Check out these 13 Father’s Day golf gifts from PGA TOUR Superstore
Father’s Day will be here before you know it so take the time to pick out a perfect gift for dad.
Whether your dad is a scratch golfer, a true beginner or somewhere in between, PGA TOUR Superstore has exactly what you need to make this Father’s Day one to remember.
Get dad something he’ll be excited to use! With thousands of pieces of golf equipment, apparel, accessories and more at PGA TOUR Superstore, you’re sure to find a gift dad will love.
Nobody is quite like dad, so get him something personal…that he will actually use on the golf course.
Father’s Day is right around the corner which means it’s time to get your orders in if you want to gift dad a custom gift.
Believe it or not, the world of customizable golf gifts is much larger than just golf balls. We’ve found golf bags, accessories, apparel and more to help you knock your gift(s) out of the park this year.
The 2023 Pro V1 and Pro V1x retain their greenside spin, and now each has a gradient core designed to help boost distance.
Gear: Titleist Pro V1, Pro V1x (2023) Price: $54.99 per dozen Specs: Three-piece construction with cast urethane cover (Pro V1); Four-piece, dual-core construction with cast urethane cover (Pro V1x) Available: Jan. 25
Who They’re For: Golfers who want more distance off the tee and from the fairway with the maximum level of short-game spin.
The Skinny: The 2023 Pro V1 and Pro V1x retain their soft urethane covers and greenside spin, and now each has a high-gradient core designed to boost long-game distance.
The Deep Dive: Titleist ran the table in 2022 at the men’s majors, with Scottie Scheffler (Masters), Justin Thomas (PGA Championship), Matt Fitzpatrick (U.S. Open) and Cameron Smith (British Open) each winning with a Pro V1 or Pro V1x ball.
For 2023, Titleist is releasing updates to the Pro V1 and Pro V1x, the most-played golf balls on the PGA Tour, DP World Tour, LPGA, NCAA Championships and every major amateur championship. The Pro V1 remains a three-piece ball with a large core inside a casing layer covered with a 388-dimple cast thermostat cover. The Pro V1x remains a four-piece ball with a dual-core design inside the casing layer and a urethane cover. The most significant change to the balls is how the cores are designed.
For 2023 the Pro V1 and Pro V1x have a high-gradient core designed to be soft in the center and grow progressively firmer toward the perimeter.
The 2023 Titleist Pro V1 is a three-piece ball with a gradient core and urethane cover. (Courtesy of Titleist)
Titleist made the core of the Pro V1x Left Dash and 2021’s limited-release Pro V1 Left Dot with high-gradient core technology without calling attention to it. After listening to player feedback and tweaking the design, the brand decided to add it to the Pro V1 and Pro V1x this season.
Titleist said a large differential between the rigid outer portion of the core and the soft inner area produces less spin on long-game shots because it transfers more energy, more efficiently, to the inner portion of the core.
In other words, the gradient core allows for more energy created by your swing to become forward thrust on long-iron, hybrid, fairway wood and driver shots instead of creating spin. However, because the soft cover of the Pro V1 and Pro V1x is easily pinched between the face of your wedge and the stiff casing layer, golfers can generate greenside spin on slower-swinging short-game shots.
The four-piece Pro V1x feels firmer and creates more spin than the three-piece Pro V1. (Courtesy of Titleist)
In the dual-core Pro V1x, the inner core’s volume was increased 44 percent, and now it has a gradient core. The outer core, which is slightly thinner, was made marginally firmer.
In a higher-compression ball such as the Pro V1x, more spin is typically created with longer clubs, but using two cores creates a hardness gradient that allows for more speed. The new gradient core amplifies that effect, so the 2023 Pro V1x retains its firmer feel but can now deliver more speed.
While Titleist is not touting that the updated Pro V1 and Pro V1x feel softer because of the gradient cores, PGA Tour reps did hear that as a comment from some players during the seeding process in the fall.
In addition to providing more distance off the tee and with long clubs, Titleist said that in testing the 2023 Pro V1 and Pro V1x created tighter dispersion because overall spin is reduced, so the effect of hooks, slices and wind are diminished.
The relationship between the two balls has not changed with the update. The 2023 Pro V1x should fly slightly higher and generate slightly more spin than the Pro V1, while the Pro V1 will still feel softer.
The next generation of Titleist’s premium balls, the 2023 Pro V1 and Pro V1x, are at the PGA Tour’s 2022 Shiners Children’s Open.
The only place better than Las Vegas in October for testing golf equipment is indoors because the weather is consistently good and TPC Summerlin, the site of this week’s Shriners Children’s Open tends to yield at a lot of birdies. Last year, Sungjae Im won with a score of 24 under par.
