Titleist recently made their ‘Fountain of Youth’ ball faster

admin January 14, 2026

0 0 2 minutes read

Titleist recently made their ‘Fountain of Youth’ ball faster

Titleist’s AVX golf ball is a premium fit on the market.

Players who want to play good golf and play a urethane cover golf ball, but maybe don’t have the speed to step up to one of Titleist’s tour balls like the Pro V1 or Pro V1x. With low flight and low spin on the bag end, the AVX fits the bill while still providing the tour-level feel and greenside performance of a urethane cover ball.

So when Titleist looked to create the next generation AVX for 2026, they found one thing AVX players wanted to improve: more greenside spin.

“AVX golfers are very clear about why they play AVX. They like long distance, low long game spin and especially a soft feel. These players are looking for certain performance qualities,” Titleist’s Director of Golf Ball Product Management, Frederick Waddell, said in a statement. “They were also telling us that if they could get more out of AVX, it was spin and short game control, as long as it didn’t compromise other features of AVX that they loved.”

Not only did the new AVX deliver increased greenside spin with a hard and soft urethane cover, but the new redesigned core also allowed it to be faster than ever.

One thing you’ll hear golf ball engineers talk about when changing the characteristics of a golf ball is “spin slope.” The slower the ball spins off the tee and the more it rolls around the green, the steeper the spin slope.

In order to give AVX players what they want with more greenside spin while maintaining low driver and iron spin, Titleist engineers needed to deepen the spin slope.

What they did was make the urethane cover bigger and softer to increase greenside spin, but if nothing else changed, that would improve spin off the tee, which they didn’t want.

This is where the AVX’s three-piece construction was important because the engineers were able to rework the core faster and use a thinner casing layer to cancel out the increased rotation at the top end of the bag.

“This super-soft, super-stiff relationship drives spin performance across all golf ball models,” said Titleist SVP of Golf Ball R&D, Mike Madson. “A soft cover over a hard casing layer adds spin to short shots where the cover plays a big role. Then you have a hard casing layer over a soft core, which reduces spin when you get to those high-speed impacts like a driver or hybrid. With AVX, it’s every piece of construction that we use to fine-tune players spin and give them what AVX will do well.”

My take: Staying true to the AVX niche

Just like Titleist did with the Pro V1x Left Dash and made “More Dash,” it looks like they made “AVX more AVX” as well.

AVX is a unique “fountain of youth” ball that is ideal for older golfers looking to regain distance lost due to aging. When Titleist makes entries into the pro-ams, they load up on AVX knowing that those players will enjoy the grade boost.

Although I wouldn’t call it a trade-off, it didn’t turn out like the Pro V1 or Pro V1x around the greens and that’s not something the AVX player gets.

Now with less spin around the greens, but still that low flight and spin and everything else, the AVX becomes an even more important ball for good players.