Lucas Herbert didn’t switch to the Bridgestone Tour B X because a check told him to. He switched because TaylorMade quietly discontinued the TP5 he’d been gaming since 2019, and an equipment free agent doesn’t get to just call his rep and ask for more. He had to go find a new ball himself. So he tested 27 of them.
Herbert is one of the rarer things in professional golf: a player without a manufacturer deal, which means every piece of equipment in his bag is there because he actually chose it, not because someone paid him to put it there. When his long-time TaylorMade TP5 went out of production, he lost the one piece of gear he hadn’t had to think about in six years. So at the end of 2025, he ran his own private fitting — 27 different golf balls, no sponsor influence, just picking whatever actually performed.
He landed on the Bridgestone Tour B X — the same ball Chris Gotterup and Jason Day play. High launch, low spin, built for players north of 105 mph. It’s not a ball you’d necessarily expect a free agent to gravitate toward without pressure from anyone to play it, which is exactly what makes the choice worth paying attention to.
The results speak for themselves. Herbert claimed his maiden LIV Golf victory in Virginia this year, and he’s carried that form straight into the Open Championship at Royal Birkdale, where he’s been near the top of the leaderboard all week. When a player with zero equipment obligations tests 27 balls and ends up sticking with one through a breakthrough win and a major title chase, that’s a better endorsement than any contract could buy.
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