So, Titleist has opted to once again bring the next generation of Pro V1 and Pro V1x balls to Las Vegas for their tour debut this week.
Sort of.
Before the start of last week’s Sanderson Farms, three players who had been involved in the balls’ prototype testing—Garrick Higgo, M.J. Daffue and Gary Woodland—asked if they could put the balls in play. The new balls are made in Ball Plant III, one of Titleist’s facilities in New Bedford, Massachusetts, so several “white box” prototype packages were delivered overnight to the players so they could be used.
It turns out the extra expense was worth it as Duffue made a hole-in-one using his new Pro V1x on the 182-yard fourth hole on Thursday and Higgo finished in third, just one shot out of the playoff between Mackenzie Hughes and Sepp Straka.
While Titleist has not released any details about the new balls, the company can only hope to match the success it enjoyed on the PGA Tour last season because each of the four major championships was won by a player using a Titleist ball—Scottie Scheffler (Masters, Pro V1), Justin Thomas (PGA Championship, Pro V1x), Matt Fitzpatrick (U.S. Open Pro V1x) and Cameron Smith (British Open, Pro V1x).
Titleist Pro V1 (David Dusek/Golfweek)
The 2021 Titleist Pro V1 is a three-piece ball with a large rubber core encased in a mantle layer that also features a cast urethane cover. Since it debuted in Las Vegas in 2000, the Pro V1 has always been a three-piece ball, so it would be surprising if the 2023 model was not a three-piece construction.
Titleist Pro V1x (David Dusek/Golfweek)
The 2021 Pro V1x is a four-piece ball that has a dual-core design encased by the mantle. Like the Pro V1, it has a cast urethane cover, but its design gives it a firmer feel and helps it produce a slightly-higher ball flight and spin rate.
BROOKLINE, Mass – Brooks Koepka, a two-time U.S. Open winner, is considering substantial equipment changes before the 2022 U.S. Open at The Country Club.
However, on Tuesday morning Koepka practiced putting and worked in the short-game area using a 2017 version of Titleist’s Pro V1x, the ball he used to win both his U.S. Open titles (2017 and ’18) as well as two PGA Championships (2018 and ’19).
Brooks Koepka’s putter and ball Tuesday at the 2022 U.S. Open (David Dusek/Golfweek)
While hitting a series of pitch shots, he spoke briefly with Justin Thomas and asked which ball Thomas played. The winner of last month’s PGA Championship replied that he is playing the 2021 version of the Pro V1x, then he asked Koepka if he was having golf ball troubles. Koepka smiled and said he was working with the 2017 Pro V1x again.
Brooks Koepka’s golf balls Tuesday at the 2022 U.S. Open (David Dusek/Golfweek)
Thomas said his ball, the 2021 version, would spin more than the 2017 version, smiled and went back to hitting pitch shots.
Thirty minutes later on the driving range, after Koepka warmed up with his Cleveland wedges and Srixon irons, he took a Srixon headcover off his driver, but the club was a TaylorMade M5.
Brooks Koepka practices with a TaylorMade M5 driver at the 2022 U.S. Open. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
Koepka used the TaylorMade M5 to win the PGA Championship at Bethpage.
Koepka is scheduled to start his first round at 1:25 p.m. Thursday alongside Cameron Smith and reigning Masters champion Scottie Scheffler.
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Every week on the PGA Tour, a vast majority of golfers use either the Titleist Pro V1 or Pro V1x golf balls. Two weeks ago at the Northern Trust, 87 of the 123 players (71 percent) used either a Pro V1 or Pro V1x, including winner Tony Finau (Pro V1) and the man he defeated in a playoff, Cameron Smith (Pro V1x).
Titleist says those two balls are ideal for most players, but the company does offer other premium models for players who have particular needs or preferences.
And today, Titleist announced a limited retail release of a custom performance option: the Pro V1 Left Dot for golfers looking for a lower flight and less spin with woods and long irons than the Pro V1.
The Left Dot joins another ball released in limited batches: the Pro V1x Left Dash balls, which have a high flight similar to the Pro V1x but with less full-swing spin and a firmer feel. That Left Dash ball had been available to professional golfers as a custom performance option and was available by order for consumers and at a small selection of retail shops.
And in 2018, Titleist launched the AVX for golfers who want a softer feel, lower flight and less spin on full-swing shots. That ball was updated in 2020, which means it is due for an update in 2022.
The company also allows professional golfers to continue using previous generations of balls after discontinuing their availability at retail, along with subtly different versions of the Pro V1 and Pro V1x, lumping them into the custom performance category.
Keep scrolling for more details on the new Left Dot.
Titleist updated the most-played balls in golf to make the Pro V1 and Pro V1x higher-flying, softer feeling and spinnier around the greens.
