Titleist Velocity and TruFeel golf balls: What you need to know

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: Titleist’s new Velocity and TruFeel golf balls have undergone core and cover transformations to address the distance needs of the entry-level and price-conscious golfer.

AVAILABILITY/PRICE: The new Velocity will be in stores in white Feb. 4 with matte orange, matte green and matte blue available in October. Price in $30 per dozen. The new TruFeel will be in stores Feb. 4 in white, with yellow with matte red following in October. Price is $25 per dozen.

THE DEEP DIVE: The new Titleist Velocity and TruFeel golf balls are not as complex as the company’s tour-caliber Pro V1 line, but in many ways that’s driven by the consumer. Not only is there a segment of the market that doesn’t want to pay $50 for a dozen golf balls, but there needs are more direct as well.

“As we get into these lower price points it’s more of a single attribute that players are looking for but with Titleist quality,” says Frederick Waddell, Titleist’s director of golf ball product management.

For the Velocity player, that means always looking to hit it longer. “They’re players looking for that fountain of youth,” said Waddell. “They want to hit the ball the way they used to, hit that 8-iron from 140 yards again.”

To achieve that, the company made a change to a higher compression, 1.550-inch core to give the ball more speed. But there’s always a balance to changing performance attributes. If you change one part of the ball, it affects other attributes. As such, a tweak to the cover was needed as well.

Although the 350-dimple pattern (designed to produce a high trajectory) stays the same, the reformulated cover is designed to balance out the spin properties. "You have to make sure the spin doesn’t get too high,” says Mike Madson, the company’s director of aerodynamics and research engineering. “If the spin gets too high it can actually outweigh your distance gains, so we paid great attention to that.”

For the new TruFeel, once again the desire was precise—if not expected.

“We always thought this golfer wanted softer and softer feel but they really don’t,” said Waddell. “Yet for several generations the TruFeel golfer has told us they love the feel just as it is, but they want more distance.”

To hit that mark the company went to a noticeably larger (and low compression) core at 1.600 inches. “That’s a big jump but it gives more speed,” said Madson. “Ten years ago we probably couldn’t have made this golf ball or manufacture it. As you get up in core size with large, soft compression cores with soft covers on top of them, it gets difficult to manufacture. We have made huge strides in our Ball Plant 2 in terms of re-writing all the software and upgrading all our equipment to control material flow. Completely re-designing the cup geometry, too. If you don’t control the pressures and temperatures, you can’t make the ball and make it consistently. There’s a lot that went into this ball.”

As with Velocity, a reformulated spherically-tiled 376-dimple design cover helps achieve the proper spin to enhance distance while remaining soft and providing greenside control. Also noticeable is a new sidestamp design that was inspired by the most popular alignment aid chosen through the My Titleist customizer on Titleist.com since alignment options debuted in February 2018.

The new Velocity will be in stores in white Feb. 4 with matte orange, matte green and matte blue available in October. Price in $30 per dozen. The new TruFeel will be in stores Feb. 4 as well in white and yellow with matte red following in October. Price is $25 per dozen.