Titleist balls have been much improved in the 80 years since Phil Young missed the putt that started it all, but it still takes a good stroke to knock a 6-footer in the hole. I stood on No. 18 green at New Bedford Country Club, putter and golf ball in-hand, waiting my turn to try the putt that started it all. On No. 18, however, he had a putt to win the match. With that said, I did miss my 6-foot putt on No. 18 at New Bedford CC with a new Pro V1x. Pro V1x cores before the outer casing has been applied. Titleist Pro V1 cores before they’re cut and individually separated. Raw mixture for Pro V1x inner cores get flattened and labeled before getting sliced. A skilled player can usually overcome the lesser selection of club lofts by reducing their swing speed on a lower-loft iron and/or placing the ball further forward in their stance to get the same carry distance and/or launch angle as the next higher loft number. The interchangement of colors - Tornado Red, Ginster Yellow, Chagall Blue, and Pistachio Green - was not random, but followed four defined assignments, with each pattern avoiding adjacent major panels sharing the same paint color.

It gets messy, plus Titleist didn’t want our hair to get in the paint! It took nearly three years - in the midst of the Great Depression, mind you - to get a ball that was ready for the golf course. Sticking to its roots, Titleist puts every ball through an X-ray before it gets ready for packaging. And, sticking to it’s roots, every Titleist ball passes through an X-ray machine before it’s retail-ready. His foursome included Dr. Bonner, head of the x-ray department at St. Luke’s Hospital in New Bedford. Acushnet Company founder Phil Young, who was an amateur golfer and owner of a precision molded rubber company at the time, was playing golf one Sunday in the early 1930’s at New Bedford CC. This discovery set a fire under Young, who set his mind to developing a truly balanced golf ball. If you’re wondering anything else - like how Titleist designs and builds its golf balls, how a ball’s core is constructed or what role ball compression really plays - come with me on this journey as I relay my knowledge and experiences from my visit to Titleist’s golf ball facilities.

What’s it like there? That means there are a lot of things to consider when purchasing your next box of golf balls and that can sometimes be quite overwhelming for players who are relatively new to the game. Honing his game ever since first golfing as a teenager, he knows the joys of breaking 80, the struggles of trying to break 100, and everything in between. Volvik’s VIVID, Wilson’s Smart Core, TaylorMade’s Project (a) - all 3 are great options for players that want to add more distance to their long game, but also feel in control of their short game around the green. Sure enough, every ball had an unbalanced core, some worse than others. Each Pro V1 goes through more than 90 quality checks, and each Pro V1x, because of its dual core, undergoes over 120 quality checks. Today, more than 80 years later, quality standards are still paramount with Titleist golf balls. You can see below just how fast one of the factory workers moves her hands, changing golf balls in and out to get fresh stampings. Before I get to that, I’ll start from the beginning. 2. There’s nothing to help block out the ambient lighting in the room so you get a brighter picture.

You can also choose the plastic golf ball packaging which is waterproof and lets you get durable packaging. Many small-batch golf ball stampings are still performed by hand at Titleist. You want to know what a Titleist golf ball plant smells like? Rubber. Want to know what a Titleist golf ball customization plant smells like? Biochemists and chemical engineers develop formulas for ingredients with painful precision, and have access to a three-story, factory-style kitchen to cook up golf balls that sell like hot cakes - something to the tune of 240,000 Pro V1 and Pro V1x’s each day. You can then "color in" the stencil of your design/logo when you place the Tin Cup on your golf ball and mark it with a sharpie. Balls were oriented on the tee with heavy painted side left and then heavy painted side right. We’ll then provide you with virtual proof of your golf balls within 24 hours! At the custom plant, employees sit at golf ball stamping machines and exhibit ninja-like hand-eye coordination.