Are you playing the right golf ball? Here's an easy way to find out
Golf Digest senior writer Alex Myers is on a one-year mission to see how good he can get at golf through daily training, practice and playing. Read more from his “Late Scratch?” series here.
Watch enough golf on TV and you’ll start to hear Jim Nantz’s voice in your head, but not just because of PGA Tour coverage. Nantz’s dulcet tones are also heard in the many Titleist commercials that run on CBS during their broadcasts. And they certainly had me dreaming this winter of hitting shots outside again.
They also got me to start wondering something: Am I playing the right golf ball?
It’s a question I’d never thought too much about. But as I was about to begin the season with a goal of shooting my lowest scores ever, it seemed to be the perfect time to finally address it. Here’s what I learned about golf ball fitting and how it can help you as well.
Seeing where the sausage is made
I have long (loosely) played the Titleist Pro V1, so I decided to reach out to Titleist about getting fitted. I say loosely because that’s the ball I mainly play, but it’s not like I’m opening a fresh sleeve every time I tee it up. My golf bag is filled with found Pro V1s—my friends and I call them “pieces of gold”—in varying shape. And, from time to time, I will play premium balls from other brands (Check out Golf Digest's best new golf balls of 2026) as well. Again, I typically eat what I hunt out there on the course. Which, turns out, isn’t the smartest thing to do.
“It’s always fun to find one,” Brian Anderson, manager, Titleist Performance Center at Manchester Lane, tells me. “The issue is there’s a shelf life to a golf ball. They're really good if you're storing them correctly. But if you find them in the woods, or especially in the water, you’re going to see a performance downfall.”
Anyway, the folks at Titleist invited me up to their Massachusetts headquarters, but first suggested that I take a tour of one of their golf ball plants known as Ball Plant 3 in New Bedford.
Why do I mention this? Because it was truly eye-opening to see how much goes into making these things. Through a tediously thorough process—Evin Priest did a full feature on this Willy Wonka chocolate factory for adults—each Pro V1 goes through 90 check points before being shipped. Each Pro V1x, which has a dual-core construction that’s more complex, goes through 120 check points.
The plant pumps out an incredible 300,000-plus golf balls per day. But each golf ball takes three days from start to finish to go through the painstaking process. I tell you all this not to make you feel bad for losing one in three seconds after taking it out of the box. But if so much is going into making each and every golf ball, more golfers should probably put a bit more time into figuring out which one is best for them.
Why should you get fit for a golf ball?
After my tour of Ball Plant 3, it was time to take a 15-minute drive over to the Titleist Performance Center at Manchester Lane, where Anderson took me on another tour of this beautiful facility and gave me more history on a quarter-century-plus of the Pro V1 line. I also got a sneak peek at some of the prototypes for 2027 and was asked my opinion on which stamp looked best. No matter what they wind up going with, I’ll tell people I played a role in it.
But again, my main purpose was to find out what golf ball I should be playing. And why that’s important.
“Golfers that are fit for proper equipment will perform better,” Steve Coan, Titleist’s director of golf ball fitting & education, said. “ Regardless of skill level, regardless of gender, regardless of swing speed. And the only piece of equipment you play on every single shot is the golf ball.”
My visit happened to be on the heels of Cameron Young’s win at the Players and I was told about how the PGA Tour star had tested golf balls at this very site in the fall of 2024. Young liked a Pro V1 “Double Dot” prototype and he put it in play the first week it was available to play the following August at the Wyndham Championship. He won the tournament by six shots for his maiden PGA Tour victory.
It’s hard to downplay the importance of the golf ball for a player at the highest level after hearing that story, but what about for normal golfers?
“When people say, ‘I'm not good enough to get fit,’ most people are actually not good enough to not get fit, because better golfers know how the golf ball is going to perform regardless of the golf ball that they play, and they can overcome that,” Coan says. “But there are so many variables in the game of golf and every golfer needs the best possible situations and circumstances to play their best. So whether it be carry, whether it be spin, whether it be stopping power, how's it going to fly in the wind? What window? And to play the same ball consistently and know how it's going to work for you is going to make a big difference.”
How does a golf ball fitting work?
With Titleist, the process was simple and quick. It began with a chat with Coan in which he asked me the following five questions:
- How firm are the greens you typically play?
