What is a 5-piece golf ball?

A 5-piece golf ball has a core, three mantle layers, and a cover.

TaylorMade is the only major brand that builds one. The TP5 and TP5x wrap a soft inner core in three progressively stiffer layers, the outermost of them the firmest in the ball, under a cast urethane cover. TaylorMade’s layer-by-layer explainer says each layer takes over at a different club speed: the outer layers work on wedges and the deep core on the driver.

The idea is control over spin at every club. In MyGolfSpy’s 2026 robot test, compression explained most of the variation in how ball speed changed as swing speed rose; layer count was not the driver.

A 5-piece ball is a tour ball with its own feel and flight. The layer count does not make it longer. Pick it for how it flies for you.