Why did Titleist celebrate Lee Westwood’s Nedbank win?

Lee Westwood’s victory in the Nedbank Golf Challenge was significant for more than just the fact it ended the former world No.1’s four-and-a-half-year winless drought. It also helped Titleist hit a major milestone.

The Englishman’s three-shot win over Sergio Garcia was the 3,000th triumph for the Titleist Pro V1 golf ball franchise since its launch at the Invensys Classic 18 years ago.

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Westwood used a Titleist Pro V1x at the Gary Player Country Club in South Africa where he racked up his 24th career win on the European Tour and his 43rd worldwide – all of which have come with the No.1 ball in golf.

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This latest milestone comes in a year that has also seen Titleist dominate all the men’s majors. The year culminated at the PGA Championship, with Brooks Koepka using  a Pro V1x golf ball, extending a run of seven consecutive major championships won with a Titleist golf ball – a run that stretches back to the US Open in 2017.

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Westwood’s Nedbank Golf Challenge win means that the Titleist golf ball victory count in 2018 has now reached 203, more than six times that of its nearest competitor with 33. Furthermore, the Titleist worldwide ball count has now reached a staggering 25,473 – over seven times its nearest competitor with 3,474.

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The celebrations continued shortly after Westwood’s victory in South Africa, where there was a 1-2 finish for players relying upon the new Titleist prototype balls at the Mitsui VISA Taiheiyo Masters.

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Tatsunori Nukaga became the first player across worldwide professional tours to win with the new Pro V1 prototype golf ball that was introduced on the Japan Golf Tour last week, having also recently been seeded on the PGA Tour at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open.

The prototype balls launch on the European Tour this week at the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai.