The manufacturing process for the new Titleist 2021 Pro V1 and Pro V1x golf balls is now on display for golfers around the world to see through the Titleist Ball Plant 3 Virtual Tour on the brand’s website, www.titleist.co.uk.
The virtual tour – which is presented by former LET player Iona Stephen, host of Golf TV’s Golfing World and a broadcaster for Sky Sports Golf – follows the same journey around the manufacturing floor that golfers take when they make the trip to Massachusetts to visit Ball Plant 3 in person – revealing how each layer of a Pro V1 comes together.
Jeremy Stone, Titleist’s vice-president of golf ball marketing, said: “Since we started giving tours of Ball Plant 3 a few years ago, we’ve had golfers from around the country and many corners of the world visit to see how their Pro V1 and Pro V1x golf balls are made.
“While we look forward to the day that we can safely welcome visitors back to BP3, we’re excited that golfers everywhere now have the opportunity to go behind the scenes of our process, learn how their golf ball is made from core to cover, and see everything our R&D and Operations teams are doing to earn their trust on every single shot.”
Many of the world’s best players have also made the trip to the Titleist ball plant, including Major champions Adam Scott, Justin Thomas, Webb Simpson, Jordan Spieth and Bubba Watson.
Talking about his behind-the-scenes, tour, Adam Scott said: “I think the most surprising thing I took away from touring the plant is how tight the tolerance levels are in making the golf ball, and how strenuous the checks are to make sure there is very little variation from ball to ball. For someone whose livelihood and dreams depend on it, it’s nice to see how dedicated Titleist is to providing golfers with the same ball every time out of the box.”
Justin Thomas added: “Seeing the process up close gave me even more confidence than I already had in my golf ball. I always trust my go-to cut shot – that’s a shot I’m very comfortable and most consistent with distance-control wise – and you see why I’m able to have so much confidence in it when you go through the plant. The process just to make one single golf ball and then see how it’s made the exact same, thousands and thousands of times more, it just was extremely impressive.”
Even the slightest variations in golf ball construction can have dramatic performance implications, with Titleist’s testing process revealing that a golf ball with a core that is just 4/100ths of an inch off centre – about the thickness of a credit card – can result in double the distance of dispersion on every shot when compared to a core that is perfectly centred. While a golf ball with uneven dimple depths – off by as little as the width of a human hair – can cause the ball to fly offline even when hit square on, as can be show by watching this video with Titleist tour staff player Rafa Cabrera Bello.