Tested: Tommy Fleetwood’s golf ball – Everything you need to know about the TaylorMade TP5 and TP5x Stripe

The TaylorMade TP5 and TP5x Stripe golf balls on a green.

Everything you need to know about the new TaylorMade TP5 and TP5x Stripe golf ball.

Since introducing the five-layer TP5 and TP5x back in 2017 TaylorMade has made some of the best golf balls available. Rory McIlroy, Collin Morikawa, Tommy Fleetwood, Rickie Fowler, and Nelly Korda are among a plethora of tour players who now earn their living playing TaylorMade golf balls. Yet since the brand introduced the TaylorMade Tour Response Stripe in 2022 the company’s golf ball development team has been inundated with one request, people have been asking “When are you going to make a TaylorMade TP5 and TP5x Stripe?”

Well, it’s taken a ton of time to get here but with 2024 being such a big year for the TP5 and TP5x, and with the company going all guns blazing at the visual-tech market the timing couldn’t be any more perfect to introduce the new TP5 and TP5x Stripe.

Essentially the new balls combine all the speed, distance, and spin technology of the TP5 family with the alignment aid help of the Tour Response, I sat down with Micheal Fox – Senior Director of Product Creation for Golf Balls at TaylorMade to find out how this new model could change the look of tour golf balls forever.

Everything you need to know about the TaylorMade TP5 and TP5x Stripe

There’s been a lot of interest out on tour

It took no time at all for the new 2024 TaylorMade TP5 franchise to rack up its first win of the year in the hands of Rory McIlroy at the Hero Dubai Desert Classic in January. Nelly Korda too has had the season of her life (racking up six stunning wins) while playing the TP5x this year. Collin Morikawa and Tommy Fleetwood haven’t been quite so prolific but both still rank among the top 11 players on the planet and play the brands TP5 and TP5x.

But imagine the surprise with such an elite ambassador team when TaylorMade’s tour reps have been rocking up to events to find non-contract professionals using the brand’s Tour Response Stripe (a ball that’s aimed at club golfers) as a training aid to set up more accurately on the putting green.

Many golfers know Tommy Fleetwood and Rickie Fowler use the TP5x Pix, which has sixteen ClearPath Alignment diamonds positioned around the ball’s surface to give instant aim and roll feedback, but before even producing a tour-level Stripe ball there’s clearly pent-up demand out there from the games best players.       

TaylorMade are not just a visual tech company

TaylorMade are going all guns blazing at the visual tech golf ball market, they even say in 2024 they’re on target for the first time ever to sell more visual tech golf balls than plain white models. But even though the growth of the original Tour Response is exponential year on year, they insist the idea isn’t just about making golf balls look pretty.

For the very best players in the world to even entertain putting new products in play there has to be additional performance benefits, which the company believes the new Speed Wrapped core of the 2024 TP5 and TP5x delivers.      

Does the TP5/TP5x Stripe have the same graphic as the Tour Response Stripe?  

Yes and no. The size and shape of the 22mm band running around the equator of each TP5 and TP5x Stripe ball is the same as that found on the Tour Response. However, at the request of players, the tour-level TP5 and TP5x Stripe have the color removed from the center of the band, creating a ball that more golfers will use at tour level.

Expect then to see plenty of TaylorMade’s ‘The path to performance is clear’ tagline for the TP5 and TP5x Stripe over the next few years.      

Which tour players are playing the TaylorMade TP5 and TP5x Stripe?

Tommy Fleetwood has been a massive fan of TaylorMade TP5x Pix golf balls over recent years, regularly playing the brand’s limited edition models for each of the majors. The Englishman has already been involved in the development of the Stripe and tested it away from tournament play.

Rumour has it Fleetwood will likely put the model in play at some point soon, a move which will spark huge interest in the franchise, especially so if he were to win with it on the games biggest stage. It’s also highly likely Rickie Fowler will give the model his full attention, we know he’s not averse to alignment and roll tech on his golf ball as he already plays the brand’s TP5x Pix.   

Mike Fox – TaylorMade Senior Director of Product Creation for Golf Balls on the TP5 and TP5x Stripe.

This sounds like a really important project to get right, nail it and you could change the look of golf balls at tour level forever, how much work has gone into this new Stripe model?

