The Teenage Years: ProV1 Turns 15

As he turns 15, hopefully the ProV1 isn't slamming bedroom doors, experiencing a bad acne break out Snapchatting pictures of his inner core.

But for some, it's an emotional time as the Titleist ball is a full-fledged teenager when the tour visits Las Vegas. For others, the ProV ushered in a new distance era which, while reducing the number of golf balls that smiled at you after a bad shot, also ushered in sweeping changes to courses.

Jonathan Wall at PGATour.com looks at the birthday of golf's most successful ball and shares this from Billy Andrade.

It didn't take Andrade long to notice a significant uptick in distance off the tee with the Pro V1, close to 20 yards when compared to Titleist’s Tour Prestige ball, which he had been playing for most of the 2000 season.

At first, he wondered it the Las Vegas altitude – approximately 2,000 feet above sea level – might have something to do with his added length. But he quickly realized it wasn’t the thin air, but the new ball.

"I didn't consider myself in the same distance category as Davis Love III or Ernie Els,” Andrade said. “So for me to get some extra distance and not lose anything around the green made it a great fit.

"It was like nothing I had ever played before. Going from the Tour Balata to Tour Prestige allowed me to gain distance, but it was still a softer ball so you didn't gain a lot of distance. But going from Prestige to Pro V1, it was like, oh my gosh, this is unbelievable."