Overview
When the very first version of the Titleist Pro V1 golf ball was introduced at the PGA Tour’s 2000 Invensys Classic in Las Vegas, it completely changed the paradigm of the professional game. Dozens of Tour players converting to a newfangled ball with experimental construction in a matter of hours was previously unheard of, but this was something very different—it seemed to marry distance, feel and accuracy in a way that had never been accomplished before. A few weeks later, when the same ball hit stores in the American sunbelt, it created the biggest groundswell of demand the industry had ever seen. Titleist couldn’t make the new ball fast enough, and the company’s management was faced with a difficult decision. Should they abandon their core business and go all in on manufacturing this crazy innovation? The rest, as the saying goes, is history.
In celebration of the Pro V1’s 25th anniversary, Golf Digest dives deep into the story behind the origins of the Pro V1 ball, that fateful week in Las Vegas and the things that led up to it, and the evolution of the product in the years since. Now in its 14th iteration, the Pro V1 is still the most dominant ball in the game, thanks to a relentless pursuit of continued innovation.