Pros ponder the Titleist ball debate

GEOFF OGILVY is one of the most articulate players on the PGA Tour but even he was verbally challenged when talking about changes to the Titleist golf ball.

Titleist is involved in a dispute with Callaway over patents applied to the popular Pro V1 ball. Two courts have ruled in favour of Callaway, and Titleist is appealing. Before the latest court ruling, Titleist converted the Pro V1 to be outside the patents in question.

So what does that mean for tour players, the majority of whom use Titleist? Some are using the modified ball. Others are using the new Pro V1, which carries two small dots in the side stamp. Steve Stricker used a similar ball at the Chevron World Challenge last month with a “plus” in the stamping, but that was for testing (although approved by the USGA). The name of the ball is still Pro V1.

As for Ogilvy? “The new-new one, I’m not going to use this week,” he said. “I’m going to play these two weeks with the new version of the old one, and then do a bit more testing. There are good reports about the new-new one. So I’ve got a month in Phoenix to test them all out.”

Asked to clarify, things really got entertaining.

“There’s a new-old one, and there’s a new-new one, which is the new one, which is the model in front of the old one,” Ogilvy said. “The other one is a 2007 ball, and this is a 2009 ball. There’s a version of the 2007 ball, but it doesn’t breach patent. So I’m using the non-patent breaching version of the 2007 ball these two weeks.” Thankfully, players only must put a number on the scorecard.