Golfing News & Blog Articles

Titleist is again releasing a limited batch of the elusive Pro V1 Left Dot golf ball. Here's why the ball is so popular and how to get them.

The post This cult-favorite Titleist Pro V1 is coming back to market (act fast!) appeared first on Golf.

Mark your calendars, because here we go again.

For a limited time, which is probably until they sell out (so maybe 37 minutes), Titleist is offering a limited run of the Pro V1 Left Dot golf ball.

For those of you just learning about Left Dot today, I want to first be clear that Pro V1 Left Dot is different from Pro V1x Left Dash. It’s also different from the double-dot Pro V1x that Cam Young played on his way to winning the Wyndham Championship.

Left Dot is Left Dot, a lower-flying, lower-spinning CPO (custom performance option) version of the Pro V1. However, that statement isn’t without nuance.

Left Dot evolves by staying the same

Titleist last made Left Dot available to everyday golfers in September 2021. That was two generations removed from the current Pro V1. My point in sharing that is that while the general relationship between Left Dot and the stock Pro V1 still holds, golfers will likely find Left Dot a bit more similar to the retail Pro V1 than it was in 2021.

Arccos just dropped what could be the most significant advancement in rangefinder technology since the introduction of slope compensation. The Arccos Smart Laser Rangefinder promises to deliver golf’s most precise “plays like” distance by automatically adjusting for a comprehensive menu of environmental factors that go well beyond the slope calculations we’ve grown accustomed to.

But here’s the thing: this next-level precision comes with a catch that could be a deal-breaker for many golfers.

Beyond slope: The environmental revolution

While traditional rangefinders with slope adjustment factor in elevation changes, the Arccos Smart Laser goes significantly deeper. We’re talking real-time adjustments for wind speed and direction (including gusts), temperature, humidity and altitude—all combined with precise GPS positioning across more than 40,000 mapped courses worldwide.

“We’ve taken something that is actually super-complicated and presented it in an immediately actionable way,” says Sal Syed, Arccos CEO and Co-Founder.

The concept is compelling. Instead of getting a basic yardage and trying to calculate environmental adjustments in your head (or ignoring them entirely), the Smart Laser does the heavy lifting. The display provides the actual distance, the “plays like” number, and even upper and lower bounds when wind gusts are factored in.

The new Nicklaus USA Collection just made it easier than ever to put a great-looking red, white and blue outfit together.

The post Stock up on red, white and blue gear with the Nicklaus USA Collection appeared first on Golf.

If you're playing preferred lies, is it legal to leave your club-length marker on the ground while you hit? Rules Guy has the answer.

The post Rules Guy: With preferred lies, can you leave your club-length marker on the ground while you hit? appeared first on Golf.

What's it like covering a U.S. Open as a 10-year-old? One intrepid scribe got to find out at Oakmont Country Club this summer.

The post What’s it like to be a Junior Reporter at a major? Ask Silas appeared first on Golf.

If you ever find yourself struggling for motivation, let me tell you: Four kids under the age of five will get you off your ass in a hurry.

I know this from experience but Nicholas Mertz, the owner of Pins and Aces and, since last December, Edel Golf, is living it in the here and now.

“I got married young and now I have four kids. You learn a lot and you grow up quickly.”

On the surface, the Pins and Aces/Edel Golf pairing seems odd. After all, Pins and Aces is a flashy, youthful golf lifestyle brand that’s growing. Edel Golf has been a struggling putter, wedge and iron brand.

Other than both being “in” the golf space and based in Colorado, the two companies had very little in common when they walked down the aisle.

I’m not going to pretend Bridgestone Golf teaming up with Pabst Blue Ribbon makes a lick of sense on paper. A golf ball company collaborating with the beer that built its reputation on being aggressively mediocre? It shouldn’t work.

Except it absolutely does.

After the initial summer release sold out faster than you could crack open a cold one, Bridgestone is bringing back their limited-edition PBR collaboration kit on Tuesday, Sept. 16. They’re calling it a Ryder Cup tie-in to celebrate Team USA, which is about as tenuous a connection as claiming your morning beer is technically breakfast because it has grains in it.

But you know what? I don’t care. It’s still cool.

What’s in the box

The kit gets you a dozen Bridgestone TOUR B RX golf balls in custom PBR packaging, plus a matching towel and putter headcover. Everything’s done up in that classic red, white and blue PBR aesthetic that screams America harder than a lifted Dodge Hemi with truck nuts.

