Balls Used by the Top 100 PGA Tour Golfers [BREAKDOWN]

We all love golf, and if you’re reading this blog, then you’re probably a big fan of the PGA Tour too. If you’re like me, then you love to pick apart the swings of the top golfers, see what they’re doing differently, and maybe take a page or two from their play book. I’m guessing that most of us have wondered or have even seen for ourselves how these elite golfers hit the ball so consistently further than the rest of us. Golf balls do play a part in this, so today we will look at the golf balls used by the top 100 on the PGA tour and talk about their significance.

The most used golf ball by PGA tour professionals is the Titleist Pro V1 range, which in my research was used by over half of the pro golfers on this tour. The Callaway Chrome Soft X came in a fairly distant second place.

That’s your short answer. Now let’s dive into the finer details…

Which Golf Balls are used by the Top 100 PGA Tour Players?

After a little research, I was able to come up with a list of the top 100 players on the PGA tour at the time of writing and the exact ball they use. You can see this data collated in the table below.

Golf Balls Used by PGA Top 100

As you can see, Titleist makes up the vast majority of balls used on the PGA tour, with the different variations of their Pro V golf balls taking up well over half of the total. With that being said, the top 3 of the PGA tour doesn’t use Titleist, and it’s only until Patrick Cantlay (ranked 4) that you see a Titleist ball user.

Another golf ball with a big slice of the pie is the Callaway Chrome Soft X, used by 14 of the PGA tour’s top 100 (including one prototype variant). After that, TaylorMade holds up the rear alongside Srixon and a few other brands.

It’s interesting to see the dominance of Titleist in this list and why that might be? More on that later. First, let’s look a little deeper into these top balls, as it may help us understand why they are used so much.

Before I detail out the most widely used balls on the tour, please note that if you want to view any of the balls mentioned below over at Amazon, simply click on the product image.

6 of the Most Commonly Used Golf Balls on the PGA Tour

Titleist Pro V1

The Titleist Pro V1 golf ball is so popular it should be the official ball of the PGA Tour! (as you can see above!). The Titleist Pro V1 golf ball is designed to provide great performance and consistency and is perfect for pros and novices alike.

This Titleist ball is made with a soft cast urethane elastomer cover and offers a 388 tetrahedral dimple design that delivers a smooth, penetrating trajectory from tee to green. The Pro V1 golf ball is engineered for a soft feel and offers the ultimate in performance for all skill levels.

For golfers wanting a longer hit, this ball’s stable flight profile will fit the bill! The Pro V1 is also designed to have very low spin levels whilst playing these long shots.

Titleist Pro V1x

As the name may suggest, this golf ball is very similar to the Pro V1 detailed above. This ball has a lower dimple count at 348 and gives you a ball that is both long in nature and high flying (meaning it has a high trajectory). This X variant of the ball also gives you slightly more spin with irons and when deep in your short game 🙂

Callaway Chrome Soft X

This is the main contender to the dominant Pro V1 range of balls above, although more and more golfers are starting to prefer this ball. This is the real Senna and Prost duel of the golf world 🙂

Soft X is a great choice for golfers looking for a versatile ball with a soft feel. The Chrome Soft X ball is designed to deliver a soft feel yet provide distance for golfers. This ball is a great choice for players who want a soft feel off the driver and a ball that will maximize the distance out of the irons. Interestingly enough, this ball is equally as well liked by everyday golfers as well as the pros, being 88% positively reviewed over on the Callaway website at the time of writing.

Looking at some of the technical specs of the ball, it has an ultra thing but durable urethane cover and a high-speed core design to boot.

TaylorMade TP5

The TaylorMade TP5 golf ball is one of the most advanced golf ball ever engineered by TaylorMade. The TP5 is designed with a unique yet dynamic construction that delivers longer distance and more accuracy than the original TP5 golf ball without sacrificing feel or sound. Like the balls above, the cover of the ball is a softer urethane one that helps to produce a consistent ball flight and a soft feel around the greens. In fact, TaylorMade claim this is the softest tour ball they produce. The construction of the TP5 also features four layers of increasing stiffness to enable better ball speed due to better rebound.

To increase launch angle and reduce drag, this TP5 ball also has an XL low compression core. The compression rate of this ball is 85.

TaylorMade TP5x

As you can imagine, this ball is similar in nature to the TP5 above, with spin being the major defining factor between them. The TP5x is known to have an even lower spin rate for your long game, whilst retaining a better amount of spin around the greens (due to a softer cast cover that grabs onto the wedges more).

Of course, both the TP5 and TP5x are top quality tour grade golf balls that any golfer would be happy with!

Srixon Z Star XV

Last but not least, we have the Srixon Star XV golf ball. Although Srixon’s share of the pro scene is miniscule when compared to the earlier mentioned brands, it is good to see another player starting to get traction. And this ball certainly deserves that traction, being a top quality four layer dual core ball that offers a slightly firmer feel than its Z-Star brother. This ball is seen as the perfect option for any higher quality player looking for the maximum distance from their shots. The Z Star XV comes with a mid to high ball flight characteristic.

You can probably see a trend here, that all the balls above are to some degree aiming for maximum distance coupled to a good amount of greenside control and spin. This Srixon ball is no different. Clearly, this is the favorite ball characteristic for top flight golfers!

For some more technical specs, this ball has a 4PC Urethane construction and a compression rate of 102. Last but not least, it comes with 338 dimples etched on its surface 🙂

Why Do So Many Pro Golfers Use Titleist Balls?

For the highly cynical among you, this will be put down to the fact that Titleist as a brand are willing to invest more money in sponsoring a wider range of professional golfers (Unless you live under a rock you will know that golf brands pay money for pro players to use their gear).

In my humble opinion, although there may be an element of truth to this, the reason is a bit more substantial than this. I see quite a few pro golfers that use the top tier range of Titleist golf balls as the only piece of Titleist equipment in their bag. Take Stewart Cink as an example. He is pretty much Ping everything else, but still rocks up with the Titleist Pro V1. Harris English is another example of this…. I could go on 🙂

Add to this the fact that I hear many everyday golfers telling me that the Titleist V1 range of balls are the best they have ever used or the ‘gold standard’ of golf balls, and we are building a picture that these Titleist balls must genuinely be one of the top golf balls around.

Do you think that professional golfers would really use a significantly worse golf ball just because of their sponsorships? My research tells me generally not!

Can Amateur Golfers Use the Same Balls as the Professionals?

From my research above, a vast majority of the balls used on the PGA tour are fine tuned for maximum length but with decent feel and spin for the short game. As an amateur golfer, you should be aware that you need to be at a decent level to get the most out of this type of golf ball.

In terms of availability, you can see from the fact that all the balls listed above are freely available on Amazon, meaning it is physically possible for any amateur golfer to play with the same Titleist V1 that the pros do! Although this was not always the case, as the Guardian reports that these variations of the V1 were only available to tour players upon release.

The only other caveat to this is that, when you look at the USGA conforming ball list, it is clear that some players must be using slightly different versions of these balls than are publicly available. Although this seems to be a trend that is lessening these days.