What Golf Balls Do LPGA Players Use? They’re Not Very Lady Like!

Golfing Focus infographic of the most used golf balls by the top 100 LPGA Tour players

At Golfing Focus we firmly believe amateurs do not take nearly enough advantage of the lessons that can be learned from the golf equipment choices of the best women golfers in the world.

And given every golfer on the planet plays a golf ball without fail we thought it was the best place to start to do a deep dive into what golf balls do LPGA players use.

Titleist’s Pro V1x is the most used golf ball on the LPGA Tour with 39 of the top 100 pros using it. Titleist’s Pro V1 is the next most played ball chosen by 31. TaylorMade’s TP5x and Srixon’s Z-Star balls the best of the rest with 4 pros each using them. Overall the top 100 use 11 different golf balls made by 6 manufacturers.

Titleist’s dominance in the golf balls used by LPGA players is perhaps no great surprise and when we looked at the golf balls used by the best pros on the PGA Tour and the Champions Tour we again found Titleist balls to be as dominant.

Our in-depth analysis of the golf balls used by the best pros on the LPGA Tour however highlighted a key difference with their PGA colleagues and also the surprising choice of one star player following her split from Bridgestone!

And not only that.

We also took look at what’s changed in the three years since Golfing Focus last did this analysis before finally answering the question once and for all of whether LPGA players use women’s golf balls!

Side view of Titleist's Pro V1x golf ball.
Titleist’s Pro V1x is the most used ball among the top LPGA Tour pros. Check the latest price on Amazon

The Most Used Golf Ball on the LPGA Tour has The X-Factor

When Golfing Focus last took an in-depth look at the most used golf ball on the LPGA Tour three years back we found that 41 out of the top 50 LPGA Tour players used either a Titleist Pro V1 or Pro V1x.

The Pro V1x was the most used ball at that time with 44% of the top 50 using it in 2021 but what has changed now?

In 2024 Golfing Focus’s analysis – this time of the top 100 LPGA pros – found that the Titleist Pro V1x is again the most used golf ball on the LPGA Tour with 38% choosing it, including 2023 player of the year Lilia Vu.

The Pro V1 is played by 31% while the next most used balls – TaylorMade’s TP5x and Srixon’s Z-Star are only used by 4 pros each out of this elite group.

A clear majority (69%) of the top 100 LPGA pros therefore continue to use Titleist golf balls in preference to the other brands.

And, interestingly, this percentage is almost identical to what we found when Golfing Focus analysed the golf balls used on the PGA Tour.

But while the size of the majority of the best LPGA Tour pros playing Titleist golf balls is less than it is on the Champions Tour what was notable was the preference on the LPGA Tour, in line with their senior male colleagues, for choosing a Pro V1x over the Pro V1.

“Instantly [I] knew that the (2023) Pro V1x was going to be it. It helped bring down the spin and it was just perfect for my game … The biggest thing for me is I really wanted the same feel coming out of the old golf ball. It just happened to be that way, so it worked out really well.”

Lilia Vu – 2023 Player of the Year and current World No.1

The individual reasons pros choose their golf balls is of course wide and varied but the dominance of the firmer and slightly longer playing Pro V1x on the LPGA Tour compared to the PGA Tour is a definite point of distinction.

What is also crystal clear though from our in-depth analysis is that Titleist’s place as the #1 ball amongst the best LPGA players remains without question.

A full breakdown of which of the top 100 are using which Titleist golf balls together with other ball brands is listed in the searchable table below.

LPGA Golf Balls

LPGA Golf Ball Choices: Breaking Down the Best of the Rest

Despite the dominance of Titleist golf balls among the choices of the best LPGA players not everyone on the women’s Tour uses a Pro V1x or Pro V1 of course.

And some big names opt for golf balls produced by the other big manufacturers.

Callaway is the next most common golf brand after Titleist among the top 100 LPGA Tour pros with 11% using either the Chrome Tour, Tour X, Chrome Soft or Chrome Soft X balls.

6% by comparison opt for both Srixon and TaylorMade balls respectively, including Nelly Korda.

And Korda’s change from the TaylorMade TP5 to the TP5x has clearly paid dividends.

The World No.1’s 2024 Major win at the Chevron Championship further cemented her place at the top of the women’s game as she joined Annika Sorenstam and Nancy Lopez as the only players on the LPGA Tour to win five consecutive LPGA events.

“Nelly was looking to bring the spin down, especially on her driver … We saw the benefits of TP5x in her driver and irons bringing the spin down a couple hundred RPMs. Then, around the greens, her launch on chips was a little bit lower and she generated more spin around the greens with TP5x than TP5. She produced a lot more check in a preferred trajectory coming off of the TP5x versus the TP5. She’s been happy with the ball ever since.

