Titleist's tops on the tee!
Brand has five of the top six sellers,according to new survey
Posted: 26 September 2008
by Golfmagic correspondent
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The best selling Titleist family of golf balls
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A new survey has revealed that Titleist golf balls - not only the most played on Tour - also account for five out of six of the top selling balls in the UK over the last 12 months.
According to the independent Golf Datatech UK retail audit, the legendary Pro V1 is at the top of the table with 14.3% of the combined share of on-course and off-course outlets, with Titleist brand balls occupying four of the next five positions within the rankings.
The Titleist PTS and NXT Tour both had 5.6% of the market share, closely followed by the Pro V1x and NXT Extreme with 5.2% and 4.6% respectively.
Overall, over 35% of all golf balls sold between July 2007 and June 2008 were Titleist balls, with the Pro V1 family contributing just under 20% of all golf ball types sold. Based on the amount of money spent on balls in the UK, Titleist’s position appears even stronger, with over 50% of the total UK spend on golf balls going on Titleist products and over a third on the Pro V1 family alone.
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The Titleist Pro V1 - best selling ball in golf
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Ken Graham, Director UK Sales and European Marketing, Titleist, said: “These latest figures show that Titleist remains extremely strong across the board, clearly demonstrating that we’re satisfying the needs of golfers of all abilities. It's a testament to the performance and the quality of the golf balls we produce, as well as the incredible loyalty we experience from golfers.”
The Pro V1 was the most played ball in all four majors this year, helping Titleist to top the ball count for a staggering 60th year in a row at the US Open and 29 consecutive years at The Open Championship (since official records began).
Titleist’s worldwide wins for 2008 currently stand at 133, over five times as many as the closest rival.
Golfmagic has also recently been conducting
its own survey on the forum and the Titleist position seems to be borne out though in the current financial climate it appears golfers are tending to try harder to keep their golf balls in play for longer.
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Discuss this story
I use either Srixon AD333's or old Titleist So-Lo's (model before the current Carry/Roll versions). I like a soft feeling ball that launches fairly high. Both of these balls give me the feel and sound that I like. I also like to keep the cost fairly low and they both achive this too. I also like the fact that I can happily use them all year round. I don't generate huge amounts of spin, so I am happy with playing shots to allow for the ball rolling up to the pin in summer. I winter, I am happy to adjust to carry the ball to the pin and find that I can stop the ball quickly enough, with a little back-spin. The premium balls I have tried tend to spin too much in such conditions, especially the Pro-V1's which are the only ones I've tried that feel and sound right to me. My son Ben is different and loves the Callaway HX Tour 56's and Tour i's (trust him to have expensive tastes). He loves their firmer feel and resultant slightly clickier sound off the face. He is able to vary his ball-flight much better than I can and believes that these balls help him to shape shots better. They are as long as anything he has tried and his touch around greens is something to envy, as he can stop the ball on a sixpence when required and can also allow shots to run out. They are not as durable as the balls I use, but he uses older ones for practice rounds and he usually has enough credit in the pro-shop to save me from having to buy too many!
Posted: 09/09/2008 12:27
Up Until the last two weeks or so i used the pro.v1 because of it's perfromance then a mate of mine gave me a srixon zur(s) and i must say they are absolutly fine very,very comparable to the pro.v 1. During the winter i will use something comparable to the nxt as the softness of the course/greens tends to compensate the hardness of the ball
Posted: 09/09/2008 12:33
I mostly use Srixon Trispeeds in firm conditions, Pinnacle Exceptions in soft (so I'm getting through a lot of my stockpile this summer!). Reasons for the Srixons being my favourite: - Price: I can justify something around £20 a dozen to myself - couldn't pay £3 a ball for eg ProV1s (and probably couldn't compress them enough to get optimum performance out of them).
- Spin: I do feel the 3-piece construction gives me a bit more "stop" than even a soft 2-piece like the Pinnacles or AD333s/SoftFeels (though they're all perfectly decent balls).
- Straightness: they don't seem to fade/slice as badly for me as Titleist NXT Tours (though that's a superb ball around the green).
- Feel: I just like the way the ball comes off the putter.