Over the course of my nearly three decades in golf, I’ve watched countless golfers obsess over their driving distance while completely ignoring the shots that actually save strokes. They’ll spend hours at the range bombing drivers, then wonder why they can’t break 90.

“But coach, I crushed that drive 280 yards!”

Yeah, and then you took four shots to get down from 30 yards out.

Do you realize that, on average, 60 percent of golf shots happen within 100 yards of the pin? Yet players still chase distance like it’s the holy grail of golf improvement.

Meanwhile, the short-game skills that actually matter—the stuff that turns bogeys into pars and pars into birdies—get completely ignored. But here’s what really gets me: you don’t even need to leave your house to master these shots. Your living room, backyard, even your office, can become a short-game laboratory.

A drama-filled golf week featured Ryder Cup statements, short missed putts and some honest admissions about the pressures of pro golf.

The post 3-putt, 4-putt, shaky hands, Greg Norman’s LIV exit | Monday Finish appeared first on Golf.

This U.S. Ryder Cup team hire? “It’s more of an asset for us,” said American captain Keegan Bradley ahead of the event at Bethpage Black.

The post This U.S. Ryder Cup team hire? ‘It’s more of an asset for us’ appeared first on Golf.

High-end courses are surprising golfers with thoughtful touches—these are the best of the best.

The post Top First-Tee Freebies That Are Turning Heads on the Course appeared first on GolfNow Blog.

Lanto Griffin's third-place finish got him inside the top 100, but his emotional interview highlighted a question the PGA Tour must answer.

The post Pro’s emotional interview highlights 1 truth (and question) PGA Tour must answer appeared first on Golf.

Ben Griffin was the tough-luck runner-up to Scottie Scheffler at the Procore Championship at Silverado Resort on Sunday.

The post Ben Griffin’s surprising 3-putt finish? He described in 2 words appeared first on Golf.

Ryder Cup week is just days away. So who do we like to win? Who are we worried about? The answers may surprise you.

The post 6 burning Ryder Cup questions you might have 1 week before Bethpage appeared first on Golf.

Ellerston, a Top 100-ranked course in Australia, has been a near-impossible tee time in recent years. Now, it is taking limited public play.

The post This super-exclusive Top 100 golf course is opening its gates — if ever so slightly appeared first on Golf.

If you missed it, there’s a new class-action suit against Titleist over “mixed boxes” of Pro V1 and Pro V1x On the surface, it’s another entry in the long tradition of golf’s legal theater. Some of these suits are legit, some are laughable, and some make you wonder if legal departments exist for any reason other than justifying their own existence.

I’m certainly no stranger to the kind of letters that ping-pong around Carlsbad and beyond. Half of them feel like boilerplate threats written just so someone in legal can prove they still have toner in the printer. But, every now and again, one of these battles actually reshapes the equipment landscape.

Here are a few of the lawsuits that really mattered.

PING v. USGA (Eye 2 Groove Wars)

The fight: In 1989, Karsten Solheim sued the USGA and PGA Tour for $100 million after officials moved to ban the square grooves found on the Eye 2 wedges.The settlement: A 1990 deal clarified groove specs but grandfathered every pre-April 1990 Eye 2. Those wedges were legal forever.The fallout: That’s why Phil Mickelson was still gaming Eye 2s in 2010. It set the precedent: the USGA can tighten specs, but not without risking legal bloodshed.Why it still matters: The Eye 2 case could serve as a blueprint for any brand that decides to challenge the USGA’s proposed ball rollback. The rollback isn’t finalized and there are still cards left to play. If someone does decide to fight, expect arguments that look a lot like the ones Karsten made in 1989.

Bridgestone v. Acushnet (Multilayer Ball Patents)

The fight: Bridgestone said Titleist’s Pro V1 was trampling its multilayer patents.The settlement: In 2007, the companies agreed to a royalty-bearing license plus cross-licenses.The fallout: This was the birth of the patent royalty stack. If you’ve ever wondered why premium OEM balls start at $50 a dozen, this case is at least part of the answer.Why it still matters: With every manufacturer about to navigate the rollback era, patent minefields around ball construction won’t be cleared anytime soon. If anything, they’ll get more important as brands look to squeeze every ounce of performance inside a significantly tighter window.

