As someone who has intermittently gamed the TaylorMade TP5x over the past few years, I was very interested to see how a very impressive tour-validated golf ball could be significantly improved, and whether it could cement its position as one of the best golf balls.
My intrigue was further piqued when reading the technology information from TaylorMade. Essentially, the brief that its R&D team were working towards was to create a ball that produced more speed but somehow felt softer! Those two performance characteristics are usually mutually exclusive.
So how has TaylorMade tackled this challenge? Well the big tech story is the new ‘Speed Wrapped Core’ which is essentially a new lower density acoustic material that makes up the core of the ball before the three further layers of surlyn are added, and finally the urethane cover. This new core sounds much softer in its original state than previous iterations which according to TaylorMade, allows it to be made harder and faster without compromising feel or acoustics.
The finish of the standard TaylorMade 2024 TP5x is very clean, and the alignment aid on the side is subtle but useful. I was fortunate enough to visit the TaylorMade ball plant in South Carolina and witnessed first hand the attention to detail in the construction process, so the precision and quality of finish came as no surprise to me.
In terms of performance, I was genuinely impressed. In testing, I found everything that TaylorMade had claimed to be absolutely correct. Before I had even collated any data, I could immediately detect the improvement in feel throughout the bag, with a lovely soft impact and muted audio to rival any of the best premium golf balls. In terms of golf balls, feel is absolutely critical so this was a great start.
The launch monitor data did nothing but reinforce my feelings that I was hitting a much improved product from the previous iteration. Throughout the bag my ball speeds went up. This ranged from around 1.5 mph in my irons all the way up to 3 mph with the driver.
I found spin levels in my long game to be almost identical to the previous generation TP5x, and the familiar stable flight in the wind was still very much present. If you need extra spin around the greens then the standard 2024 TP5 model will be the one for you, but there is still ample grip on any short game shot with the TP5x.
I have now played three PGA tournaments with the TaylorMade 2024 TP5x and have been particularly impressed with the durability of the ball. I am a pretty high speed player, and as such have a lot of wedges into greens but the cover stood up admirably to any punishment my wedge grooves dished out.
With golf balls, there usually isn’t too much to say about the looks, but that isn’t the case here. TaylorMade has invested heavily in what it calls visual technology.
There is a new Pix version of both the TP5 and TP5x ball which has a noteworthy change to its appearance. The familiar triangle pattern has now been updated to a square and the orange accent color has been made even more vibrant based on player feedback.
TaylorMade is also adding never before seen customisation options by elevating its TP5 Pix limited edition programme, and adding a new MySymbol collection in Europe. MySymbol will offer a large range of fresh, individual logo options for consumers to choose from.
The TP5x comes in both white and yellow and is available at a recommended retail price of £44.99 and the pix version at £47.99.
This is a seriously impressive golf ball and based on my testing and tournament results already, I am going to be putting it into play myself. The additional speed is always useful but to achieve that with a notably softer feel and zero compromise on any other performance characteristics is excellent.
