Linear thinkers love finding out historical past’s mysteries.
When skilled in actual time, life’s occasions often seem random and unrelated. They’re seemingly unconnected, arbitrary and inconsequential within the second. It’s solely by way of the lens of time that we will join these dots and create a “once-upon-a-time” story arc we linear varieties love a lot.
It’s how we make sense of issues.
Working example: Nobody, and I imply nobody, may have identified it on the time however an offhand lunchroom remark in 1995 would, 5 years later, utterly change the sport of golf in simply 90 days.
But that’s simply what occurred practically 30 years in the past at Titleist’s Ball Plant 2 in North Dartmouth, Mass. A bunch of R&D engineers have been having fun with their lunch when one in all them held up a Pinnacle Gold golf ball and requested what turned out to be a billion-dollar query:
“What if we put a urethane cowl on this factor?”
By the beginning of the brand new millennium, that harmless little bit of curiosity changed into the Professional V1.
Historical past’s Mysteries: The beginning of the Titleist Professional V1
Golf within the early Nineties wasn’t precisely hickory shafts and gutta perchas nevertheless it was quite a bit completely different than it’s as we speak. On the PGA Tour, you had golfers who regarded extra like Craig Stadler than Adam Scott, no launch displays and guys with swings like Payne Stewart’s.
However that recreation was evolving. Whereas Tiger was ending up highschool, energy gamers like Fred {Couples}, Davis Love III and, after all, John Daly have been hitting the ball a freaking mile. Gear was evolving as effectively. Forged golf equipment such because the PING Eye 2 and Tommy Armour 845s have been simpler to hit whereas the Callaway Large Bertha and its all-titanium descendant, the Nice Large Bertha, have been altering the sport off the tee.
Nevertheless, regardless of all these modifications, golfers have been nonetheless taking part in with what amounted to 70-year-old know-how: the wound balata golf ball.
In 1994, Titleist launched what proved to be a significant innovation: the Titleist Skilled, a wound ball with a brand new invention: a solid urethane cowl.
“The Skilled was a reasonably large deal,” Titleist Golf Ball Advertising VP Jeremy Stone tells MyGolfSpy. “The solid urethane cowl added velocity and improved sturdiness over the balata ball.”
The Skilled rapidly changed the Titleist Tour Balata because the No. 1 ball in golf.
Golf balls, circa 1994
Let’s pause the narrative for a second to attach some historic dots. Earlier than the Skilled, you might select between a balata-covered ball or an ionomer-covered ball. Higher gamers and Tour execs most well-liked balatas as a result of they supplied higher spin, management and really feel. Leisure golfers principally selected ionomer as a result of they have been noticeably longer, despite the fact that it felt such as you have been hitting a rock.
Moreover, ionomer-covered balls have been far more sturdy. For those who hit a balata only a wee bit skinny, it might crack a smile and be unplayable.
Whereas balata balls featured a core (both rubber or a liquid middle) tightly wrapped with elastic, two-piece ionomer balls had a strong artificial rubber core. In 1994, the Titleist-made Pinnacle Gold and Spalding’s Prime-Flite have been high sellers, every holding roughly a 17 % market share.
For golfers, it was both spin, management and really feel or distance and sturdiness. They couldn’t have each.
That was about to alter.
Again to the lunchroom …
Titleist has simply changed the previous No. 1 ball in golf, the Tour Balata, with the brand new No. 1 ball in golf, the Skilled. You’d determine they’d be good for some time however you’d be unsuitable.
“Despite the fact that we had this game-changing ball within the Skilled, we have been nonetheless going to push and see what else we will give you,” says Titleist Golf Ball R&D VP Michael Madson. “That’s when someone picked up a Pinnacle Gold and requested what would occur if we put a skinny urethane cowl on it.
“Then it was, ‘Let’s go discover out.’”
Titleist already had loads of expertise with solid-core balls and it wasn’t seeking to change the Skilled. A Pinnacle Gold with a urethane cowl was intriguing, nonetheless, so Engineering started working. The consequence was the Professional 2-Piece. Titleist appreciated what it noticed and deliberate to check market the ball in Texas.
Catastrophe, nonetheless, was looming.
“Robotic knowledge that confirmed it was a powerful ball,” says Stone. “We take a look at golf balls in a managed surroundings. The failure was not permitting them to sit down in a damp golf store in Texas.”
Because it turned out, the Professional 2-Piece was a greater sponge than a golf ball. It absorbed all that humidity and have become, for lack of a greater time period, waterlogged. That made the ball sluggish to the purpose of being unplayable.
“It was a real market failure,” admits Stone. “However with out that failure, we wouldn’t get pleasure from as we speak as a result of it taught us stuff you wouldn’t uncover in any other case.”
The Titleist Professional 2-Piece turns into the Titleist Professional V1
Ever marvel why the Professional V1 known as the Professional V1?
“Professional” stands for Skilled. That was Titleist’s No. 1 ball on the time, and like several good firm, Titleist was constructing off that ball’s identify recognition.
“1” is for the primary model of the ball.
The “V”? That’s the place issues get fascinating.
After the Texas failure, Titleist realized it wanted one other layer to maintain moisture out of the core so it developed a Surlyn mantle to forestall absorption. They known as it a “veneer” layer.
