Titleist NXT Tour series questions

Hi.

The NXT Tour is a 3-piece fusablend covered ball.

The NXT Tour S is a 2-piece fusablend covered ball.

The NXT Tour has two cores, and the NXT Tour S has one core but the core, if you look at the photos online, has a different/lighter coloured inner centre. Would I be correct in thinking this is the graduational core manufacturing technique that the likes of Bridgestone and Srixon use?

If yes, then isn't the NXT Tour and the NXT Tour S effectively the same ball? I mean, in effect, both balls have two cores, no mantle, and the same cover.

Why have Titleist decided to drop two balls (balls above) and replace it with a single ball (Tour Soft)? Is it because, as I ask, the NXT Tour series were effectively the same ball?

I know the NXT Tour S is expensive compared to other 2-piece balls on the market, and I expect that is due to the Titleist brand power, but cost aside is it a good ball? What characteristics should I expect from the NXT Tour S?

I like the NXT Tour S. I get good distance with it so i presume it has a higher compression rating than other 2-3 pieces balls. I strike it well. It seems to hold greens better than other non-urethane balls. I can predict the run out of it nicely. I love the feel of it off every club. It's a winner for me (and I've tried a lot of balls). I would just like to know if it technically a better ball than the other non-urethane balls out there and why, or does it have the same performance?

Cost aside, if all non-urethane balls cost the same, would the NXT Tour S be most people's go to ball?

Just trying to get some insight with this ball.

Thanks.

1) Yes, gradational curing of a single core is attempting to achieve the same result as dual cores. The process is essentially like cooking a steak (high initial heat to sear the outside, the reducing the temp to more slowly cook the inside resulting in gradual forming from inside out). However, the dual core approach can achieve a much larger contrast in hardness due to the ability to use two different material formulations but the downside is higher production cost.

2) Titleist likely dropped the NXT branding that ran from 2001-2017 due to lack of sales. Sales figures likely showed the 3-piece NXT Tour lagging behind the S and with the slightly higher production cost decided to drop the design alltogether. The reality is that the demand for multilayer surlyn balls has drastically dropped in the past few years with the dropping prices of competitor’s urethane offerings. As for the Tour Soft, you can view it as the next gen NXT Tour S, although I’m predicting that it will fall flat due to the price and suffer the same fate of being rebranded.

3) High price is due to the Titleist brand and in general all of there offerings are overpriced in each category. While the S and now the Tour Soft are among the highest spinning 2-piece balls on the market, they are still nowhere near a ball with a urethane cover for which there are many options available around the same price point. Ultimately these are still low compression 2-piece surlyn balls and most players will not find a difference in performance to warrant the additional $1+ per ball cost difference.

Storm319- Thanks for your comments, always welcome.

Do you know the compression rating between the NXT Tour S and the new Tour Soft?

Which was the better ball between the NXT Tour and the NXT Tour S, which had the better green-side spin, if there was any difference as both had the same cover? From memory, the NXT Tour was a lot firmer feeling than the S.

You mention the NXT Tour series were some of the best spinning non-urethane balls on the market - what is the reason for this? I have seen the golf digest charts but I don't believe them. I've also heard those charts may be manipulated based on sponsorship from golf manufacturing companies.

Both the NXT Tour and NXT Tour S only had 302 dimples, I think the lowest number of all balls sold. What was Titleist's thinking behind this and what would the lesser number of dimples achieve over say a ball with 336 dimples?

Thanks.

> @nad12 said:

> Storm319- Thanks for your comments, always welcome.

> Do you know the compression rating between the NXT Tour S and the new Tour Soft?

> Which was the better ball between the NXT Tour and the NXT Tour S, which had the better green-side spin, if there was any difference as both had the same cover? From memory, the NXT Tour was a lot firmer feeling than the S.

>

> You mention the NXT Tour series were some of the best spinning non-urethane balls on the market - what is the reason for this? I have seen the golf digest charts but I don't believe them. I've also heard those charts may be manipulated based on sponsorship from golf manufacturing companies.

>

> Both the NXT Tour and NXT Tour S only had 302 dimples, I think the lowest number of all balls sold. What was Titleist's thinking behind this and what would the lesser number of dimples achieve over say a ball with 336 dimples?

>

> Thanks.

1) I am only aware of two sources in the past 10 or so years that have published overall compression numbers using an ATTI tester for multiple OEMs, GolfBallTest.org/GolfBallSelector.com and more recently MiGlfSpi. The first has not provided an update since 2016, but as a reference they had the 2012 NXT Tour = 96, 2012 NXT Tour S = 84, 2013 ProV1 = 95, 2015 Pro V1 = 93. The later tested using an ATTI tester as well, but it would have been a different testing apparatus and we have no idea if the two were calibrated the same so apples to apples testing is not really possible (In general the GBT.org numbers for past models look to be a bit lower). MiGlfSpi tested what I assume was the 2019 version of the ProV1 which resulted in 104 overall and the Tour Soft at 85. Based on the difference between the particular ProV1 and the 2-piece that was being compared, I assume that the Tour Soft is lower compression overall than the prior NXT Tour S.

2) NXT Tour vs the NXT Tour S in 2012 had an overall compression difference of around 10 points with a very similar cover hardness. Keep in mind that Fusablend is just a trademark name, in reality it is an ionomer blend of some kind (really nothing special, just a bit softer for the NXT line vs the lower priced Titleist 2-piece offerings). Theoretically the NXT Tour's dual core and slightly higher compression could result in a bit higher ball speed and greater spin separation, but the differences for most players would likely be negligible. The reality is that cover hardness has the greatest impact on mid to short game spin and the covers of each of these are barely different even if they are at all different.

3) When you are comparing balls with the same basic cover material, the rule of thumb is softer cover = more spin. Now, attributes of different cover materials can provide a slight edge even if the covers have the same relative hardness (urethan by nature is more resilient and springs back more when deformed vs ionomer so it tends to exhibit higher spin at the same relative harndess). GD spin charts were better than nothing, but they sharing more detail of the test could have helped substantiate their results. Accusations that the results were impacted by OEM advertising spending were baseless conspiracy theories (you could say the same about any of the major golf periodicals, forums, or youtube channels). Unless someone can provide some proof to support these accusations, I wouldn't give them any merit. With that, any quantitative result or study should be take with a grain of salt.

4) Larger, deeper dimples tend to increase lift and therefore tend to result in a higher apex than smaller, shallower dimples. A good example of this would be the Titleist ProV1x (328, deeper) having a higher apex vs the AVX (352, shallower). Keep in mind that this is over-simplifying dimple design as we are not getting into patterns that have different sized/depth dimples in the same pattern, shape, surface area between dimples, etc as well as other differences between balls that could impact initial launch conditions (overall construction, materials, overall hardness, etc). So if all balls have roughly the same surface area, larger dimples will have a lower total count than smaller dimples. One trend that you can see is that in the past 15 years or so, all of the major OEMs have settled their various pattern counts somewhere between 300 and 400. Beyond that, I wouldn't get too hung up on trying to quantify the best pattern based on total dimple count because there are a lot of other variables at play.

For surlyn balls the NXT pair were probably the most expensive. They have been out of production for a couple years now so its unlikely you will be able to purchase new. Going by the tests I saw, the normal NXT Tour performed better than the Tour S. Slightly more distance, less spin on driver, more spin on wedge. Technology has moved past these two balls and you can get urethane balls that have more complete performance for the same price or less.