Where are golf balls made?
That’s a question that comes up a lot, and while I’m sure the guys leaving comments are doing so in good faith, the evidence suggests there’s plenty of confusion.
Hopefully we can clear some of it up.
For now, we’re going to focus on urethane models. There are fewer factories that make them and, broadly speaking, while some to take measures to obfuscate their sources (and some say their contracts prohibit them from disclosing their factories), they are easier to track.
That said, we have included some notes on ionomer models at the end.
It should go without saying that it’s all but impossible to cover every ball on the market, but this should provide insight into where the most popular balls on market are made.
The Top 5
Of the Top 5 producers of urethane balls, three manufacture their golf balls from core to cover in the USA. TaylorMade does a portion of its manufacturing in the USA, while Srixon makes 100% of its products at its factories overseas.
Here are some additional details.
Titleist
The Titleist Pro V1 and Pro V1x (including custom performance options like Left Dot and Left Dash) are manufactured at Ball Plant 3 in Fairhaven, MA. Titleist’s other urethane ball, AVX, is currently produced just down the road at Ball Plant 2 in North Dartmouth, MA.
Titleist also produces urethane balls at its factory in Thailand. Typically, that factory supplies the other side of the world, but when Titleist struggles to meet the demands of the North American market (as it did at times during COVID), balls made in Thailand sometimes make it to shelves in the USA.
When we tested the 2021 Pro V1x, one dozen of the balls we purchased was made in Thailand. They were entirely undisguisable from balls made in Massachusetts.
Callaway
Like Titleist, Callaway manufactures its urethane models (Chrome Soft, Chrome Tour, and Chrome Tour X) in Massachusetts. The factory in Chicopee is the only place where Callaway’s flagship franchise balls are produced.
TaylorMade
Production of TaylorMade’s urethane offerings – TP5, TP5x, and Tour Response – is split between its factories in Korea, Taiwan, and the USA.
With TaylorMade taking ownership of two overseas factories within the last few years its supply chain and manufacturing process is a bit of a moving target.
Looking at boxes of recent TaylorMade urethane product, you’re likely to find one of two descriptions for the country of manufacture.
- MADE IN KOREA
- URETHANE COVER ASSEMBLED IN THE USA CORE AND 2ND THROUGH 4TH LAYERS MADE IN TAIWAN.
In the case where covers are assembled in the USA, the work is done at TaylorMade’s factory in Liberty, SC.
Bridgestone
Bridgestone’s TOUR B Series (TOUR B X, TOUR B XS, TOUR B RX, and TOUR B RXS) is manufactured at the Bridgestone factory in Covington, GA. Bridgestone also has a factory in Japan that also produces TOUR B.
Like Titleist, the overseas factory doesn’t typically provide inventory for the US market, but when capacity is pushed, some Japan-made product may find its way to shelves here in the USA.
Srixon
Production of Srixon’s Z-Star Series is split between its factories in Japan and Indonesia. Most of what we’ve tested has come from Indonesia except for the Z-Star Diamond where our samples have been manufactured in Japan. The data we’ve collected from Ball Lab suggests that the consistency of product is a bit better from the Japanese factory
Smaller OEMs
Perhaps the cleanest line between the Top 5 and everybody else is that while the bigger brands own their factories, smaller brands rely entirely on 3rd parties to provide manufacturing. That’s not to say there isn’t R&D behind these products. To varying degrees, these smaller brands have some in-house R&D but lack the facilities to mass-produce a ball from core to cover.
Mizuno
Mizuno’s RB Tour and RB Tour X are produced in Vietnam by Feng Tay. Notably, Feng Tay also produces balls under its house RZN brand. As you might extrapolate from the name, RZN is a continuation of Nike’s intellectual property, which Feng Tay acquired from Nike when the company exited the golf industry.
PXG
PXG is a relative newcomer to the golf ball market. Less than two years in, the company just released the second iteration of its Xtreme Tour along with a new Xtreme Tour X.
PXG balls are manufactured by SM Parker in Vietnam (previously in China). Notably, SM Parker has also produced every iteration of the Kirkland Signature 3-piece ball.
FYI, the original 4-piece ball was produced by Nassau, which is now TaylorMade Korea.
Wilson
Wilson’s Staff Model and Staff Model X urethane balls are, in my opinion, among the most underappreciated and overlooked in the game. Both are manufactured by Foremost in Taiwan, which Ball Lab data and robot testing suggests is the best of the non-OEM owned factories.
Foremost is also the only non-OEM-owned factory of note that produces balls with cast urethane covers. If you’re wondering, both Titleist and TaylorMade leverage cast urethane covers while most competitors use an injection molding process.
DTC Brands
First, let’s start with a disclaimer to acknowledge that the line separating direct-to-consumer brands from traditional golf ball brands is blurry at best. There isn’t a single brand on this list that doesn’t sell golf balls via their website, so in that respect, every golf ball brand is a DTC brand.
