The Fascinating History of Titleist

A missed putt in 1930 by an MIT grad led to the creation of the world's most popular golf brand and a $2.5 billion company.

Oct 02, 2020

Philip “Skipper” Young was born in Dorchester, MA in 1885.

He went to MIT and graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering.

His first job was at the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company in Akron, OH.

At Goodyear, Young and Frank Peabody (a company chemist) developed a potential solution to the rubber supply issues Goodyear faced meeting the growing needs of the auto industry.

The project went nowhere. Young was frustrated.

Young took the idea to Allen Weeks (a wealthy fraternity brother from his MIT days) who agreed to finance the project if Young and Peabody moved back to Massachusetts (Weeks and Youngs were both avid sailors).

In 1910, they settled in Acushnet (near Buzzards Bay) and formed the “Acushnet Process Company”.

For the next decade, Acushnet produced a variety of rubber-based products with reasonable success.

But in 1930, an event at the Country Club of New Bedford changed the company's destiny.

Young missed a putt on the 18th green and lost the match to a local radiologist.

Young was convinced something was wrong with his ball so he asked his playing partner to X-ray it.

Sure enough, the core was off-center.

In 1932, Young launched a golf division at Acushnet and started selling private brand balls.

After some early success, Acushnet scrapped the private brand business and launched their own line of balls to be sold exclusively in golf course pro shops.

They called the new venture "Titleist". The iconic logo’s script was penned by office secretary Helen Robinson.

To drum up interest for the new brand, they built a “Golf Ball Demonstration Machine” and drove it across the country.

The machine could drive a ball 600 yards!

In a trailer they also installed a putting machine, X-ray machine, and a guillotine to test the ball's cover.

At the 1949 US Open at Medinah, Titleist was the most used ball in a tournament for the first time.

Amazingly, for the 70+ years since then, Titleist has been the most played ball across worldwide pro tours with more players using Titleist than all other brands combined.