I’m really proud of this project, it’s an example of how innovation can come from anywhere, Stripe was actually a byproduct. We had no plans to make a Stripe golf ball, but because we’d built a machine to help us logo golf balls, an engineer at the factory in Liberty, South Carolina said “You know we can print a continuous band around the ball right?”

He sent me some samples, and we quickly saw the potential and it became a massive R&D project, that we knew could change the game. It wasn’t just a case of making it look pretty, we had to do what TaylorMade does, so it had to look better and perform better.

We’ve had industrial and graphic designers working on the project and we ran a huge test internally to see how good golfers are at aligning single-line, no-line, and Stripe golf balls. We literally had an engineer with a laser measuring the accuracy of how each golfer aligned every single putt, which took hundreds of hours to complete.  The upshot is this Stripe design was more consistently aligned than a single-line or no-line golf ball.

If the Tour Response was just designed to be pretty I would not have had some of the best players in the world telling me “Hey, you need to put this on TP5 and TP5x.”

Instead, I have PGA Professionals showing up on putting greens at PGA Tour events with Tour Response golf balls and using the visual tech as alignment aids. I’ve also got really good golfers and former pros using Tour Response even though they know it’s not the longest ball for their game, just because they’re holing five more putts a round, and they are not giving that up. They tell me they prefer to be five yards shorter but make five more putts a round, that’s what is very cool about the Stripe technology.

Finding subtle needs in the marketplace and then exceeding golfer’s expectations is where we live in the golf industry. We’re always connected to the game and asking golfers what they want. Removing the Stripe color was a really good piece of feedback. Golfers were just asking for the alignment aid not for the Stripe color, removing it has made the design specifically for the TP5 and TP5x player.

Incredibly trends normally trickle down, but Tour Response golfers should feel pride that they have influenced the best players in the world. They have been so influential when you see the ball Tommy Fleetwood is playing, you can say he got that from me, no longer are you playing Tommy Fleetwood’s ball.

How do golfers decide whether the Tour Response Stripe or the TP5/TP5x Stripe will best suit their game?   

Almost all the time if you want to hit shots further you have to look at the TP5x (it’s the firmest golf ball), it’s going to be the longest golf ball whether you’re Tommy Fleetwood, Rory McIlroy, or an average club golfer. It’s our fastest ball, it’s our lowest spin driver ball, and it will go the furthest, so if you want to spend the money on distance this is the ball you should play.

The Tour Response is designed for golfers who prioritize a soft feel. That’s typically less of a benefit for better players, but it doesn’t mean it won’t help them as off-center hits don’t feel as harsh.

At TaylorMade, we try not to categorize specific players for each ball as it’s much more about which benefits you feel are most important to you. If distance is your goal TP5x is your ball. If distance with feel is what you’re after the TP5 is your ball, whereas if feel is your main priority followed by distance then the Tour Response should be your choice.

What sort of difference can average 92/93mph club golfers expect to see between the TP5x Stripe and Tour Response Stripe?      

It’s likely with the TP5x Stripe you’ll see upwards of 5 yards more carry distance off the driver, a couple of yards with the iron, and up to 2,000 RPM extra spin with a full wedge shot. The Tour Response is the best product in its class, nobody competes against it. We use a cast urethane cover just like a TP5, it has the same mantle and dimple pattern as a TP5, it really is a tour caliber product at a value-for-money price.

It’s designed for the average player which is why we use the lower compression. Competitor three-layer urethane cover balls are often $10 – $15 more expensive, which means this model is a special product, hence its success.

The TP5 and TP5x just have a couple more gears though, they’re going to spin more around the green and be longer off the driver.

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About the author

Simon Daddow – Today’s Golfer Equipment Editor

Having tested and played more than 10,000 clubs in his life, what Simon doesn’t know about golf clubs isn’t worth knowing.

He’s a specialist in all things metal having spent a large part of his career as a golf club maker and product development manager, and has worked in the golf industry for more than 30 years.

He joined EMAP Active (now Bauer Media) as Equipment Editor in 2006 and has made todays-golfer.com the most reliable source for golf club testing.

You can contact Simon via email and follow him on Twitter for loads more golf equipment insight.