From its heritage as a tour prototype and how it performs to the origin of its name and the golfers that will benefit most from giving it a test drive, listen in as our golf ball experts and R&D team take us under the cover of the Titleist Pro V1x Left Dash golf ball.
Explore, shop and learn more about Pro V1x Left Dash here: https://www.titleist.com/product/pro-v1x-left-dash/001PVLD.html
» Subscribe to Titleist: https://www.youtube.com/@titleist?sub_confirmation=1
Dash sounds fast sounds pretty good and it was built for that speed piece so as we develop this CPO it’s an idea right it’s this idea and this Pursuit for Speed it results in this unique construction um you talked about the laundry list of players that were part of the original testing who’s using it today what is the current presence of left dash out on the PGA tour in the worldwide tours today [Music] team titlist asks us questions all the time and we’ve got a great one here from Eddie the Carp from Pennsylvania so Eddie the karp currently plays prov1 but wouldn’t mind a little bit higher launch Mike I’m going to let you talk launch versus flight in just a little bit uh but I do like the spin window I’m currently in and prov1 X spins too much do you think prov1x left Dash would be a good golf ball for me so Frederick i’ I’d start with you do you think Eddie the carp should experiment with left Ash absolutely Eddie I I think if you’re looking to take a little spin out of your game left Dash is a great place to to look it spins a little less than prov1 but it flies high in that window like prov1x so if that’s what you’re looking for you like that flight window but you want less spin you should definitely try left Dash and how would you recommend Eddie the carp take his current prov1 and left dash out to the golf course to really understand and evaluate whether it’s the right ball all well you know you want to start by the green left Dash is built really for Speed and in some ways it sacrifices a little bit of green side Spin and control so make sure you’re comfortable with the spin you’re going to give up around the greens and with short irons with left Dash versus prov1 and then go back you know closer to the te and see how they compare they’re going to be probably more similar than different maybe slight height difference um but you want to start near the green see how that spin and feel difference uh affects your game and Mike uh talk a little bit about the differences that Eddie’s going to experience um we just heard about what Eddie might see on the golf course why are there differences between prov1 and prov1 X left Dash yeah different constructions it’s a it’s a high compression golf ball it’s got a large Center Dual Core Construction it’s got a firmer uh casier thing cover than prov1 prov1x so that combination of things is going to lower that spin pretty much across the board compared to compared to prov1 and then separately it has a different dimple pattern on it so even though it’s lower spin we control that pattern to make it fly a little higher so it flies in that window probably not quite as high as X but higher than prov1 so it’s going to give Eddie that higher flight but it’s not going to spin like Provo 1X so it might be a really great option Yeah Eddie you should check it out um and for everyone else in team Titleist let’s talk a little bit about left Ash and and its Origins I’d love to know um it’s a really important piece of the fitting puzzle now as you’re evaluating how to play your best golf uh but Fredick take us back um through time when did left Dash first make its appearance both in R&D and out on tour yeah well customized performance options cpos they’re they’re designed to meet a specific player need and test technologies that we want to maybe scale up one day into our stock products and left Dash was the perfect um marriage of those two we started playing around with it in R&D in 2017 um and testing it extensively on the PG tour LPG tour and actually interestingly enough with a lot of college players the the idea was let’s build the fastest golf ball we can and let everything else kind of fall out where it is so we weren’t focused on Fel we wanted enough spin for it to be really playable by the best players in the world and you and I um but that was second in terms of the order of importance um and so we we went through our process we built prototypes we went out on on the tours we went actually as we look back on it now to some colleges we went to Oklahoma State and tested with Victor hin when he was there tested with Austin ecro when he was there these guys both have tour cards now went to Georgia Tech tested with Andy ogal tree uh who was a student then he won the US Amer with it in 2019 a few years later um we went to Alabama we tested with Davis Riley players that have tour cards now back then they were in college it was a really great process to then introduce it on the PJ tour in Tampa in March of 2018 um and it’s been played uh consistently on the PJ tour and LPGA Tour ever since and so Mike when you hear that chase and that pursuit of speed you have the luxury knowing you already have prov1 and prov1x which are fantastic golf balls that have great distance but this was clearly going after something unique so when you hear that and the R&D team takes in that request what’ you go do what did you explore what Avenues did you explore and what were the yields from this provx left Dash exploration yeah and cpos are exciting in that way and that ER and that the engineers get to try some things that uh maybe not be as fully vetted out in the manufacturing side of things because when you get to prov1 prov1 X they’re just made on such a large scale Precision needs to be just super dialed in in order for it to work cpos we have a little more flexibility to keep a closer eye on the process so it doesn’t have to be as perfect from a processing standpoint so we can really try some new things and we had several things come out of left Dash is areas that were kind of things that we never tried or haven’t tried nearly as much especially in tour plate products we had the large Center dual core and the the work that goes into doing a new dual core in the plant any dual core