That said, while I suppose we could reclassify as traditional vs new, my hunch is that most golfers understand the distinction we’re trying to make.
Another point of separation, I suppose, is that for our DTC companies, it’s not uncommon for dimple patterns to be shared across models and across brands. For example, you’ll find the same Foremost 308 dimple pattern on the Maxfli Tour, Vice Pro, and OnCore ELIXR.
Foremost’s other go-to pattern – a 336 dimple design – is often found on 4-piece and higher compression golf balls and is common to the Maxfli Tour X, Vice Pro Plus, and SEED SD-01 and SD-02 among others.
To an extent, cover sharing is an understandable compromise given that creating a viable dimple design is one of the most complex challenges in golf and the reality is that the brands on this portion of our list lack the R&D horsepower to do it. And even if they could, producing the molds along with the added factory effort required to integrate them into the manufacturing process would be cost-prohibitive.
Finally, Foremost is notable for being the only 3rd party factory that Ball Lab results suggests meets or exceeds the quality of some of the Top 5 manufacturers.
With that out of the way …
Vice
While the data is spotty, Vice is believed to be the largest of the DTC brands. Its current lineup of urethane balls (Vice Pro, Vice Pro Plus, and Vice Pro Air) are all manufactured by Foremost. This has been the case with every Vice urethane ball except for the Vice Pro Zero which was produced by Feng Tay.
Maxfli
Like the Vice offerings, Maxfli’s highly regarded Tour, Tour X, and Tour S are all produced by Foremost.
Snell
The first couple of generations of Snell MTB offerings were excellent. With the exception of the short-lived MTB Red, they were all produced by Nassau in Korea. When TaylorMade purchased Nassau, Snell had little option but to take its business elsewhere.
We’re still tracking down that factory that produces the current Prime series. We have narrowed it down to a most likely candidate, but until we can confirm, we’ll simply say it’s not one of the larger factories on this list.
Volvik
On inspection, the 336-dimple pattern on the new Volvik Condor, Condor X, and XT Soft appears to match that of the Vice Pro Plus. Paired with the country of origin (Taiwan), this strongly suggests that Volvik’s newest models are also produced by Foremost.
OnCore
Deciphering where OnCore’s urethane models are made requires a little bit of effort. The Vero series (both X1 and X2) are produced by Foremost. Of the two ELIXR models currently listed on its website, the ELIXR 2020 is produced by Foremost.
The 350-dimple other ELIXR was produced by Launch Technologies. A fire destroyed that fire a year ago (they’re in the process of rebuilding), which likely explains the lack of inventory for that model.
And speaking of Launch Technologies
Launch Technologies (AKA: “LT”) is arguably the best of the rest on the list of 3rd party manufacturers. It’s certainly the largest.
While a good bit of what comes out of Launch Technologies are 2-piece ionomer offerings, LT-produced urethane offerings include the LA Golf Ball, Odin X1, and the Sugar Pure.
Dimple counts are extremely helpful in identifying the factory that produced the ball. With that in mind, if you’re looking at a 350-dimple ball with a urethane cover, there’s a better than good chance it was made by Launch Technologies.
The other guys …
That effectively covers the biggest factories. That’s not to say those are the only factories. The list is more extensive than you might think, but in the urethane space, Kerichem (Trust), NEXEN (SaintNine) and Scana (Inesis) are the most notable of the rest.
What about two-piece and other ionomer offerings?
As you’ve likely noticed, the volume of two-piece and three-piece ionomer offerings is significantly higher than urethane.
Tracking down every one of them borders on the impossible, and while it may be worth a deeper dive later, for now, we’re going to share a few thoughts written with a very large brush.
- Titleist/Acushnet is the only manufacturer to produce 100% of its golf balls, including 2-piece offerings and Pinnacle range balls at its own factories – primarily Ball Plant 2. Everyone else outsources some, if not all, of their cheaper stuff.
- Bridgestone makes some of its 2-piece product in-house, but also outsources a fair amount to multiple overseas factories.
- Callaway has historically produced its lower-priced offerings at a number of factories including Launch Tech, GTS, and Qingdao Oudun. Most notably, its best-selling Supersoft was produced at LT (as were TopGolf balls). Since not making Supersoft wasn’t an option, production has since shifted to other factories.
- Launch Technologies also produced lower priced models for Mizuno, and MG. They also produce a fair amount of range balls for brands you know.
- In addition to Callaway, GTS has produced balls for TaylorMade, Cut, and DICK’S Sporting Goods.
Painting again with broad strokes, as the cost of a golf ball decreases, so does the quality. So, while ionomer balls are often significantly cheaper than urethane, in most cases you get what you pay for.
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