Welcome to Our Picks, where we fill you in on the newest and hottest golf equipment and accessories. Today, we’re featuring the new golf ball Tiger Woods recently swapped to at the Genesis Invitational. Last time, we featured a training aid to help you increase your swing speed to ultimately hit the golf ball farther, which you can read by tapping here.
While Tiger Woods showcases his newest Sun Day Red apparel brand this week at the Genesis Invitational at Riviera in the sunny City of Angels, this isn’t the only new gear he’s giving us a live look at; he’s also breaking in the newest iteration of the Bridgestone Tour B X. After extensive non-competition testing, this is the first time Woods is playing the ball in a competitive round. Notably, he’s been utilizing the B X version since swapping from the B XS version in 2022.
What’s changed and why?
Prior to 2022, Tiger used the Bridgestone Tour B XS balls, which were softer and offered more spin to help him work the ball in both directions and get better control around the green. However, Woods discovered while testing the Tour B X balls that he was getting “nearly 10 yards of extra carry with this ball,” which ultimately resulted in him being able to “club down” by at least one club on approach shots.
Bridgestone’s innovation to the B X ball includes a softer cover and an additional mid-layer. Although both Tour B and Tour B XS balls are designed for swing speeds over 105 mph, Tour B X is firmer and aimed at reducing spin and increasing control.
Elliot Mellow, Bridgestone’s golf ball marketing manager, explains the B X’s innovation: “Off the driver, the firmer mid-layer is going to produce higher initial ball speed. That increases distance. On the flip side, the layer accelerates the control of the ball. With a firmer backboard to pinch that cover against, it also allows for more control and stopping power on short-game shots. It’s enhancing all of the work we’ve done on the cover.”
Considering these changes, Woods found the Tour B X to be the perfect fit for his game.
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A brief history of Tiger using Bridgestone
Tiger Woods has faithfully trusted Bridgestone golf balls in his game for nearly a quarter of a century. His 2000 season is one of the greatest seasons in all of golf’s history, which is also the first year he adopted Nike’s Bridgestone-manufactured ball into his game.
And some of you may be thinking, “But didn’t Tiger sign with Bridgestone in 2016?” You’d be correct, but many golf fans didn’t — and many still don’t — realize that the Nike balls he was using before were *actually manufactured by Bridgestone. Woods’ “Nike Tour Accuracy” balls were Bridgestone balls just branded with a Nike logo, and Woods revealed it in a post in January of 2017.
This (old) news stunned many golf nerds alike, myself included. Outsourcing production is not all too rare in equipment manufacturing, and Nike most definitely was not the first. So, when Woods announced his excitement to join the Bridgestone brand and spilled the Nike/Bridgestone production beans, it was only a confirmation of the suspicion many golf industry professionals had already shared.
To this day, Bridgestone considers Woods’ opinions in their ball innovation, and they work closely with him to test and produce their latest ball technology.
Check out the video above for part one of a three-part Bridgestone series from three years ago where Woods walks us through his work with the brand through the years and how it has elevated his game.
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