Gear: TaylorMade TP5, TP5x Pix golf balls
Price: $44.99 per dozen
Specs: Five-piece, urethane-covered balls with high-visibility pattern
Available: Feb. 28
Last season TaylorMade debuted the first TP5 Pix ball, a five-layer offering like the company’s other premium balls with the added benefit of a high-visibility pattern. In flight, the orange and red Xs were easy to track against blue skies or clouds. But for golfers such as Rickie Fowler, who prefer to put a line on their ball, there was a problem with TP5 Pix: There was no area where a straight line could be drawn that did not run into the Pix pattern.
With feedback from Fowler, TaylorMade is offering an updated version of the Pix ball and making it available in TP5 and TP5x versions.
Instead of Xs, the updated Pix balls have triangles formed by gray, black and orange lines. It is still easy to spot the balls flying on a full shot, and when players want to use a line to align their putts, they can take advantage of a channel between the triangles.
TaylorMade calls it ClearPath Alignment, and it not only creates a good place to draw a line, it provides instant feedback on the quality of a player’s putt. On well-struck putts, the white channel area is maintained as the ball rolls on the green, but a stroke that cuts across the ball, is pulled offline or pushed will upend the pattern as the ball rolls and the channel will not be visible.
Aside from the Pix system on the cover, these are the same TP5 and TP5x balls that players such as Fowler, Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Jason Day and Dustin Johnson have played for over a year. They are both five-layer balls that feature TaylorMade’s Tri-Fast Core system and a soft urethane cover that helps generate more spin on chips, pitches and approach shots.
The TP5 Pix will feel slightly softer and fly lower because it has an 85 overall compression while the TP5x Pix has a 97 compression. The TP5 Pix will produce more spin, and the TP5x will provide more carry distance.