is difficult but anytime you change that process there’s challenges and there’s things you got to learn along the way so we’re able to do a larger Center dual core that’s when we really started working towards the high Flex modulus casing layer in the tour level products and getting that on the product cuz we knew that was a great option for us to increase ball speed and reduce the spin of that product and actually I mean it the aliphatic covers that we use on prov1 and prov1x yellow actually kind of started in the left left Dash family as well because the fir some of the first versions of that were in the aromatic cover which was a slight which was a harder cover than prov1 and prov1 X but some of the early feedback was the shear durability durability isn’t wasn’t that great and we shifted to a different version the aliphatic cover that had a little bit better durability and that was another way to get that into into the plant and really start working on that and two years later is when we were Mass producing that for the yellow versions of the products Mike normally when all things are created equal and you talk about an increased compression and you talk about increased speed that comes with an increase of spin we know that all the different layers contribute to the overall performance why is it that in this case we’re actually creating a prov1x golf ball that has less spin it’s because of the balance of that large Center dual core the high gradient that you’re able to achieve within that and the casing layer that you’re using that high Flex casing layer is a lower spin option so we’re able to balance all those bits and pieces and then the the cover that we’re using on left Dash is a harder cover and those will inherently be lower spins all of those things even though compression goes up to which would by itself make spin go up all those other pieces are working to drive the spin right back down so you tested a lot of different elements you tested a new dual core a high Flex casing layer unique cast urethane covers which of those Innovations made their way into now the readily available prov1 and prov1x as an experimental concept that now is in the mainline product all of them at some point in time like the high Flex casing layer High Flex casing came into the 21 versions of vnx the large Center dual core was part of 23 some of the high gradient work that we’ve been working on with that and left dot that came in in 23 as well and the aliphatic cover work is as I said is part of the yellow development for every product that we every vnx that we have and it comes with a unique name it’s a prov1x but it’s got a left Dash Frederick Walkers through the process the naming conventions what does that mean because it’s not the only CPO but it’s certainly I think the most popular CPO yeah as we’ve developed different cpos over the years we’ve used different symbols to denote more or less of something typically if it’s to the right of the name like a plus it means more spin or more higher flight or something like that if it’s to the left like Prov one left dot or left Dash it means less and in this case it’s less spin really for left Dash and so that that’s where it comes from we use different symbols dots and dashes um but it’s not much more complicated than that I’m big on simple Dash sounds fast sounds pretty good and it was built for that speed piece so as we develop this CPO it’s an idea right it’s this idea and this Pursuit for Speed it results in this unique construction um you talked about the laundry list of players that were part of the original testing who’s using it today what is the current presence of left dash out on the PGA tour and the worldwide tours today yeah left Dash has a consistent following out on the PJ tour it’s typically five six players every week Luke Donald would be a player that that plays Left Dash Patrick Rogers David lipsky um in in their cases they’re typically players that are looking to take spin out in in their long game um and are really good around the greens because as Mike said there is a deficiency when it comes to spin somewhat around the greens um but they feel the benefit uh to to their long game is is why they want to play it and it gives them an advantage so we see it week in week out on tour it’s been played on the LPG tour lyia Co is won with it on the LPGA Tour as well so it’s not just the PJ tour that we see it we see it um on different worldwide tours uh in addition to the college game and so it being a complimentary piece to prov1 prov1 X but sounding pretty interesting if an amateur golfers watching this saying like gosh maybe I should think about that talk a little bit about what we see in the marketplace what we see at fitting events um around the US and around the world how many folks are fitting into left Dash as compared to a Prov one or prov1 X yeah fitting events are such a great environment to really dive into a player’s game and understand what’s going to help them play their best and we see about 12% of players who come through a Titleist tour level fitting getting fit into left Dash typically it’s a player who’s really steep they generate a lot of spin you’re smiling because you’re one of them I am too um but they taking that spin out of the long game actually gives them a little more distance it can make them more accurate um and left as Prov a lot of spinning control around the greens that players are able to take advantage of and so in a fitting environment it’s a great option for again someone who just they need to bring some spin out of their long game Mike it’s probably pretty tempting for golfers who might be chasing distance to gravitate towards a left Dash but are there circumstances where maybe a left Dash isn’t the right fit and wouldn’t optimize the distance for a player absolutely I mean you talk about um you talk about starting at the green and working backwards if you’re someone who’s spin deficient picking up a yard or two off of the T isn’t going to be a good tradeoff for not being able to stop the ball on the green right you if you’re spin deficient you probably need to be going towards a prov1x to make sure you can actually make that ball stop cuz what you need to remember is