TaylorMade TP5 Review

The five-layer thing sounds like a spec-sheet arms race and it is not. The point of the extra mantles is spin separation, the gap between what the ball does on a 110-mile-an-hour driver strike and what it does on a sixty-yard wedge. Stack progressively stiffer layers around a soft core and the ball only engages the firm ones at high compression, so it stays low-spinning off the tee and then behaves like a soft ball the moment you swing easier.

TP5 is the higher-launching, higher-spinning half of the pair and it is the one most players should be hitting. Off a driver you give up a fraction to the X, and in return you get a flight that actually holds a green from a long iron. The Tour Flight dimple pattern produces a steeper descent than anything Titleist makes, which is worth real strokes into firm greens in summer. The cast urethane cover is soft, scuffs faster than a Pro V1, and grips like it. Fifty dollars for a ball that out-spins the benchmark is why this grades where it does.