- What type of feel do you prefer in your golf ball?
- How important is ball feel to you?
- What is your preferred trajectory?
- How important is trajectory to you?
Then we dove into a test that involved me hitting 12 shots: Three half wedges (Think: A 50-60 yard shot), three full wedges, three 7-irons, and, finally, three drivers. Titleist has been doing its test this way for a decade—the test uses Pro V1s as a baseline—and the company put out an app in 2024 that takes you through this process that can be done in only 15 minutes.
“The app and the algorithm within the app is all based upon performance, not preference,” Coan said. “ From a numbers perspective, we're looking at stopping power and that's spin, and land angle.”
If you're not a Titleist person, all the major golf ball manufacturers offer various forms of online fitting tools. You can also go to certain stores like Golf Galaxy to get an independent fitting. Regardless, you can always do your own research, which should start with Golf Digest's Hot List Golf Balls list.
What’s interesting is that the Titleist app algorithm starts to suggest a ball for you out of Titleist's full lineup (including the Pro V1, the Pro V1x and the AVX) once you hit your seventh ball—or your first 7-iron shot—and it usually doesn’t change from there.
As Coan explained, the app works backward from green to tee in order to focus on your scoring clubs. And with drivers being so much more adjustable these days, it’s easier to adapt that club to your ball than the other way around.
Once I hit that first 7-iron, the screen listed the Pro V1 as my “Best fit,” followed by Pro V1x. And with each ensuing shot, the numbers—presented as a percentage for the other balls—adjust slightly. But it was clear the Pro V1 was my ball. Why? Essentially, the results showed I didn’t need the extra spin and height provided by the Pro V1x, the extra height without the spin from the Pro V1x Left Dash or the added distance from the AVX. I always assumed I was a regular Pro V1 guy, but it was good to get such clear confirmation of that.
”Every golfer's different. It's why we make Left Dash. It's why we make Pro V1x. It's why we make AVX,” Anderson says. “They're steered to what the golfer needs, but you want to get every performance value out of it. If you go through any club fitting, you’re not going to say, ‘Yeah, you know what? I just don’t know if I want all the performance benefits of it.’ Yeah, you do. Do the same thing for a golf ball and then stick to it.”
And if you’re thinking, “Good for you, but I don’t have time to go to Massachusetts,” you don’t have to. Titleist has partnered with various golf stores across the country that will do the fitting for you. Or you can do it on your own if you have the app and a TrackMan, Foresight, or similar launch monitor. And, again, you can try other companies' online tools or go for an in-person fitting elsewhere. For some reason, a lot of golfers don’t always think about golf ball fitting, but Coan and Anderson are hoping that changes—especially based on the results they’ve seen in recent years.
“What we’ve found is that 60 percent of people are playing a golf ball that might not allow them to perform their best,” said Coan, who noted the majority of those golfers should actually be playing a Pro V1x. “And that’s the reason we fit.”
Get the most out of your golf ball
Even if you don’t get fitted for a golf ball, there are a few guidelines you should follow. For one, you should be consistent with the ball you use.
”A hundred percent that makes a difference. Making sure you're playing the same golf ball, Now you know what to expect,” Anderson said. “ You know, if golfers switched irons every single time or switched drivers all over the place, there'd be zero consistency. You're not gonna do that with your clubs, but you never think about it with a golf ball.”
When you do get golf balls, always store them in a place that doesn’t get too hot and cold. If you do that and keep them dry, they can stay good for decades. And speaking of staying good, there’s one situation golfers often overlook when it comes to their ball.
“We always talk about getting a scuff on a golf ball,” Anderson said. “If you hit a cart path, if there's a scuff that's the size of a dime or bigger, you're gonna see some aerodynamic effects to that. Can you still use it? Yeah. Put it in a shag bag and go practice with it.”
How much could a golf ball really matter? For what it's worth, Golf Digest tested the difference between range balls and premium balls, and there was a marked difference in carry distance for both the driver and a gap wedge between the two.
So it looks like I’ll be transferring a lot of old, beat up golf balls out of my bag this year. In committing to playing (new) Pro V1s this year, I can be confident that I’m getting the most out of this vital piece of equipment. And I'm hoping these pieces of gold will lead to the real treasure: lower scores. Feel free to use that in the next Titleist commercial script, Jim.