Gear: Titleist Pro V1, Pro V1x (2021) Price: $49.99 per dozen Specs: Three-piece, urethane-covered ball (Pro V1); four-piece, urethane-covered ball (Pro V1x) Available: Jan. 27
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The latest version of the Titleist Pro V1 and Pro V1x, the most-played golf balls on the PGA Tour, LPGA Tour and every other professional circuit, first appeared in the public eye at the Shiners Hospitals for Children Open in October.
Handed out to players in white boxes on the range at TPC Summerlin – nearly 20 years to the day after the first Pro V1 balls went into play at the 2000 Invensys Classic in Las Vegas – 12 golfers immediately put the new balls into play. In the weeks that followed, more players switched into the latest Pro V1 and Pro V1x, including Justin Thomas and Adam Scott.
Based on conversations with players and caddies over the last several years, Titleist has made enhancements and refinements to this season’s Pro V1 and Pro V1x, and now the Fairhaven, Mass.-based company is making them available to the public.
Every company that makes golf balls talks with golfers and asks what they like, don’t like and would love to see from their golf ball, but Titleist does more than chat with golfers on the range. It holds sit-down conversations regularly with PGA Tour pros before tournaments to gauge what they are looking for, as well as surveying recreational golfers around the world. The company heard most in recent talks that golfers wanted even more greenside spin and higher-launching shots from the fairway, along with a softer feel.
The three-piece Titleist Pro V1. (Titleist)
To make that happen with the 2021 Pro V1, Titleist gave the three-piece ball a softer core encased in a new, more rigid casing layer. The firmer casing layer increases ball speed and lowers spin on high-speed shots, but the softer core offsets the firmer feel that otherwise would be created. Over those layers, Titleist designed and applied a softer thermoset cast-urethane cover that features a new 388-dimple pattern. It is the first new dimple pattern for the Pro V1 since 2011, and the company said it makes the Pro V1 more aerodynamic and consistent.
Off the tee and from the fairway with longer clubs, golfers can expect the new Pro V1 to boost ball speed and fly slightly higher. Around the greens, the softer cover can be grabbed by the grooves in wedges and short irons more easily, resulting in more spin and control. And with the firmer casing layer and softer core canceling each other out, the softer cover also should create a softer feel for golfers on every shot.
The Titleist four-piece Pro V1x for 2021. (Titleist)
Titleist also made similar modifications to the four-piece, dual-core Pro V1x.
Engineers utilized the same casing layer found in the Pro V1 and softened the dual cores’ overall compression for extra ball speed. After testing 32 dimple patterns, Titleist found a new 348-dimple pattern developed in 2012 that delivers the combination of aerodynamic stability and speed the company wanted to pair with the newly enhanced core and casing layers. Like the Pro V1, the 2021 Pro V1x has a softer thermoset cast-urethane than was used in previous years.
The result is the 2021 Pro V1x flies higher than the new Pro V1, feels softer than previous versions and provides golfers with more spin on chips, pitches and approach shots.
Pros at the 2020 Shriners Hospitals for Children Open will get to use the new newest Titleist balls for the first time.
The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted just about everything, but at least one time-honored tradition is rolling on like clockwork, the release of prototype Titleist Pro V1 and Pro V1x golf balls at the PGA Tour’s event in Las Vegas.
White boxes are distributed and put into players’ lockers every two years when the Tour arrives at TPC Summerlin, and this year was no different. While Titleist’s ball factories and headquarters had to close during the pandemic’s height in the spring, the prototype Pro V1 and Pro V1x balls were manufactured at Titleist Ball Plant 3 in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
Titleist Pro V1 and Pro V1x prototype balls. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the release of the first Titleist Pro V1 at the 2000 Invensys Classic. That week, 47 players in the field switched into the new multi-layer, urethane-covered ball, including Billy Andrade, who went on to win.
Historically, Titleist brings prototypes of the three-piece Pro V1 and the four-piece Pro V1x balls to Las Vegas to get feedback from players, then makes the balls available to consumers in late January of the following year.
The company is not providing any details regarding modifications it has made to the balls at this time, but it is likely that the balls are receiving refinements instead of significant overhauls. Why? According to Titleist, about 73 percent of all the players on the PGA Tour last season used either a Pro V1 or a Pro V1x. That number jumps to 75 percent on the European Tour and 83 percent on the LPGA Tour.
What’s in the bag? From rain gear to snacks, take a peek into all the gear Caroline Masson keeps in her golf bag on the LPGA.
So what do touring professionals keep in those big pieces of luggage hoisted onto their caddies’ shoulders? Some of their bags are big enough to fit a small child, at the least. And while there are stories about some pros who fill them to the top with everything imaginable, most players take a utilitarian approach. The necessities go in, the junk stays out.
