The golf ball industry spends a lot of money telling women they need a soft, low-compression ball. Miyu Yamashita just won the Maybank Championship for the second year in a row with the firmer, faster ball in Srixon’s tour family. Funny how that works.
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For more info: Srixon via First Call Golf
What Happened
Yamashita shot 65-66-67-68 at Kuala Lumpur Golf & Country Club for a 22-under 266, winning by two over Yan Liu. She’s now the first player to win the Maybank Championship in back-to-back years.
It wasn’t a cruise. Liu eagled the 5th on Sunday and cut the lead to one at the turn. Yamashita bogeyed 9, then answered with a birdie at 11, played 12 through 17 in even par while Liu bogeyed 14, and birdied 18 to close it out. Afterward she called it “an especially hard round for me.”
It’s her fifth career LPGA Tour win and her third of 2026, after the Meijer LPGA Classic and the CPKC Women’s Open. Her own reaction: she “honestly didn’t expect to win three times this year.”
The Ball in the Bag
Srixon confirmed the full setup in its post-win release, and the ball is the Srixon Z-Star XV. The rest of the bag is all Srixon and Cleveland too: a ZXi driver, ZX Mk II fairways and hybrids, ZXi5 and ZXi7 irons, and Cleveland RTZ wedges at 48, 52, and 58 degrees.
Srixon’s tour lineup has three urethane balls. The Srixon Z-Star is the softer-feeling option, the Z-Star Diamond is built for players who want more control off the long clubs, and the XV is the firmer, faster model, aimed at players who want maximum ball speed without giving up greenside spin.
Why It Matters
This ball is having a quietly great year. Ryan Fox won the Open Championship with a Z-Star XV in July, and now it’s in the bag for an LPGA player with three wins in a season. Two very different golfers, same ball, same result.
The bigger point is about who a “women’s ball” actually is. Plenty of women’s golf balls are low-compression, soft-feeling, and great for the swing speeds they’re built for. But plenty of women swing fast enough to get more out of a tour ball, and Yamashita is proof that the firm, high-performance option isn’t just a men’s thing. Fit the ball to your swing, not to the color of the box.
Who Should Play It
The Srixon Z-Star XV makes sense for golfers with above-average swing speed who want distance off the tee and real spin around the greens. If your driver swing is on the slower side, or you just want a softer feel, the regular Z-Star or a lower-compression ball like the Srixon Q-Star Tour will probably serve you better, and save you some cash.
Either way, if a back-to-back champion trusts the Srixon Z-Star XV, it’s worth at least one sleeve to find out if it fits your game.
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