The Golf Ball That Usually Wins On Tour Isn’t Dominating In 2026—Yet

We’ve already seen 11 PGA Tour events this season. (Even though the Hero World Challenge isn’t technically part of the official schedule, it’s a small-field event with many of the best players in the world so it’s worth including.)

Looking at those first 11 events, something interesting is starting to emerge.

For years, one golf ball has dominated the PGA Tour winners’ list. If you track the equipment that Tour players use, as I do, you get used to seeing the same pattern over and over. I keep a close eye on these trends and the small shifts that start to show up from season to season.

This year, I noticed something with the golf balls used by tournament winners.

To keep things consistent, I looked at the first 11 events of the season in 2024, 2025 and 2026 and tracked the golf ball used by the winner of each event.

For years, Titleist golf balls have dominated the PGA Tour winners’ list, especially early in the season. Here’s what that comparison looks like.

Share of wins in the first 11 events (Titleist golf balls)

• 2024: 10 of 11 wins (91%)
• 2025: 8 of 11 wins (73%)
• 2026: 4 of 11 wins (36%)

Winning golf balls from the first 11 events

Below is a look at the golf balls used by winners in the first 11 events across the past three seasons.

Tournament	2024 Winning Ball	2025 Winning Ball	2026 Winning Ball
Hero World Challenge	Pro V1	Z-STAR XV	Z-STAR XV
Sony Open	Pro V1	Pro V1x	Tour B X
The American Express	Pro V1x	Pro V1	Pro V1
Farmers Insurance Open	Pro V1x	Pro V1	Pro V1x
AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am	Pro V1x	TP5	TP5x
WM Phoenix Open	Pro V1x	Pro V1x	Tour B X
Genesis Invitational	Z-STAR XV	Pro V1x	TP5
Cognizant Classic	Pro V1	Pro V1	Z-Star Diamond
Arnold Palmer Invitational	Pro V1	Pro V1x	Chrome Tour
Puerto Rico Open	Pro V1	Pro V1x	Pro V1
Players Championship	Pro V1	TP5x	Pro V1x Prototype

What’s going on?

This doesn’t mean anything dramatic has changed about what players prefer to play.

Titleist is still, by a wide margin, the most popular golf ball on the PGA Tour. Their overall ball count remains far ahead of every other manufacturer. What we’re seeing so far this season is simply a different mix of winners across the first 11 events of the year.

Some notable examples include:

• Chris Gotterup who won twice early in the season playing a Bridgestone Tour B X.
• Collin Morikawa who captured Pebble Beach using a TaylorMade TP5x.
• Akshay Bhatia who won the Arnold Palmer Invitational with the Callaway Chrome Tour.
• Nico Echavarria who won the Cognizant Classic using a Srixon Z-Star Diamond.

Here’s a look at the golf balls used by winners so far in 2026.

Player	Event	Golf Ball
Hideki Matsuyama	Hero World Challenge	Z-STAR XV
Scottie Scheffler	The American Express	Pro V1
Chris Gotterup	Sony Open	Tour B X
Justin Rose	Farmers Insurance Open	Pro V1x
Collin Morikawa	Pebble Beach Pro-Am	TP5x
Chris Gotterup	WM Phoenix Open	Tour B X
Jacob Bridgeman	Genesis Invitational	TP5
Nico Echavarria	Cognizant Classic	Z-Star Diamond
Akshay Bhatia	Arnold Palmer Invitational	Chrome Tour
Ricky Castillo	Puerto Rico Open	Pro V1
Cameron Young	Players Championship	Pro V1x Prototype

Final thoughts

Nobody is worried about the long-term future of the most popular golf ball on the PGA Tour. It still dominates overall usage and will almost certainly continue to show up in the hands of many winners.

But through the first 11 events of the 2026 season, the winners’ list looks very different from what we’ve seen in recent years.

Whether that trend continues is something worth watching as the schedule moves into some of the biggest events of the year.