2025 Pro V1 review: Titleist’s new ball delivers in sound, looks, distance and performance

Titleist 2025 Pro V1 ball
The Titleist 2025 Pro V1 ball

The 2025 Titleist Pro V1 and Pro V1x are now in the pro shops and in the bags of plenty of tour pros.

At the recent Ras Al Khaimah Championship, 104 players were using a Pro V1 or Pro V1x which amounted to 75.4% of the field with the nearest competitor sitting on 12.

Of those, 22 already had the 2025 balls in play with 16 of those relying on the Pro V1.

According to Titleist the planning for the 2025 ball began as soon as the 2023 version was in the hands of the players. From there they were able to understand what the best players in the world were after and the short answer is that they were looking for more spin in the short irons without a compromise in the other departments.

To begin with the Titleist engineers looked at every element of the three-piece ball: the core, casing layer, urethane cover and aerodynamics. The story here was the core and the opportunity to add some speed as well as the spin that the players wanted.

The 2025 Pro V1 is slightly firmer than the 2023 ball and that is going to help get more spin with your irons. The gradient/inner core is firmer on the outside and softer on the inner portion and that encourages more spin.

Titleist 2025 Pro V1 core

“Through a complete core reformulation, Titleist engineers were able to steepen the so-called ‘spin slope’, effectively maintaining low spin off the tee while increasing spin with the scoring clubs. Combine that with a measurable gain in ball speed, and the result is a product that is demonstratively better than its predecessor,” explain Titleist.

All very good but what did our tester Mark Townsend make of it?

What were my first impressions?

Not that you spend very long looking at packaging but the box and sleeve are very slick and more classic black than previous versions. The wording on the sleeve is almost identical to the Pro V1x but with some subtle differences.

Titleist 2025 Pro V1 black box

‘Continuous improvement is a process. It’s the result of a highly structured, disciplined, and time-tested approach to design and manufacturing. The Titleist process ensures consistency and purposeful innovation. The New Titleist Pro V1 golf ball is a result of this process. A reformulated faster core produces more speed and iron and wedge spin for more control.’

Player benefits: Extraordinary distance – Increased drop-and-stop control – Very low long game spin – Penetrating trajectory – Consistent soft feel

There is also a filled in Pro V1 stamp which is easier on the eye for alignment and appearance.

Did it live up to the hype?

A first impression from the opening few shots with the driver is that this feels fast. Without going on a launch monitor most of us are judging this with our eyes but the ball genuinely felt faster than other Pro V1s that I’ve played in the past.

This is a ball that I’ve used religiously for at least a decade and I was playing a course that I’m a member of (Moortown) so I have a pretty good grasp of where my tee shots generally finish and this had a lot of distance to it. We can all do with a few more yards and this certainly delivers that.

The Pro V1 promises a penetrating ball flight and this is something that I have always loved about previous versions. The good news is that there isn’t a lot of noticeable difference, according to Titleist, off the tee with either the Pro V1 and Pro V1x.

Both balls are obviously low-spin balls in the long game – the Pro V1x will launch higher – and the 2025 balls will supposedly behave similarly with the driver. This is by some distance, no pun intended, the number one ball in golf and, in terms of spin rate and launch angle, this appeared to behave very similarly to other Pro V1 versions. But it definitely did feel fast.

What was the stand-out strength of the 2025 Pro V1?

Titleist 2025 Pro V1 ball on tee

It’s a bit early in the year to say too much about the greenside spin – the Pro V1 sits somewhere between high and higher for short-game spin while the Pro V1x has the most spin – but where this ball really impressed was the ball flight and workability with the longer irons.

As someone who loves to punch the ball with the a fairway wood or 5/6-iron this was exceptional. On my better shots the ball never even wavered and produced some very satisfying shots.

What surprised me about the 2025 Pro V1?

There was one shot – a 9-iron to a par 3 from 145 yards – that really stood out. Firstly, I might struggle to get all of that distance and also there was plenty of control.

The feel and sound off each club, like all Pro V1s but maybe less so the Pro V1x, was outstanding. It’s only when you try other balls that you truly appreciate how good these balls are. There is nothing that jars and the feel off the putter, with the new alignment stamp, felt similar to other iterations.

The other huge positive is how forgiving these balls are. Titleist insist that all golfers will benefit most from the Pro V1 or Pro V1x and, while we all like to know what the pros love about the ball, that bears very little resemblance to our games.

We mishit a lot of shots and the 2025 Pro V1 was exceptionally good at helping with tee shots that didn’t find the middle of the clubface. Likewise, irons that weren’t struck out of the middle definitely benefited from its forgiving properties.

But it is when you truly swing the club properly that you appreciate quite how brilliant a ball the 2025 Pro V1 is.

READ MORE: The best new golf balls for 2025