Gear: Titleist AVX golf ball (2020)
Price: $47.99 per dozen
Specs: Three-piece, urethane-covered ball. Available in white and yellow.
The most-played balls in golf are the Titleist Pro V1 and Pro V1x. The Pro V1x tends to fly higher off the tee, spins slightly more and feels firmer at impact while the Pro V1 flies slightly lower, spins a little less and feels softer. With cast urethane covers, both balls also produce great greenside control.
In 2018 Titleist started offering a softer-feeling, lower-spinning option, AVX, for golfers who tend to create excessive spin and players who want an even softer feel.
For 2020, Titleist updated the AVX to offer players more distance and enhanced greenside spin.
The AVX’s position within the Titleist premium ball lineup has not changed. It is still the lowest-spinning, lowest-flying of the three balls, and the updated AVX has a larger core to help it develop more speed off the tee. Titleist also tweaked the casing layer than surrounds the core, making it thinner. While the core of the new AVX is bigger than the original ball’s, the compression is still around 80, so it remains softer than the Pro V1 (90) and Pro V1x (100).
The 352-dimple tetrahedron pattern that covers the AVX ball has not changed, but the walls of the dimples were tweaked slightly to give the ball more lift. The 2020 AVX flies higher than the original ball but still lower than the Pro V1.
To create more shortgame control, Titleist made the cover 17 percent thinner so the grooves in wedges and short irons can grab the ball more effectively and generate more spin, which should give golfers more control.