How Many Dimples Are on a Golf Ball?

Quick answer

Dimple count by ball model

Counts were checked on October 3, 2026 against Titleist’s Pro V1 product page and media releases, Srixon’s Z-Star page, Costco’s Kirkland listing, TaylorMade’s Tour Flight dimple deep dive, and Bridgestone’s Dual Dimple press materials. The Callaway product page we checked lists no count, so the 332 figures come from published retailer and reviewer spec sheets, and Bridgestone’s current Tour B XS page names Dual Dimple without repeating the 330.

Why there’s no standard number

Dimple count falls out of the design as a byproduct. The designer picks a tiling strategy — tetrahedral, octahedral, quad dipyramid — plus a dimple diameter (or a mix of diameters) and a depth profile. Once those are locked, the number of dimples that fit on a 1.680-inch sphere is arithmetic.

Larger dimples mean fewer of them, and smaller dimples mean more. Dean Snell designed balls at Titleist and TaylorMade before starting his own company, and Snell Golf’s dimple explainer gives the target as “consistent attachment of airflow, controlled separation, and a compact wake.”

That’s why one brand’s own lineup spans such a range. Titleist alone ships balls at 388, 376, 350, 348, and 346 dimples, and each pattern exists to produce a specific flight window: the Pro V1x (~102) higher than the Pro V1 (~92), the AVX (~81) lower than both.

What the Rules of Golf actually regulate

The USGA and R&A say nothing about dimples. Their Equipment Rules constrain four things:

1. Size — the ball must be at least 1.680 inches (42.67 mm) in diameter.
2. Weight — no more than 1.620 ounces (45.93 g).
3. Initial velocity — capped at 250 feet per second off a mechanical striker, measured over the first 2π feet after impact, with a 2% test tolerance.
4. Overall Distance Standard — total carry plus roll under standardized test conditions.

The one rule that touches dimples does so sideways. The symmetry rule states that a ball “must not be designed, manufactured or intentionally modified to have flight properties which differ from those of a spherically symmetrical ball.” That rules out self-correcting dimple layouts and balls weighted to fight a slice. It also explains the polyhedra in Titleist’s pattern names (tetrahedral, octahedral, dipyramid): tiling a regular solid spreads dimples evenly enough that the ball flies the same however it sits on the tee.

So a 260-dimple ball and a 450-dimple ball are equally legal. Conformance rides on size, weight, symmetry, and how the finished ball performs on the velocity and distance tests. The Equipment Rules also say a ball “must not be substantially different from the traditional and customary form and make,” which polices exotic designs at a level well above dimple geometry.

How dimples actually work

A ball moving through air drags a thin film of air along with it, called the boundary layer. On a smooth sphere that layer stays laminar and peels off early, leaving a wide, churning, low-pressure wake behind the ball. That wake pulls back on the ball like a suction cup, which is why a smooth ball falls out of the sky.

Dimples trip the boundary layer into turbulence on purpose. A turbulent layer has more energy, so it hugs the surface farther around the back of the ball before separating. The wake shrinks, and drag falls with it. Scientific American puts a dimpled ball at about half the drag of a smooth one, and Snell Golf’s explainer cites NASA for a cut of nearly 50%.

Turbulence does raise skin-friction drag slightly. On a blunt shape like a sphere, though, pressure drag is much larger than friction drag, so cutting the big number while nudging the small one up is a large net win.

Backspin does the rest. A backspinning ball drags air faster over its top than its bottom, which drops pressure above and raises it below, producing lift — the Magnus effect. Dimples keep the airflow attached where that pressure difference needs to form, so lift stays predictable instead of flickering with every wobble in the strike.

Snell Golf’s explainer puts a smooth ball at about 130 yards against 280 yards for a professional’s drive with a modern dimpled ball. Scientific American lands in the same place: a smooth ball hit by a professional would travel only about half as far.

Depth beats count, and it isn’t close

Dimples average about 0.010 inches deep (0.25 mm), per Scientific American, though most brands don’t publish per-model depth. The same article says a depth change of 0.001 inch “can produce a radical change to the ball’s trajectory and the overall distance it can fly.” Snell Golf describes iterating on depth and edge contour until the flight window matches the ball’s spin. Adjustments you can’t see with the naked eye change where a ball peaks and how it behaves in wind.