Four-time European Solheim Cupper and one-time LPGA winner Caroline Masson is a perfect example. There are the usual items in her golf bag: a Sharpie, a quarter for a ball mark, Band-Aids, used gloves and rain gloves. She carries two new golf gloves, rain gear, an umbrella and a towel.
Training aids such as alignment sticks, a putting ruler and various targets and practice aids all have a home. She carries different types of sunscreen for face and body, plus water and electrolytes. For snacks, she typically has two protein bars, nuts and one or two bananas.
“I try to keep eating a little bit about every three holes,” she said. “. . . I’m really trying not to get hungry.”
Caroline Masson carries everything from alignment aides to rain gear in her bag. (Malcolm Denemark/Florida Today)
Masson usually keeps at least 50 tees in the bag (she likes them white and unassuming, not in wild colors) and three sleeves of balls, just in case.
“I think that’s the German in me,” she said. “I just want to make sure I have plenty.”
How much does it all weigh? Before Masson’s bag ever hit the scale, her fiancé, Jason McDede – who is a tour caddie but isn’t her regular looper – correctly guessed its weight of about 34 pounds. And Masson is more conscious of that weight now because of McDede; she tries not to toss in extras and will stow unnecessary gear in the locker room when possible.
Still, some items – particularly bananas, it seems – have a way of getting lost in a tour bag. Once in a while, the whole thing needs to be cleaned out.
“This is like a suitcase,” McDede said. “A lot of times you find things in there that have been in there a couple weeks and you go, ‘I didn’t know that was in there.’ Rarely do you unpack it. More do you throw stuff in it.”
Caroline Masson and her fiancé, Jason McDede (Malcolm Denemark/Florida Today)
Here’s the inside scoop on what’s in the bag, and what McDede won’t go without:
Heads-up for Ace
Ace the headcover is a reminder of the couple’s 4-year-old Goldendoodle, also named Ace, who they brought home from a tour stop in Arkansas. The week Ace joined the family, McDede’s player at the time, Haru Nomura, made a hole-in-one, hence the name.
Player-caddie partnership
McDede and Masson typically do not work together. McDede most often carries Nelly Korda’s bag, and Masson’s regular caddie is James Longman. Still, it’s fun for the couple to pair up once, maybe twice a season. In 2019 that happened at the Indy Women in Tech Championship, where Masson finished T-9. “We were building a swimming pool at the time,” McDede said, “and we made a deal however much money we won as a group, that would go toward the pool.”
Rain gear: Take it or leave it?
Masson almost always keeps her rain gear – jacket, pants, umbrella – in the bag except perhaps in Arizona, where a zero-percent chance of rain is believable. “Other places, especially in the summer and anywhere in the States, they just pop up,” she said of frequent storms. “It’s just not worth it.”
McDede has no shortage of foul-weather war stories, from watching players who left umbrellas behind get soaked to feeling it himself. He remembers once, four or five years ago, taking the umbrella out of Nomura’s bag at Evian. “All of a sudden, it started hailing,” he said. “No umbrella, no rain gear, anybody in the group. Ever since that day, I’ll never, ever caddie without an umbrella.”
Double or single strap?
“The only time I would single strap is if I’m going from a green to a tee box that’s only 15, 20 yards away,” McDede said. “Sometimes if you’re trying to finagle with the bag or you’re drinking water you might have it single, but if it’s a long walk, I would say double strap.”
Toughest walk on the LPGA?
“Hands down, Evian. The mountain range, the sidehill lies, the ups, the downs. It’s brutal,” McDede said.
Tale of the scale: Masson’s full bag with clubs weighs 34.8 pounds. The bag without clubs weighs 19.2 pounds, and the bag when totally empty weighs 11.4 pounds. (Malcolm Denemark/Florida Today)
Tips for making the load lighter?
“Maybe looking at the weather forecast and try to convince the player to take some stuff out, but no, not really,” McDede said. “I don’t think it’s uncomfortably heavy. I think once you are kind of in mid-season form, it’s just natural.”
What’s in the bag that’s for the caddie?
“I would say water, snacks, nothing else really,” McDede said. “We have the bibs. … I think normally the caddies do a good job of drinking the water at the tee and throwing it away. They know they would have to carry that two pounds up the hill. I think there’s a strategic way to eat and drink as a caddie to lighten your load on the actual golf course.”
Masson’s gear
DRIVER: Ping G410 (9 degrees), with Fujikura Ventus 60-gram S shaft
FAIRWAY WOOD: Callaway Rogue (15 degrees), with Project X Hzrdus 65-gram S shaft
HYBRID: Ping G400 (19 degrees), with Alta 70-gram S shaft
