Jack Hirsh
TOSHIFUMI KITAMURA/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
It’s a sense all too many people have encountered on the golf course; Nico Echavarria was working out of golf balls.
Fortunately for Echavarria, who earned his debut PGA Tour win on the Puerto Rico Open final 12 months, he wasn’t enjoying a PGA Tour occasion on the time. As a substitute, he was enjoying a apply spherical final month with buddy and fellow PGA Tour professional Tyson Alexander when he acquired himself into the relatable state of affairs.
What’s unrelatable is that his answer to working out of golf balls performed a component in him successful on the PGA Tour lower than a month later.
Alexander began listening to phrase the week prior on the Procore Championship about Titleist’s new 2025 ProV1 and ProV1x golf balls, a sentimental launch of the Tour’s hottest golf ball because it marks 25 years since its introduction. Alexander requested Titleist for a couple of sleeves of the brand new ProV1x to check at house.
When Echavarria wanted some pellets, Alexander provided him the prototypes.
“I didn’t seize balls from my home, and he had some additional and so they had been the brand new ones, and I simply tried it out,” Echavarria informed Titleist final week on the Shriners Youngsters’s Open.
It didn’t take him lengthy earlier than he began liking what he was seeing with the brand new ball.
Titleist is retaining technical particulars of the brand new golf balls underneath wraps for now, however the Tour adoption has been swift. A handful of execs put the 2025 ProV1 and ProV1x in play on the Procore whereas Echavarria put the ’25 ProV1x in play in his subsequent begin after his spherical with Alexander on the Sanderson Farms Championship. He missed the reduce that week however stored the ball in play in Utah on the Black Desert Championship the place he completed T11.
“[The ‘25 Pro V1x was] perhaps simply the hair quicker and one thing a contact spinner across the greens is what I felt,” Echavarria stated. “It labored very properly final week [at the Black Desert Championship] with altitude. I’ve struggled hitting my numbers in altitude and this was excellent how the numbers had been.”
At Titleist’s official PGA Tour launch of the brand new golf balls on the Shriners, 23 gamers instantly switched to one of many fashions. 5 extra gamers added the brand new balls to their luggage this week in Japan on the Zozo, however the ball acquired its first win with Echavarria, who held off Justin Thomas with a final-round 67 to win by one shot.
A win which may not have occurred, had Echavarria not run out of golf balls final month when he was working towards with Alexander. To his credit score, Alexander additionally put the brand new ProV1x in play, doing so on the Shriners.
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Jack Hirsh
Golf.com Editor
Jack Hirsh is the affiliate tools editor at GOLF. A Pennsylvania native, Jack is a 2020 graduate of Penn State College, incomes levels in broadcast journalism and political science. He was captain of his highschool golf workforce and lately returned to this system to function head coach. Jack additionally nonetheless *tries* to stay aggressive in native amateurs. Earlier than becoming a member of GOLF, Jack spent two years working at a TV station in Bend, Oregon, primarily as a Multimedia Journalist/reporter, but additionally producing, anchoring and even presenting the climate. He might be reached at jack.hirsh@golf.com.