Q&A: How the TaylorMade TP5 and TP5x Stripe golf ball was created

The TaylorMade TP5 and TP5x Stripe golf balls feature a brand new alignment aid. But, what’s the thinking behind it, and how can these golf balls help your game? We spoke with one of the main men behind the creation to get the lowdown.

We spent some time with Michael Fox who is the Senior Director of Product Creation, Golf Balls at TaylorMade to pick his brains on the brand new TaylorMade TP5 and TP5x.

Q&A: Michael Fox, on TaylorMade TP5 and TP5x golf balls

Q. How were the TP5 and TP5x Stripe golf balls created? 

A. We had no intention of designing Stripe. It’s one of my favourite things I’ve worked on because it is the ultimate example of how innovation can come from anywhere. If you’re not listening to your team and have a really collaborative group, you’ll miss some of the biggest and successful products we’ll have. 

We built a machine to create MySymbol, which was a logo machine, and one day, one of the graphic design engineers that was working on MySymbol equipment said: ‘You know, we can print a continuous image around this product?’

So, he sent me some samples and he sent me the 18th hole at Pebble Beach wrapped around a golf ball. So, I thought if we put Pebble Beach on it, maybe we could sell 100 dozen to Pebble Beach. But, this is an alignment toll that works. 

How many designs did you go through? 

The original Tour Response Stripe had dozens, if not well over 100 variations. We went through 100’s and 100’s of designs on paper to pick our favourites which is typically ten to 20 to sample, then you narrow it down to five or ten then expand it back out to 20 or 25 then narrow it down again to our top 5 and reiterate.  

When you go through the reiteration, what does that look like? 

You play with everything. You look at the width of the band, are these dots or lines, are they one row or two rows, the thickness of the centre line, where the logo is going to go, is it a continuous line, does it integrate together? It’s constant sampling. Particularly with TP5 and TP5x, because it is for the most discerning players in the world. 

When you released Tour Response Stripe how quickly did TP5 players want that alignment aid? 

Immediately. Every person we spoke to over the last three years, they where asking for it. The insight was there. It wasn’t as if nobody thought of doing it, but the one thing for us was do we put colour in it or not. 

What was the reasoning behind leaving colour out of the stripe? 

We had enough people giving feedback about the alignment system who weren’t necessarily talking about the colour. Colour is really important for your average day-to-day golfer, because they really care about visibility and also identifiability. TP5 and TP5x golfers are a more serious player. So, what you have is the alignment feature without the colour. Taking the colour out opens this up to a whole new range of player.

Will you look to add colour to it in the future? 

We have some other ideas, but I’m not going to tell you!

How did you choose which alignment lines to use? 

We dial in the design with our design team and test panel. We took a ball with no lines on it, a ball with a single line on it and we tried three or four variations of Stripe. We set it up where there was 12 balls in a 12 foot circle around the hole. We asked the golfer to go around and line up the ball with no line, single line and Stripe variations to the hole.

We did that with over 20 people. Then our engineers come out and bring a laser to measure the proximity of the hole to each golf ball to see which ball is best. On average, you’re going to be more aligned to the hole with a Stripe than any other. 

How excited will you be when the pro’s put this Stripe in play? 

Very excited. One of the things that’s really special that we take a lot of pride in is changing the landscape of the game, it looks different now because of what our team is doing. You’re going to watch TV and see something like this and something you didn’t see 20 years ago. You’ll see multiple top players in the world with 360 lines on their golf ball. The pride you get from that is as good as it gets. 

If you want more new gear from this year, make sure you check out the bunkered YouTube channel!

James Tait is bunkered’s Gear Editor. Want to know how the latest Callaway driver, Vokey wedge or Scotty Cameron putter performs? He’s the guy to ask. Better yet, just watch his videos on the bunkered YouTube channel. One of the biggest hitters in the UK, James also competes on the World Long Drive circuit and is a descendent of former Amateur champion Freddie Tait.

Gear Editor