For those of you who might have someplace to be, I’m going to cut to the chase.

Compared to the 2023 balls, the 2025 Titleist Pro V1 and Pro V1x offer:

More speed off the tee More control with the irons More spin with your wedges

If that’s all you need to hear to try the new balls, cool. They go on sale Jan. 25 and they’re still $54.99 a dozen.

Thanks for stopping by. Appreciate you.

If you want some of the behind-the-scenes stuff like the design objectives and how Titleist was able to achieve them, feel free to stick around.

The 25th Anniversary Pro V1

Did you know that 2025 marks the 25th anniversary of the original Pro V1? Now that you’re aware, you (like me) might be thinking Titleist would do something crazy to absolutely blow the doors off this thing.

A seven-layer Pro V1? A new gold urethane cover? How about the long-anticipated (by me) Pro V2?

Nah.

We’re keeping it simple. That’s not so much because Titleist lacks an adventurous spirit as it is a classic case of not trying to fix something that clearly isn’t broken.

Consider the following:

The Titleist Pro V1 is a dominant No. 1 in the retail market. It averages 70 percent of the ball count on the PGA Tour each week. It was used by 92 percent of the field in the Women’s NCAA Championship and 89 percent in the men’s. Other than Japan, it accounts for more than 65 percent of the balls in play on every major tour and elite amateur events.

And so, 25th anniversary ball or not, the process that went into developing the new ball really wasn’t much different from the last nine.

It started, as it always does, with figuring out how to improve on the one that came before it.

With that, you might say that Step 1 in developing a new golf ball is to listen.

The challenge for Titleist is that very often the feedback from Tour pros is “don’t change anything.”

Press them a bit and, “Well … more spin with my irons.”

What does that really mean?

Which irons? How much more spin?

Poke and prod and “more spin” becomes “more stopping power with a 5-iron but none off the driver.”

Objectives – what Titleist calls its North Star – become product briefs and we’re off and running.

Here’s what that looked like this time around.

Pro V1 – Maintain driver spin and distance. Deliver more iron and wedge spin.

Pro V1x – Maintain driver spin and distance. Increase iron and wedge spin (without exceeding 2021 Pro V1x)

Pro V1x Left Dash* – Don’t change literally anything (apparently) because there still isn’t a new one (and I’m totally not bitter about it at all).

* To be fair, Titleist isn’t doing nothing as far as Left Dash is concerned. There have been several prototypes, some more promising than others. The next Left Dash isn’t ready yet but that doesn’t mean it’s not being worked on.

Becoming Pro V1: The process

With the big picture stuff hammered out, the next step is to figure out how to actually give players what they’re asking for.

With golf balls, the avenues for improvement are somewhat limited. Improvement comes, in some combination, through the core, mantle and cover.

Still, determining the right levers to pull to achieve the desired result is a process.

Ideas become 100 or so prototypes. Those 100 get whittled down to 70. From there, it’s lots of testing, analysis and optimization. If something isn’t quite right, try again. Make new prototypes. Lather, rinse and repeat until the last best few options are ready to take to the Tour.

As you might imagine, the quality of feedback differs by players. Some give plenty of detailed and meaningful insights. Others, not so much, but there’s still something to be learned from the launch monitor.

In blind testing, if a player happens to say that a ball feels hotter or that he’s hitting his windows and feels like he has more control, then cool.

Nailed it.

You can think of the final step in prototype testing as Titleist offering a menu but the players choose the ball that becomes the ball.

But how?

While making (and improving) a golf ball requires a fair amount of expertise, there’s not any particular magic to it.

To some extent, the process is cumulative where the work done in ’21 and ’23 make what I suppose could be described as a more spin-tuned Pro V1 possible.

For 2025, the evolution of the Pro V1 comes largely by way of a core reformation that builds on the improvements made to the graduated core design found in the 2023 balls. Continuing our restaurant analogy, golf balls are kind of like cakes but instead of flour and sugar Titleist tweaks things like rubber blends and zinc salts while adjusting cook times and other parts of the process.

By the time the oven timer goes off, hopefully you’ve got something better.

More speed?

You may have noticed that at the beginning I shared Titleist’s claim of more speed. You may have also noticed that it wasn’t part of the product brief (Tour players weren’t necessarily asking for it) and nothing I’ve said so far explains where the added speed came from.

Let’s clear that up.

While improving spin characteristics was the goal, speed is more of a happy little bonus. Consider it our shared 25th anniversary present.

Over the last several years, we’ve talked about Titleist’s competitors spending big money to improve the quality and consistency of their golf ball products. While Titleist may not have a line-item dollar amount it can point to, quality improvements are a continuing and never-ending part of the Titleist process.

In many respects, quality improvements manifest as tighter tolerances and, as those manufacturing distribution curves narrow as a result of those improved tolerances, it creates an opportunity to push speed targets closer to the USGA limits without increasing the risk of exceeding them.

It’s basically the same thing you’ve heard about on the clubmaking side. Tighter tolerances allow brands to raise their CT targets. Likewise, tighter tolerances allowed Titleist to add a little speed to the new Pro V1 and Pro V1x.

How much faster are we talking?

In robot testing at roughly 100 mph, Titleist puts the speed benefit at an extra .5. That’s not a ton but it’s not nothing. The potentially interesting thing is that gains in player testing average closer to 1.5 mph, though there are some that aren’t seeing any speed gains.

With the new 2025 Pro V1 and Pro V1x, you’re going to get some spin benefits and, with a little bit of luck, you might pick up some speed, too.

Aerodynamic optimization

As part of every new ball release, Titleist looks for opportunities for aerodynamic improvement. The ripple is that you can’t decouple the aerodynamic package from the rest of the ball so a promising new dimple pattern may provide optimal results with a given construction. Likewise, an optimized package might push the distance beyond what the USGA’s ODS (overall distance standard) allow for.

Simply, it’s a balancing act.

For the 2025 balls, Titleist found that the existing aero package on the Pro V1 worked well with the new ball and so the cover carries over unchanged from the 2023 ball.

With the Pro V1x, the pattern itself is the same but Titleist tweaked the depth of the dimples  to bring flight down a bit. The lower flight is why Titleist says the new Pro V1x offers more control.

Lower flight off the driver is something players had asked for but it’s equally true that if Titleist hadn’t made the changes, with the added speed, the 2025 ball may not have passed the ODS test (largely because of the math behind the USGA’s bounce and roll model).

Cool, so which one is right for me?

Unfortunately, the right golf ball varies from golfer to golfer That is to say, there’s no Titleist (or any other ball for that matter) that’s right for everyone.

The Pro V1x will fly higher and spin more, most notably off iron shots. Pro V1 will fly lower and spin a bit less in the long game. Both offer plenty of short-game spin.

It’s perhaps notable that Titleist fits more golfers into Pro V1x than any other ball in its lineup. While the high compression can work well for faster players, its higher-flight, higher-spin properties make it a great option for golfers who struggle to generate enough spin.

On the other end of the spectrum, Left Dash and AVX provide options for golfers who generate too much spin. Dash is faster and will fly higher while AVX is softer and often longer off irons.

If at all possible, we’d recommend going through a ball fitting to find the best ball for your game.

Pricing and availability

The 2025 Titleist Pro V1 and Pro V1x golf balls retail for $54.99 a dozen. Both are available in white and High Optic Yellow. The Enhanced Alignment Option (alignment side stamp) will be available at launch as well.

Available in golf shops worldwide beginning Jan. 25.

For more information, visit Titleist.com.

The old one is still pretty good

While supplies last, the 2023 Pro V1 has been discounted to $49.99 a dozen.

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