News

According to our user survey last year, 85% of our customers had never had a golf ball fitting. That stat might be quite a surprise to some given that the ball is the piece of equipment that you use on every shot. On the other hand, how do you correctly test for the best ball for your game?

The best ball is not necessarily the longest ball. The key is control and that means ball flight in order to get the correct landing angle into the green. At SGGT we have always fitted on ball flight so adding in a ball fitting service is the logical next step. Using Trackman and the full range of Titleist Pro V1 golf balls to hit outdoors, we can make a recommendation as to the best ball for your game.

To demonstrate this, SGGT regular Graeme came for a ball fit and he even brought in a few of his old TaylorMade TP5x golf balls to compare against the premium Titleist range we fit with. As a high swing speed player, Graeme wanted a ball that would fly higher so that it would stop quicker on the greens than his current ball.

The key to ball fitting is to fit the ball to the iron and then the driver to the ball. So we started with Graeme's 7-iron from the set he had been fitted with at SGGT.

The TP5x had a height of 99 feet and landed 167 yards later at 48.7 angle. As the softer balls in the range, the Titleist Pro V1 and Pro V1x Left Dash flew the same or slightly higher, but with the same level of spin.

They both generated more ball speed, but the landing angle was the same and they did not stop any quicker. They were both 3 to 6 yards longer than the TP5x for Graeme, but if you can't stop the ball on the green then more distance is not any help.

The Titleist AVX with it's low spin set up came out with the lowest flight so you might think it would be good on a windy day. However, whilst it will probably be the longest for most, it still needs to stop on the green, so really this is a ball for someone who generates too much spin, or no spin at all.

With the Titleist Pro V1x, the peak height was 7 feet higher and the spin was up 300-400 rpm to create a landing angle that was 2 degrees steeper, with nearly a yard more carry than TP5x, so this was the best ball for performance.

We would normally also then do a chip and putting feel test, but Graeme was more concerned about stopping power, as the control around the green from the Pro V1 ball options is pretty similar.

Graeme then hit a few drivers with the Pro V1x and we checked his driver set up was optimised and then he was on his way to quicker stopping approaches with no loss of distance.

SGGT will be offering ball recommendations as part of our golf ball fitting service that uses the full range of Titleist Pro V1 golf balls. If you have bought a club from SGGT in the last year and would like a ball fitting, then please get in touch and we will see if we can fit you around our fitting schedule.