Titleist

Titleist engineers have long emphasised that its flagship Pro V1 family of golf balls benefits from a superior and proprietary cast urethane cover, but this ball is the company’s first effort to market a ball with a thermoplastic urethane (TPU) cover. Why go with a manufacturing process they previously found inferior? One, it’s a more affordable process that results in a lower price. Two, Titleist’s team realised that there might be a different way to approach a TPU cover that could satisfy player needs better than its most famous ball – specifically, more distance with the greenside benefits of a urethane-cover ball.

The Tour Speed combines the TPU cover design’s distance benefits and a mantle layer that features the most resilient ionomer in the company’s line. The mantle works with the soft but resilient core to produce ball speed and lower spin, particularly on shots with the longest clubs. This provides the distance benefit average golfers would find in a distance ball with a Surlyn cover. But in this case, they’re also getting the greenside spin of a urethane cover.