Ryan Ressa, TaylorMade Senior Tour Manager

Only two of the best 100 LPGA pros meanwhile use a Srixon golf ball which was also the ball brand of choice of LPGA superstar Lexi Thomson until December 2023.

But in perhaps the most surprising equipment change for the 2024 season Thomson has now partnered with Maxfli and chosen to be the only one of the top 100 to put their Tour golf ball in play.

Endorsement contracts are obviously a significant factor when it comes to what equipment the LPGA pros choose but according to Thomson the Maxfli Tour has given her “… that bit extra confidence around the greens and a few extra yards off the tee.”

It will be interesting to see how her results pan out throughout the season with this new ball but for now, she remains the only one of the top 100 LPGA Tour pros choosing a Maxfli golf ball.

Side view of Srixon's Z-Star golf ball
Srixon’s Z-Star is the equal third most used golf ball among the top 100 LPGA players. Check the latest price on Amazon.
Side view of TaylorMade's TP5x golf ball.
TM’s TP5x is the equal third most used golf ball among the top 100 PLGA pros. Check the latest price on Amazon

Do LPGA Players Use Women’s Golf Balls? There’s No Such Thing

Women’s or Ladies’ golf balls are a category of golf balls that tend to have a lower ‘compression’.

In other words, they are softer than other balls which are ‘harder’ and therefore have a higher ‘compression’ rating.

We go into the detail of ‘ladies’ golf balls in detail in another one of our posts where we look at the question of whether women’s golf balls go further than men’s but the key point to take away here is that ‘ladies’ or ‘women’s’ golf balls are simply marketing terms made up by the golf ball manufacturers.

As a general rule of thumb golf balls with higher compression (i.e. hardness) will suit golfers with higher swingspeeds while lower compression (i.e. softer) golf balls will be better for slower swingspeed golfers.

And because amateur women golfers typically record swingspeeds of between 60 and 80mph which is slow in the overall scheme of things what you often find is that golf balls are labelled as ‘women’s golf balls’ because the manufacturer has designed them to suit players which lower swingspeeds.

But given the average driver swingspeed on the LPGA Tour is around 94mph and long hitters such as Maria Fassi have recorded swingspeeds of 108 mph – which is not far off the average PGA driver swingspeed of 114mph – we can see from the above that a golf ball at the ‘soft’ end of the scale will not suit LPGA players.

LPGA players are among the top 0.1% of all golfers in the world and with their swingspeeds would lose a lot of distance amongst other things if they played softer golf balls designed for slower swingspeed golfers.

And that is why the most used golf ball on the LPGA Tour – Titleist’s Pro V1x – has a high compression rating of around 96 (the compression scale goes from 30 to 110) and no LPGA pro in the top 100 we analysed chose a golf ball with a compression of less than 86.

There is a lot of physics going on when it comes to golf balls but the key part of softer golf ball design is that by compressing more under the low pressure of slower swingspeeds ball speed, loft, carry, and therefore distance, will be increased.

The rest is just marketing when it comes to ‘women’s golf balls’ and indeed it is interesting to note that Callaway’s Reva golf ball is effectively a ladies’ version of Callaway’s Supersoft Max ball.

It is the same ball, just with different packaging, colour choices and alignment patterns!

Before You Go …

Choosing the right golf ball for your game is something that is typically given far less consideration by amateurs than their clubs.

And marketing is a big element that can mislead regular golfers and make them pick the wrong golf ball for their game. It can also cost them distance.

Check out our in-depth look at whether certain golf balls go further to find out if you are one of them!

Do Certain Golf Balls Go Further? Brand and Cost Considerations

Other top articles related to this topic:

One response to “What Golf Balls Do LPGA Players Use? They’re Not Very Lady Like!”

  1. Graeme Hay avatar
    Graeme Hay

    If anyone can help us find out what golf balls the 5 LPGA players out of the top 100 we couldn’t find any data on that would be awesome! The 5 are – Jodi Ewart Shadoff, Yu Liu, Pavarisa Yoktuan, Arpichaya Yubol and Dani Holmqvist.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

LEGAL INFORMATION

This site is owned and operated by Golfing Focus Limited, a private limited company whose registered office is in London, UK. Golfing Focus Limited is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees (at no cost to you) by linking to Amazon.com. Golfing Focus Limited also participates in other affiliate programs with the eBay Partner Network, FlexOffers, CJ.com, Svorn and other sites and is compensated for referring traffic and business to these companies (again at no cost to you).