Posted: 09/09/2008 13:37
The new Bridgestones are apparently based on an offering already available & hugely successful in Japan, the Tourstage X01S3. Looking forward to trying these as I really like the B330 S but wouldn't grumble at a bit of extra distance with my 95mph swing speed. For me how a ball feels when chipping and putting is the most important thing, I am amazed at how much praise the Srixon Soft Feel gets as I think it is like putting with a pebble despite the name. I love Srixon balls, playing the ZURs at the moment and often use the AD333, expecially in winter, just think the Soft Feel is there worst offering by far. For me all the top balls, Pro V1, TM TP Red, Bridgestone etc play very similar in terms of feel, distance and spin, the TM just cuts up too quickly.
Posted: 09/09/2008 13:46
I use Bridgestone 330s but can only get from a friend in the states, you can buy them on the internet but you have to buy 3 dozon to make it worth while Frank
Posted: 09/09/2008 14:44
You can also get them in the UK Frank: http://www.118golf.co.uk/scripts/prodview.asp?idproduct=3277 Personally I use ProV1x or ProV1 depending on wind and conditions.
Posted: 09/09/2008 14:57
"For me how a ball feels when chipping and putting is the most important thing, I am amazed at how much praise the Srixon Soft Feel gets as I think it is like putting with a pebble despite the name. I love Srixon balls, playing the ZURs at the moment and often use the AD333, expecially in winter, just think the Soft Feel is there worst offering by far." Sorry James but I couldn't disagree more, the Soft Feel for my money is as soft as a Pro V1 - I think the ZUR's are a disappointment But there you go, one man's soft ball is another man's hard rock 
Posted: 10/09/2008 16:01
I've recently changed from the Wilson Staff soft feel ball to the Srizon AD333. I'm not good enough a golfer to accurately rate ball performance, but I would say that the Srixons give a bit more back spin around the green, without any noticeable loss of distance. Additionally, they seem to be a little more reilient than the Wilson Staffs, which tend to become alittle discoloured quite quickly. I must try the Srixon 'Softfeels' - even if only to see who was right about it !!
Posted: 10/09/2008 17:37
I'm currently playing Callaway HX Tour 56 as I bought some pearl grade pick-ups off e-bay - Decent ball but not as good as the Pro V1 My normal ball of choice is Pro V1.
Posted: 10/09/2008 19:41
Thanks pingfan thats usefull to know & a good price. i'll give it a go next time Frank
Posted: 10/09/2008 21:28
Use Srixon Soft Feel for general play, they are like butter of the putter, (cor, I'm a poet), have a good ball flight with my Mizzies and they wear pretty well. When I have my serious head on and i'm "In It To Win It" will play Srixon Trispeed's, not quite as soft as the Soft Feel's, but they have a bit more ooomf to them and they have a slightly different feel... hard to explain really but they are a damn fine ball.
Posted: 10/09/2008 21:50
I think the ball depends on your handy cap & what you are willing to pay for a top grade ball Frank
Posted: 12/09/2008 18:34
Rhubarb about "crap players deluding themselves that they're good enough to use them" assertions aside, I almost exclusively use Titleist ProV1's these days because I think that it's still the softest ball on the market, goes a reasonable distance and stops on greens (a bonus if your short game is as crap as mine). For run-of-the mill rounds I'll use decent quality lake ball variants (£12doz) but for comps etc. I'll use new ones. That way I'm using the same ball all the time rather than chopping & changing from summat that's average, to summat that's good. Besides £12 quid is what it costs for less well performing (in my ham fists) new balls and the decent lakers off fleaBay are almost as good as new. I didn't care much for the original ProV1x as they were "a bit hard" in my mind's eye and performed no better than the Inesis TD Tour mentioned above. However, I recently found a ProV1x of the new variety and I have to say it does feel a hell of a lot better (softer) than the original ProV1x. Another thing I found with the ProV1x - especially into a headwind - that my slice (or wayward shots) weren't exaggerated as much as they would've been with just a standard ProV1. I've bought a dozen ProV1x's on the basis of this but due to the great weather we've had recently, I've not been able to test my theory further. Another accidental find was a TaylorMade TP Red ball. It felt as soft as a ProV1, seemed to go a little further than ProV1 (although that's just my subjective opinion - I've no hard evidence to support this) but didn't quite have the same "nip" around the greens.
Posted: 13/09/2008 17:13
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