Will Zalatoris switches to new golf ball design
In 2019, when Will Zalatoris was climbing the Korn Ferry Tour ranks, he switched to a Titleist Pro V1 golf ball model released that year.
Since then, Zalatoris has established himself as one of the best ball forwards in the world. The defending winner of the FedEx St. Jude Championship is currently No. 7 in the Official World Golf Ranking. Things have certainly changed for Zalatoris since 2019, but his golf ball has remained the same. Until this year.
Zalatoris used the Pro V1 ’19 golf ball from 2019 until the end of 2022. Then, at this month’s Sentry Tournament of Champions, he finally changed it.
Titleist officially launched its new 2023 Titleist Pro V1 and Pro V1x golf balls to PGA TOUR players at last fall’s Shriners Children’s Open, and according to Titleist, the newly announced golf balls are designed with a new high-density core. gradient to produce lower rotation over longer periods. shots and more stability while flying through the air. Between the two models, the 2023 Pro V1 is designed to turn slightly lower and fly lower than the Pro V1x.
Zalatoris first tried Titleist’s new 2023 golf balls during a testing session in early December at the TPI (Titleist Performance Institute) in Oceanside, California.
Although he previously used a Pro V1 model – which he simply calls “the V” – he found the 2023 Pro V1 version to be slightly too low in rotation. With the 2023 Pro V1x – which he simply calls “the X” – Zalatoris has found his new golf ball.
“I played V for 3 or 4 years, then I moved to X,” Zalatoris told The American Express on Wednesday. “The new ball is really good in the wind…I haven’t really been through extensive testing or anything. I just hit a few downwind shots, hit a few upwind shots and see which one does what what you want him to do.
“(Titleist) gave me the V at first, because I was playing the V, and my spin rates dropped to around 2,000 rpm (with the driver). I had a hard time putting it in the air. And so, I tried the X, and (my numbers) went back to what I was playing. It literally reacted the same (as my previous golf ball), it was just better in the wind. It was a bit like that.
“The golf ball drives everything, but I’ve played a Titleist ball all my life. So as long as it does what you think it’s going to do… that (switch) was really easy. It’s literally the same ball, it fights the wind better. And it’s not like it’s a drastic difference, maybe it’s like a yard or two, but a yard or two could be the difference between hitting one in the bunker rim and having a 6-footer for a birdie.
Almost all PGA TOUR players mark their golf ball in a unique way to eliminate any potential misidentification. For Zalatoris, he marks his golf balls with his initials and he draws a black line down the side to help with alignment. Initials are a pretty common way to personalize a ball, but Zalatoris explained where it really started for him.
“I use a black line and then put my initials on it, because I was standing on a tee at Riviera two years ago, and we all had black Titleist 1s with a black line,” Zalatoris said. “So I started putting my initials on it, because, well, it sort of speaks with Titleist.”
Zalatoris will continue to use the new Pro V1x ’23 this week at La Quinta.