whether it’s V or X or in this case left Dash by the time you get back to the T it’s going to be good your distance is going to be great pick the ball that pick the ball that works near the green and I think that’s probably why explains why it’s not a majority of our fits but is a very nice complement to what Prov one and and prov1 X bring to the table the other premium offering that we have that’s a lower spin offering is AVX Mike talk a little bit about what differentiates left Dash and how it delivers low spin as compared to AVX and how it delivers low spin yeah it’s a I say completely different constructions we’re going we’ve got dual core and left Dash AVX is uh a thicker softer cover it’s a lower compression the the tradeoffs and how that ball performs throughout the bag is different um the uh the left Dash is going to spin really is going to spin great around the greens even though it’s not quite up to the spin of prob One prob1 X probably in a little bit more than AVX AVX is going to be lower spin across the board and particularly where you’re going to see it is through your irons the irons are just long with AVX because of that low compression the low spin and gives you that short game Spin compared to compared to an AVX type construction and then looking back on the exploration so 2017 it becomes an idea 2018 it’s out on the PGA tour um Mike what does a program like this do for the R&D Department you said it’s a lot of fun to work on but what does it mean and what’s the value of being able to experiment in this way with the best players in the world it’s it’s a lot of fun because it it it gets us to get out and learn about a group of of players that play the game a little bit differently one of our goals with our player testing group is we don’t want there to ever be a player and this certainly goes for onour but really it goes for everyone we don’t never want there to be player goes they don’t have a ball for me they don’t have a ball for my game that’s why we have these products that are specifically different from one another so there’s options for everybody and the CPO program is really the kind of the the top end of that of we’ve got a small contingent of players on the top level tours who need a certain kind of performance let’s go make it for them first see if it works but the exciting thing for R&D is along the process we get to try new stuff we get to build new tools and as we’ve talked about eventually you get good enough at those tools working with operations getting those new things into the plants that they become options for everything going forward and it just helps make our future products even better and Frederick some of the cpos that we’ve seen out on tour they’ve been available in the marketplace some for limited periods of time Dash seems to actually have grown in its popularity out in the marketplace seems to be more readily available now um take us back to that decision how is the decision made to make a left Dash available to the public and what are the driving inputs that help choose and make that decision well first it has to have a meaningful impact for the golfer is it something that is really going to help them play better you know proie one and prox they are so good and with the addition of AVX back in 2017 we really had three golf balls in in 2017 18 19 that fit the majority of golfers who play for fun like you and I do uh but in 2019 as we did more testing with left Dash we saw what was happening with it on tour we thought that there might be an opportunity for players uh like you and I to go play it and buy it and and enjoy it uh because we thought it might fit their game in a way that just AVX and Prov one didn’t because it fits kind of in between them in terms of spin so we launched it in October of of 2019 um and it it has been very limited it’s been available as a fitting option as you said now it’s more readily available and we’re talking about it more that’s why we’re here today and we think as as golfers go get a chance to to to get fit and really play with it that there’s a subset of golfers again it’s only about 12% when we fit with a tour level fitting a Titleist tour level fitter um but that could benefit from it so we want them to we want to be available for them in that way and we think now with these four options prov1 prov1x left Dash and navx we we really have the best options for govers to get dialed in uh to play the best and Mike I think you nailed it um we have an obligation number one ball in golf means a lot to those of us who work here it means we’ve got a golf ball for you if you’re willing to put in the time and the energy to be fit we’re going to make sure that we have a golf ball for you and and I think the CPO program is a big part of our future simply because we owe it to the golfer to have that option so thanks for the Innovation Frederick maybe you can personify it a lot of people ask well how do I know if it’s for me what’s your story what did you play and what were the shots in your game that really made you realize left Dash was the right golf ball for you boy uh I’m lucky to have access to a lot of testing uh both equipment and and and golf balls and you need that um but actually I I was talking to to someone earlier today about about it I remember going and and playing playing prov1 because again bringing that spin down versus prov1x playing AVX feeling like it it flew a little too low for me um but doing an extensive testing session um on the on the drive range getting some numbers and and thinking left Dash uh really looked good in in that place for me but then taken to the golf course and making sure that it worked as we’re out there actually hitting golf shots that was in the summer of 2019 uh and I’ve been playing Left Dash ever since it fits fits a lot of folks um but we know prov1 and prov1x are going to fit the vast majority but important for us to have these compliments important for us to have fitting tools available for our Fitters around the country um so it’s really valuable for folks to spend a little bit of time on the golf course scen to tea understanding what left Dash might mean for them so thanks guys for sharing some knowledge appreciate it thanks thanks