Callaway v. Acushnet (The Pro V1 War)

The fight: Callaway inherited Top-Flite’s patent portfolio and immediately went after Titleist. At one point, courts briefly barred the company from selling Pro V1s.The settlement: After six years of back-and-forth, they settled in 2012. Pro V1s stayed on shelves.The fallout: The industry realized that sometimes more benefit comes from cross-licensing than taking the No. 1 ball in golf off shelves.Why it still matters: A reminder that pulling the plug on the most popular product in the game is the nuclear option. It probably won’t happen again, but the threat of it still drives settlements.

Acushnet v. Vice et al. (The “DimpleGate” Lawsuits, 2015)

The fight: In April 2015, Acushnet filed a federal lawsuit in Boston against 10 direct-to-consumer ball companies, including Vice, 3 Up Golf, Dixon, Kick X, Lightning, Monsta, Rife, Nexen, Ariva and Vail Roberts (I Need The Ball). The complaint alleged infringement of Acushnet’s patented 318-dimple triangular dipyramid pattern. Not surprisingly, every one of the brands named in the suit was sourcing its golf balls from the Foremost factory in Taiwan.The settlement/result: With no independent R&D and little leverage against Acushnet, most of these brands folded or quietly exited the category. One (3 Up) publicly announced it was shutting down within weeks of the filing. Vice, however, weathered the storm and continued to expand, ultimately becoming one of the world’s most recognizable DTC ball companies.The short-term fallout: The lawsuits immediately thinned the herd of small challengers. For a while, it looked like Acushnet had slammed the door on the first DTC boom.Why it still matters: Longer term, the opposite happened. The suits effectively raised the bar, forcing any serious DTC entrant to either develop its own IP, license technology or be prepared to fight. The space didn’t die. Arguably, it matured. Today’s leading DTC brands (Vice, Maxfli, Snell, OnCore, Seed and others) are proof that competition wasn’t discouraged; it was reshaped.

Costco v. Titleist (The K-Sig Saga)

The fight: Costco launched a four-piece Kirkland Signature that looked suspiciously “tour-like” at $15. Acushnet threatened; Costco sued.The settlement: The case was quietly settled in 2018. The OG K-Sig vanished, while newer versions have been sourced from alternative factories.The fallout: The case again proved DTC businesses aren’t lawsuit-proof. It also suggests that “factory overruns” theories don’t hold up when the lawyers get involved.

As golf fans eagerly await the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black, the data nerds at Shot Scope dove into the ultimate question: Who’s better at golf, Americans or Europeans?

Look, we all know the Ryder Cup brings out the best and worst in golf fans. Sure, the Europeans invented the game, but Americans perfected the art of yelling “Get in the hole!” from 250 yards out and turning golf carts into mobile beer dispensaries.

But what happens when you take 7,000 amateur golfers—3,500 from each side of the pond—and pit them against each other in the ultimate data showdown?

Our friends at Shot Scope did exactly that, pulling together golfers from six different handicap levels (0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30) to settle this once and for all.

Think of it as the Ryder Cup, but with significantly more three-putts and lost balls.

If you’ve ever watched a drive launch solidly, climb too high and then stall out well short of your playing partners, you’ve seen backspin rob you of distance. Too much spin makes a ball balloon, curve more and fall straight down instead of chasing forward. For many golfers, fixing driver spin rates is the fastest way to gain yards without chasing more swing speed. Before we get into the solutions, we need to understand what actually creates that spin in the first place.

What exactly is spin loft?

At the core of the problem is spin loft. Spin loft is the difference between the loft you deliver at impact and the vertical direction your club is moving (the angle of attack).

Dynamic loft: The loft of the clubface at the moment of impact which often has little to do with the loft stamped on the sole.Angle of attack (AoA): Whether the clubhead is moving downward, level, or upward when it meets the ball.

Subtract the angle of attack from the dynamic loft and you are left with the spin loft. The larger the gap, the more spin you create. A golfer who delivers 20 degrees of loft while hitting five degrees down has a 25-degree spin loft which is very high.

A player who delivers 18 degrees of loft while hitting five degrees up has a 13-degree spin loft—much lower, much more efficient.

Common causes of high driver spin

In most cases, golfers create too much spin on their drives through a combination of swing tendencies and strike patterns. Understanding the causes helps you know what to change first.

For a change, Europe has questions about roster makeup as the USA squad thrives (and bonds) in Napa.