I was lucky enough to have sometime to test TS2 and TS 3 Fairways and drivers today.
As always in our brand neutral environment we try to control all aspects wecan.
Golf Ball: Titleist ProV1
Test environment: Outdoors
Wind: slightly into from the left
Temperature: 20*C
Altitude: Sea Level
Fairway shaft: MRC BF 70X
Driver shaft: Fujikura Pro Series TS 2.0 6 X
Titleist goal this year was to get "up to speed" with their competitors. As a brand neutral company I get a fair view of products that work for a broad range of handicap and understand how I can use products to help players better their game.
For the last two years Titleist has definitely been behind the pack with their driver ball speed and somewhat in how their head works for different style swings.
Their fairways have always been great products providing the player feels comfortable at address and to make an improvement this year would put them close to a great all round brand"when fitted properly".
Both TS 2 and 3 in fairway and drivers look great this year. Face angles in the A1 position look squarer than most on the market (comparable to Ping G400 squareness). Head shapes are inviting and they are back to a gloss black finish, which I am definitely a fan of.
I will attach some Trackman results following. The swing may be a bit rusty today but I do feel like this was a fair indication of what I felt was happening.
The TS2 in the fairway just sat better to my eye, it felt balanced all the way through the swing and even with a bad swing it just got the ball to go through the same piece of air. Key number for me here was smash factor average was 1.49 even with a couple of miss hits.
TS3 looked good at address maybea little more imposing but just did not feel as though it matched the way myswing was moving. This meant that I didn't find the middle as much and therefore gave me some inconsistent shapes and distances. The good shot was great but I was working harder to find it than with the TS2. The stand outnumber on this for me was spin at 3413 rpm, this is surprising as I felt like I glanced at a few which normally really spin up for me.
Driver was a very similar story,both heads set up square and look great. TS2 just felt more balanced and I felt as though it was getting back to the ball well no matter what I did. Stand out number for TS2 was spin average at 2630 rpm for a forgiving "higher launch" head, that is great for me. I also got my longest drive out there with the TS2 and my miss was more to the left which suits my eye.
TS3 I just did not strike verywell, I cant put my finger on why but similar to the fairway I was struggling to return it the same way as TS2. Stand out number was ball speed at 164 mph even with poor strikes alongside the dispersion being quite tight.
All in all I think Titleist have done a great job, they set out to deliver speed and no doubt they have caught up with the other brands. Forgiveness also looks to have taken a jump which I believe will open this brand up to players who maybe still perceive Titleist as just a "Tour Player" company. I look forward to seeing lots of players put this through its paces over the coming months.
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