Why the successor to Titleist’s Pro V1x Left Dash took almost 8 years

The Pro V1x Left Dash was originally intended as a stand-alone option, one of Titleist’s custom performance options (CPO) created only for a small percentage of players.

But after winning the 2019 US Amateur and later the 2024 US Openthe ball began carving a larger portion of Titleist golf ball players. The ball quickly became a regular retail option and some of the technology in it, like the high-gradient core construction, were introduced into the regular Pro V1 and Pro V1x.

This was after the Left Dash, designed to be slightly stronger, lower spin and higher flying than the retail Pro V1x, remained unchanged from the original version, as the company says they will never release a new product unless it is better.

Now the Dash is getting its own update with a new, faster, high-gradient core, a thicker outer layer, a thinner urethane cover and a new, specially designed patterned tread, all to make it Dash, more Dash.

“If you’re a Dash player, you should be very excited to play the new Dash because we’ve taken everything you love and just made it a little bit better,” said Mike Madson, Titleist’s senior vice president of Golf Ball R&D. “It’s still low spin off the tee. It’s faster, it’s longer, it’s more penetrating in the wind. It’s everything a Dash player wants with a little more.”

Continue reading below for more on the 2026 Titleist Pro V1x Left Dash, including my take on the release.

In late 2023, Titleist Director of Golf Ball Product Management Frederick Waddell was getting ready to unveil a new Left Dash. The goal was to add a little more spin around the greens and make the feel a little softer.

But months before launch, Waddell said the team shied away from a release in 2024. Feedback from Left Dash players was that this wasn’t the Dash they were looking for. It was violating the standard Pro V1x features.

“We said, you know what, we don’t have it nailed down,” Waddell told GOLF. “And that’s not to say it wasn’t a perfectly good golf ball — it was a really, really good golf ball — but it wasn’t meeting the need that the golfer was asking us.”

So the team went back to focusing on Left Dash’s core attributes of being super fast and low spin.

To make the ball faster, Titleist reformulated the Aries core to be slightly stronger, but there was a trade-off.

“A higher compression ball is always faster, but with that increased compression comes spin, which, obviously, we’ve learned this golfer doesn’t want,” said Scott Cooper, Titleist Director of Golf Ball Product Development, R&D.

If you fit the Pro V1x Left Dash, it’s not because you have a problem with torque generation. This is not a large subset of players. Titleist even says that only about 6-8% of their ball gear ends up in a left lane recommendation (still 3-4X the number of Left Dot players).

The golf ball offers the right player plenty of control around the greens, and Titleist knows this because it was used to win the 2019 Amateur and U.S. 2024 US Openboth in Pinehurst.

As you try to add more spin and feel to the green can be awesome, the player who wants this would likely be better served playing the standard Pro V1x.

I think at the end of the day, everyone at Titleist will be very happy that they ended up focusing on making the Left Dash faster, especially in an era where distance is King and there are more high-speed, high-spin players looking to gain control by throwing some spin.

Price and Availability

The new 2026 Titleist Pro V1x Left Dash will be available in golf shops starting January 21.

Each box of a dozen golf balls will cost $57.99.

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