TaylorMade’s Tour Flight development notes show how that works. For the 2021 TP5 (~93) and TP5x (~98), their engineers separated dimple volume from dimple depth and built a shallower dimple with steeper walls at the same volume. The count is 322. TaylorMade’s stated result was less drag on the way up and more lift on the way down. The company reworked the pattern again for the 2026 TP5, this time for a lower, more penetrating flight.

Same story at Srixon. The Z-Star (~81) uses 338 Speed Dimples whose deeper dimensions are the marketed feature, which Srixon says “punch through air for a penetrating launch.” Bridgestone sells the Dual Dimple design on the Tour B XS (~89) on shape too. Its pitch is “less drag when the ball is in flight,” and the 330 count doesn’t come up.

Three variables move ball flight. In rough order of influence, they are depth and edge profile, pattern shape and coverage, then count. Manufacturers publish the count because it’s a single memorable number, and they tune the other two.

A short history of the dimple

Golf balls were smooth once, and they flew badly. Mid-1800s gutta-percha balls were molded as plain spheres, and players noticed that beaten-up ones with nicks and scuffs carried farther than fresh ones out of the box. Ball makers started hand-hammering patterns into new balls to mimic the effect.

The best-known molded pattern before the dimple was raised. “Bramble” balls were covered in small bumps, like the surface of a blackberry. Coburn Haskell’s wound rubber-core ball arrived around 1898, and makers kept experimenting with what went on the cover.

The inversion came from William Taylor, an English engineer. His dimple patent is usually dated to 1905; the U.S. version was filed in 1906 and granted in 1908, and it describes the design as “an inverted bramble pattern.” The dimple won out over the bramble, and modern balls still use a version of Taylor’s idea. Makers have refined depth, edge angle, and count ever since, first in wind tunnels and now with computer modeling.

Does dimple count matter when you’re buying a ball?

For almost every golfer, no.

Construction, compression, cover material, and spin profile explain nearly all the performance spread you’ll ever feel. A two-piece ionomer ball and a five-layer urethane tour ball can carry identical dimple counts and behave nothing alike — the Callaway Supersoft (~49) and Chrome Tour (~94) both use 332 dimples and sit at opposite ends of the fitting map.

Run it the other way and the point holds. The TP5 (~93) at 322 dimples and the Pro V1 (~92) at 388 are both premium urethane tour balls in the same compression tier, and the differences you’d feel between them trace to core and cover design as much as to aero.

There’s one exception. If you play in steady wind, read how the maker describes the pattern. Titleist markets the AVX’s quad dipyramid pattern and Velocity’s octahedral pattern as piercing. Srixon sells Speed Dimples as a pattern that cuts through wind. You can pick a flight window from that description.

Pick your compression tier from your swing speed, your cover from how much greenside spin you use, and your price from how many balls you lose. Dimple count is trivia you can win a bet with.

The next step

Dimples are settled engineering, and every ball in the BallCaddie catalog has a pattern its maker spent years refining. The variables still worth your attention are compression, cover, spin, and budget. The fitting quiz scores all 72 balls against those four in about 90 seconds, and it’ll tell you when a $19.99 dozen is the right answer.

The parts of ball design that change your scores:

• Golf ball compression chart — every ball’s measured compression on one calibrated gauge, with the swing-speed tier breakdown.
• How to choose the right golf ball for your swing speed — the framework that maps swing speed to compression tier, with example balls per band.
• Urethane vs. ionomer golf balls — the cover-material decision, which changes greenside spin far more than any aero feature.
• Golf ball fitting: how it works — the green-to-tee method and the four inputs that decide your ball.
• Best low-spin golf ball — where trajectory and driver spin get sorted, if flight window is what brought you here.

Key takeaways

• 300–500 dimples is the normal range. Pro V1: 388. Pro V1x: 348. Chrome Soft and Chrome Tour: 332. TP5 and TP5x: 322. Tour B XS: 330.
• The Rules of Golf limit size, weight, initial velocity, distance, and spherical symmetry. Dimple count is unregulated.
• Depth (~0.010 in) and edge profile outrank count. TaylorMade rebuilt the TP5’s aerodynamics in 2021 and kept all 322 dimples.
• Dimples are worth roughly half your driver distance — about 130 yards smooth versus 280 dimpled, per Snell Golf, and “about half as far” per Scientific American.
• Leave count out of your fitting. Two balls at 332 dimples can be a 49-compression ionomer and a 94-compression urethane tour ball.

Sources

• Scientific American, How do dimples in golf balls affect their flight?
• Google Patents, US878254A, William Taylor’s golf ball patent
• USGA, Equipment Rules