Gear: Titleist AVX golf balls (2022)
Price: $49.99 per dozen
Specs: Three-piece, urethane-covered golf balls in white and yellow
Available: Feb. 4
Last January, Titleist updated the Pro V1 and the Pro V1x, the most-played balls on every professional tour and at events such as the U.S. Amateur, U.S. Women’s Amateur and NCAA Championships. They are the most popular balls among recreational golfers, too.
The company said the three-piece Pro V1 and the four-piece Pro V1x will be a good fit for most golfers. However, for golfers who want a softer-feeling ball, who place a greater emphasis on distance and who want less spin off the tee, since 2017 the brand has offered an alternative to the V and the X balls: the AVX. Get it?
Titleist is now releasing the third update of AVX and trying to give those golfers who use the AVX more of what they asked for without sacrificing what they like. That means adding spin around the greens without making the ball spin more with long clubs, while making it feel softer too.
Titleist said that for a ball to reduce spin with a driver and long irons while providing significant spin on approach and greenside shots, it must have multiple layers with different degrees of firmness.
When you hit a driver or a long-iron shot, energy from impact compresses the ball against the face before launching it forward. The softness of the cover material does not factor into the spin rate, but a stiff casing layer over a soft core keeps spin rates down.
On a slower-swinging shot such as a 40-yard pitch, things reverse. You compress the ball less than with a driver, so the softness of the core is less critical. Spin comes from the grooves of a wedge pinching a soft cover against a firm casing layer.
With the updated three-piece AVX, Titleist has utilized a new core formulation designed to be softer in the center and grow progressively firmer in the outer areas. The company’s designers say this allows them to precisely control the relationship between the core and the material while helping to soften feel.
At the same time, the cover of the new AVX was created using a softer urethane formulation. The result is the AVX ball maintains its low-spin profile with woods and long-irons while now spinning more on approach shots and with wedges.
Titleist gave the AVX a new 348-dimple tetrahedral catenary cover pattern to enhance performance further. It has dimples of seven sizes and covers more than 80 percent of the ball. Titleist said it makes the AVX more stable in the wind and more aerodynamic for increased distance.