The Titleist NXT Tour ball has been around for a while now and the 2016 incarnation offers the usual blend of Titleist performance in a ball with an RRP that is a third less than a Pro V1.
For some that might be all the information you need, but as always with golf balls it is not quite that simple as we have found out during our recent golf ball interviews with experts such as Matt Hogge at Titleist.
Taking price out of the equation, what is the 2016 NXT Tour ball delivering this time around?
This 3-piece ball has a larger dual centre core and within that, the proportion that is the softer centre is 66% larger than the 2014 NXT Tour.
By increasing the relative size of the softer core in relation to the firmer outer core Titleist is able to make the 2016 NXT Tour spin less and fly a little lower.
Compare this to the softer NXT Tour S ball and you can see how the core construction changes how the ball feels and performs.
Softness comes in many forms and one of these can be how the cover feels to you and here the ionomer based Fusablend cover provides that soft feel and features the same 302 dimple pattern as before.
The durability of the NXT Tour cover was very good and, short of an attack with new wedge grooves in a bunker that would have scuffed granite, it stood up well to all I could throw at it in a normal round.
Spin and soft feel are very player dependent and in terms of feel, the NXT Tour felt very good around the green and was the closest thing to a Titleist Pro V1 for putting.
On chips the feel was maybe not as sharp as Pro V1 and a touch firmer so, for mid to single figure handicappers this will still give you the playability that you require.
Whether this will be the type of ball for you will probably also depend on your swing speed. As you can see here from my stats on SkyTrak, I am around 96 mph with a driver (on a bad day) and the firmer Pro V1 was better for distance than either the NXT Tour or NXT Tour S golf balls.
However this is at my swing speed, which is probably a little too high for the slightly softer NXT Tour, so if you are in the 90mph range or below then the distances will probably be very similar.
With a set pitching wedge the NXT Tour flew a little higher and a little longer because, like the ProV1x, it uses height to create a steeper landing angle in order to stop quickly on the green.
This is where that firmer feel and softer compression core can have an advantage over a more premium ball, but then of course you still have to chip and putt with it and that is where your trade-off with the better feeling Pro V1 starts to come in.
If we introduce cost back into that trade-off then for some the NXT Tour will be a perfect Pro V1 alternative. Even though the driver distance might be down a little for faster swingers, the gains in your pocket and with the shorter irons will make the Titleist NXT Tour a great choice.