What are the three types of golf balls?

Sorted by how they are built: two-piece, three-piece, and four- or five-piece.

Two-piece. One big rubber core under one cover, almost always ionomer. These are the distance and soft-feel balls: the Titleist Velocity at about 90 compression, the Callaway Supersoft at 49. They spin less around the green than urethane balls, which costs a good wedge player; driver spin varies by model.

Three-piece. Core, mantle, cover. This is the tour-ball baseline, including the Pro V1. The firm mantle gives the soft urethane cover something to pinch against on wedges, so the ball spins low off the driver and high around the green.

Four- and five-piece. Extra mantles give engineers more places to tune launch and spin. The Pro V1x uses a dual core; TaylorMade’s TP5 stacks three mantles, which TaylorMade explains layer by layer.

The split that matters most is the cover. Urethane covers spin far more on wedges than ionomer covers.