron Young also recently made the move from Pro V1 Left Dot, looking to add trajectory and stopping power when attacking the TOUR’s firm greens and tight landing areas. Like his former Wake Forest teammate Zalatoris, however, Young opted for NEW Pro V1x.
Young, who put 2023 Pro V1x play for the first time at Riviera, specifically referenced firm setups like TPC Sawgrass as a motivator to achieve that performance.
“I think for me just that little higher launch with that ‘23X is really important,” he said. “And I never have been someone that launched it really high, and I take some big divots, and I have a lot of [shaft] lean. So a little help just getting it to launch a little higher, especially middle irons, 6, 7 and some of the longer irons, that’s going to be big for me, especially in some of those weeks where it’s really firm.”
This week at TPC Sawgrass, players need to know exactly how their golf ball will react once it leaves the club face and then hits the ground, whether it’s finding the narrow fairway on No. 4, holding the green on the risk-reward par-5 11th or precisely controlling the spin on the dangerous 17th.
• “Controlling spin at the professional game is really, really fun. And there's no better way to hit a wedge than to have where you know it's going to end up right where it lands,” said longtime Pro V1x player Jordan Spieth.
But – don’t forget – spin impacts every shot throughout the bag. Flight and spin are always working together in determining a shot’s final result.
“There's a direct correlation with launch with the driver and carry distance, right? So that combination of launch and spin, to find the optimal carry range with the driver while having fantastic control,” Spieth said. “You want that ball to be able to get off that driver face fast and launched up in the air with the ability to bring it down low. And with the irons, again, we get into some tight spots, tight pins.
“A lot of times you've got to throw an iron 100 to 120 feet up in the air to try and really feed one into a pin. But when you get to wedges, it’s all about distance control, and being able to flight those lower creates a lot more significant distance control being able to flight pitching wedge through your lob wedge nice and low when you want to. You just don't have the outliers that go up in the air. And that's what I love about the Pro V1x is I'm playing a higher launching, higher spinning golf ball, but then when that wedge gets in my hand, it just comes off really crispy and low, and I never get surprised by the carry number.”
• When World No. 2 Scottie Scheffler stands over a shot, the last thing he’s worried about is his Pro V1.
“Having that consistency and knowing that golf ball’s going to react the way I need it to react when it comes off the face and when it goes into the green – especially when you get in a Tour setup where the greens are crazy firm, the wind is blowing – you’ve got to have total control over where that golf ball is going to go,” he said. “I feel like I’ve gotten that consistency with the Titleist ball over the years and I really trust how it reacts.”
• Hayden Buckley is one of the PGA TOUR’s best drivers of the golf ball (currently 5th in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee). “I liked the NEW Pro V1 because it did everything I wanted,” he said. “It maximized all my spin numbers. I think the long iron play really improved. I saw that my spin came down a little bit and I was able to launch it where I wanted to as well as with the driver. And for me, driver is everything and when I saw those numbers with a driver, I just couldn't get out of that new ball.
“With flight, I like to flight it different ways. I don't really love a high ball flight and I think I saw that in the Pro V1x. So immediately, I went to the Pro V1 and then with the driver, I saw the spin numbers really hit where I wanted to. I like to hit a fade and sometimes I hit a little heel fade. And when I saw that even with a mishit, my numbers were still pretty low with that spin, I knew that it was a perfect ball for me.”
• For Tony Finau, Pro V1 Left Dot provides the proper spin rates for total control of his ball flight:
“The Left Dot golf ball is right for me because I’ve always put a lot of spin on the golf ball, so it’s the lowest spinning Titleist Pro V1 that is out on the market, and right away, it caught my eye because of the ball flight. I think if you can control your ball flight, you can control the distance… I think the best word I can use is just reliable. I can count on the golf ball in crosswinds, into the wind, downwind. I know how far the golf ball is going to go. And that’s a great feeling to have as a professional golfer. Distance control is up there probably with the most important things when it comes to striking a golf ball and playing golf.”
For the best players in the world, feel matters.
• “Sound and feel is extremely important to me,” said the 2021 PLAYERS Champion Justin Thomas on his Pro V1x. “And I think what it is to me is going to be different from you or Jordan [Spieth] or Patrick [Cantlay] ... what they feel and what that sound that they have envisioned in their head of what perfect is different for everybody. And for me, I like it kind of a mixture of almost a little bit of soft and a little bit of click. It’s kind of, it's hard to explain, I can picture it and hear it in my head. … But that feel, and that sound is 100 percent the most important thing to me, because that's just where it all happens is down there.”
• For Patrick Cantlay, feel is at the top of his priority list. “I think feel for me, I want it to feel the right way. I think that's the first thing that happens when you strike it. And then after that you want to see it go through that perfect window, but if it doesn't have the right feel, then it almost doesn't matter.”
• Sahith Theegala says the softer cover of his Pro V1 provides him the feeling of "ultimate control around the greens.”
“This is a weird key – but I think it works for some people – is I feel like the ball stays on the face longer. And I feel like the Pro V1 really allows me to do that around the green. So I feel like I’m almost one with the club head as I’m going through the ball and it just kind of sticks for me. And obviously there’s not much more satisfying than hitting the one-hop-stop that doesn’t even roll forward at all.”
To see which Titleist golf ball provides the best flight, spin and feel for your game, click here.