While a lot is said about the performance of the best best premium golf balls, they do retail at the highest price point as a result and so using these balls on a tight golf course with plenty of penalty areas can become expensive. At the other end of the scale, you have the new Titleist 2024 TruFeel golf ball which comes in at just $25/£26 per dozen, but how much performance is actually on offer? I took them out for some testing both on the course and indoors on a Trackman 4 launch monitor to see if they could be justified as one of the best value golf balls on the market.
I’m a true believer that the golf ball is the most important piece of equipment in your bag. Picking the right golf ball for your game is extremely important as they all offer different feels, spin and flight characteristics. My testing with the Titleist 2024 TruFeel ball began around the greens. Titleist has incorporated a softer 3.0 Truflex cover on this golf ball to provide more greenside spin and control than we have ever seen before in the TruFeel franchise. The 2024 Trufeel provided somewhat of a ‘springy’ feel on and around the greens. The red lines stamped on the ball for additional alignment were also a nice touch and certainly helped me with my close-range putting.
Now that’s not to say it didn’t feel soft, it definitely did, but you are aware that it is not the same soft cast urethane cover you find on the likes of the Pro V1 ball. I was particularly surprised with the spin I was able to generate around the greens and therefore my confidence grew enough to trust that I could hit different shots around the greens at different trajectories, knowing how the ball would react when it hit the green.
While I continued to see success through my irons, it was when I got towards the top end of my bag where I started to notice a slight drop off in overall performance compared to my normal ball of choice - The Pro V1. Of course, these are two completely different balls, aimed at different golfers, but when the Pro V1 is considered the bench mark in the golf ball market, I figured if the TruFeel could get anywhere close to its performance, for less than half the price per dozen, it will speak volumes as to how good this new 2024 TruFeel actually is and certainly cement its place as one of the best cheap golf balls.
A new TruTouch core introduced in the 2024 TruFeel golf ball to promote longer distance and although it produced adequate distances with driver, it was nothing to write home about and literally fell short of the Pro V1. When testing indoors I did see ball speeds creep up to 165mph which for a 2-piece ball is still fairly impressive. Where I noticed the difference with the TruFeel compared to the likes of a Pro V1, was the ability to control trajectory from the tee and with my longer clubs. The spin climbed up quite a bit and made it hard to flight the ball down or make a normal swing without the ball producing some serious hang-time. It must be noted that I swing driver on average around 116mph, so if golfers with slower swing speeds give it a try they are likely to see different results off the tee - the TruFeel could even become one of the best golf balls for slow swing speeds.
Overall I think there is some really solid performance on offer from the Titleist 2024 TruFeel golf ball and while it may not compete directly with some of the best golf balls, it certainly has its place in the market. This should seriously be considered as one of the best golf balls for beginners and one of the best golf balls for higher handicappers, considering it is one of the less expensive balls on the market and yet the performance was reliable.
