There is plenty of information online comparing the Titleist Pro V1x and AVX, but I wanted to do something a little different.
Rather than looking at a specification chart or launch monitor numbers, I took both balls onto the golf course and played them side by side over a number of holes.
This was not a scientific test. The strikes were not identical, the breeze changed, and golf courses are not laboratories. What it did give me was a genuine on-course comparison, and I found some of the differences much more noticeable than I expected.
If you want the broader picture across the range first, I have already written a guide to the Titleist golf ball line-up. This time I wanted to concentrate purely on what I noticed playing Pro V1x and AVX alongside each other.
The conditions definitely mattered
The greens were extremely firm and fast when I did this comparison.
We have had a sustained period of cold weather and plenty of frosts in the Bay of Plenty, which has really stunted growth. Like a lot of courses around the region at the moment, getting the ball to stop is difficult.
That is important context. Firm greens will exaggerate rollout, so I would not take one shot from this test and say that an AVX will always release a certain distance. What I was interested in was the relative difference when the two balls were being played on the same course in the same conditions.
The driver difference caught my attention
Early in the comparison I hit two drives that felt very similar in strike and effort from equivalent tees.
On those two occasions, the AVX finished 19 metres and 21 metres farther than the Pro V1x.
That is a big difference. I have always had a tendency to create plenty of driver spin, so my first thought was that the Pro V1x was spinning up more and costing me distance.
I would be very careful about calling that a 20 metre carry difference. These were total distances on the golf course, not launch monitor carry numbers, and the firm conditions can also influence how far a drive runs. But when two well-struck drives finish around 20 metres apart, you notice it.
If excess driver spin is something you fight as well, I have written more about why a driver can spin too much and what it does to ball flight.
Then the wind changed the story
Later I played a par five with a slight breeze helping from behind.
This time the two drives finished virtually the same distance. I then hit two 3-woods for the second shots and, again, they travelled almost exactly the same distance.
That made me rethink the earlier result.
For my game, the bigger difference appeared to be into the breeze rather than the AVX simply being longer all the time. When I was hitting into the wind, the Pro V1x seemed more likely to climb and lose distance. Downwind, the gap almost disappeared.
That is only my on-course observation, not a controlled spin measurement, but it makes sense to pay close attention to the wind when you already create plenty of spin. A headwind can make an inefficient flight look much worse.
I have covered that subject in more detail in my guide to playing golf in the wind in New Zealand.
The iron flight was interesting too
I also felt like the Pro V1x curved slightly more in the air with my irons.
My normal shape is a fade, and on a few swings that felt very similar the Pro V1x appeared to move a touch more left to right than the AVX.
I am not prepared to say the golf ball definitely caused that from a handful of on-course shots. Strike, face angle and delivery can all change slightly from swing to swing. It was simply something I noticed more than once and thought was worth recording.
The stopping power was much easier to see
On one green I hit two approach shots that felt about as comparable as you could reasonably get on the course.
The Pro V1x landed and stopped in roughly two metres. The AVX landed in a similar area and released about six metres.
On that particular hole it did not really hurt me. Both balls landed on the front section of the green and the flag was also near the front, so both finished in perfectly usable positions.
But move the flag to the back of the green, add trouble behind it, or ask me to fly the ball deeper into a firm green and suddenly another four metres of release becomes much more important.
I saw something similar on a par three. I hit a really nice high, cutting iron with the AVX. It landed right on the front of the green but continued releasing well towards the back.
Again, these greens were exceptionally firm, so I would not overstate one shot. What stood out was that the Pro V1x repeatedly gave me more stopping power. If you are interested in the factors that create that sort of reaction, have a read of my article on how to get backspin on a golf ball.
Around the green, the difference was clear for me
This was probably where I preferred the Pro V1x most.
The Pro V1x felt noticeably firmer. On my chips it also tended to launch a little lower and grab harder. I was getting a more controlled first bounce and noticeably less tumble.
The AVX felt softer, but it wanted to release more. I could still get it to check when I struck it really well, but I felt like I had less stopping power available to me.
That is the trade-off that made this comparison so interesting.
I love having spin and control around the green. But if the extra spin of the Pro V1x is also costing me significant distance when I hit driver into a headwind, I have to decide which performance characteristic is more valuable to my overall game.
So which one would I play?
I do not think there was a simple winner.
For me, the AVX gave me the softer feel and seemed to perform particularly well when I was hitting longer clubs into the wind. The Pro V1x gave me noticeably more stopping power with irons and around the greens, but it also appeared easier for me to get into a spin window that cost distance into a breeze.
That does not mean an AVX is automatically the right ball for someone who wants more distance, or that a Pro V1x is automatically right for someone who wants more spin. Golf ball fitting is much more individual than that.
The useful question is not, "Which golf ball is best?" It is, "Which set of compromises gives me the best performance across the whole bag?"
If you are deciding between the two, you can see the current Titleist Pro V1x and Titleist AVX we stock, or browse our full golf ball range.
My final takeaway
The biggest thing I took from this little experiment was how much the answer changed depending on the shot and the conditions.
Into the wind, the AVX was very appealing for me. Around the greens and when I needed the ball to stop, I much preferred what I was seeing from the Pro V1x.
It also reinforced something I have written about before. Once you find a ball that gives you predictable performance, there is real value in using the same type of golf ball consistently and learning exactly how it reacts.
This was a real-world on-course comparison rather than a lab test, and that is exactly why I found it useful. It showed me the shots where each ball helped me, and the shots where I had to accept a compromise.
Happy golfing,
Scott