The “V” in Professional V1 stands for veneer.
“Now we have a hell of lots of failures on our patent wall,” says Madson. “It’s possible you’ll begin with an thought and write a patent and it’d wind up being whole crap. However there could also be one piece of chemistry in there that opens up pathways to innovation. We’re taking a look at constructing new concepts so we let the inventive minds in R&D simply run rampant.”
Titleist R&D ran rampantly for 5 years whereas creating the primary Professional V1 era. Within the interim, Mark O’Meara used the solid-core Prime-Flite Strata to win the 1998 Masters and Open Championship. Two years later, Tiger blitzkrieged the U.S. Open area at Pebble Seaside with the NIKE Tour Accuracy. Titleist noticed what was occurring however knew what it had. It was simply searching for the ultimate items of the puzzle.
The “100 Man March”
By the summer time of 2000, the Professional V1 was nearly prepared for prime time. That final puzzle piece was Tour testing and validation. Beginning in June, Titleist Tour reps labored driving ranges and walked apply rounds with greater than 100 PGA Tour execs, searching for suggestions. The defining second got here at Ocean Forest Golf Membership in Georgia, courtesy of Davis Love III.
“Mac Fritz (Titleist VP of Tour Promotion) took a dozen ‘white field’ prototypes to check with Davis,” says Stone. “He had one directive: Come again with all 12. Don’t lose any of them.”
They arrange testing on one gap with a marsh bisecting the green some 340 yards away. That marsh was out of play for Love and his gamer, the Titleist Skilled. Love was hitting into the wind and Fritz was standing 300 yards down the green. Professionals have been touchdown close to Fritz’s toes, effectively in need of the marsh.
In line with Stone, that’s when Fritz had Love tee up a Professional V1 prototype with easy directions: Let ‘er rip.
“The ball sailed over Mac’s head and proper into the marsh. They spent 45 minutes wading by way of the marsh looking for that ball. Mac needed to head house along with his tail between his legs and solely 11 prototypes.”
Legend has it that Love and his son Dru felt so dangerous they returned the subsequent day and spent hours scouring the marsh for that ball. It stands because the very first Professional V1 ever misplaced and is probably going nonetheless in that marsh as we speak.
“That was validation for Davis,” says Stone. “That marsh hadn’t been in play for him earlier than. Now, impulsively, it was.”
What occurs in Vegas doesn’t all the time keep in Vegas
In the present day the USGA updates its conforming checklist electronically. In 2000, nonetheless, OEMs would watch for a brand new checklist to be printed earlier than new merchandise might be performed on Tour. Titleist was able to unleash the Professional V1 however the brand new USGA checklist wasn’t printed till early October, simply earlier than the Invensys Traditional in Las Vegas.
Fritz introduced 60 dozen Professional V1s to the match, anticipating 20, possibly 25 Titleist gamers to place them into play. Forty-seven did. It was the one largest shift in gear utilization in PGA Tour historical past.
“Gamers are creatures of behavior,” says Madson. “Even when they see efficiency they know deep down is healthier for them, they’re going to take their time earlier than switching. For that many gamers to change so rapidly simply confirmed how a lot better the Professional V1 was.”
One of many gamers who switched was a struggling veteran from Rhode Island, Billy Andrade.
Andrade was a hundred and sixtieth on the cash checklist and had already despatched in his test for Qualifying College. Seems he needn’t have bothered. Andrade tore up TPC Summerlin for his fourth and remaining PGA Tour win, a win for the Titleist Professional V1 in its first occasion.
“The ball was 20 yards longer than the Tour Status I used to be taking part in on the time,” says Andrade. “I chalked a few of that as much as altitude however the distance and total efficiency was like nothing I had ever performed.”
Phil Mickelson, additionally taking part in a Professional V1, completed second to Andrade. Lower than a month later, he would outduel Tiger on the Tour Championship in Atlanta. In a profession stuffed with fuse-lighting moments, Mickelson’s post-tournament feedback might have been the most important:
“I truthfully imagine that if you happen to’re not taking part in this golf ball, then you’re at a definite drawback to your entire area.”
Quantity One with a bullet
Titleist initially deliberate to launch the ProV1 to retail in March 2001. Andrade and Mickelson pressured that plan to alter and the Professional V1 was launched to Solar Belt retailers in mid-December. Issues obtained crazier in January. Brad Faxon gained the Sony Open in Hawaii with the Professional V1, tying the 72-hole scoring report. Mark Calcavecchia set the 36-, 54- and 72-hole scoring data with the Professional V1 the next week on the Phoenix Open. One week later, Love fired the bottom remaining spherical ever for a winner at Pebble Seaside.
By the point the West Coast swing was over, the highest eight cash winners have been taking part in the Professional V1.
“We needed to speed up product,” explains Stone. “It’s not like we mothballed our wound-ball strains. Our expectation was for a far decrease adoption of the Professional V1 and we anticipated folks to play wound balls by way of the yr as a result of that’s what our typical transition regarded like.”
Typical, nonetheless, flew out the window in Vegas.
It’s not possible to overstate the velocity and totality of the Professional V1 takeover. In mid-March, solely 90 days after its retail launch, the ProV1 rocketed to primary in golf ball gross sales.
It hasn’t moved from that perch since.
By the 2001 Masters, 42 of the 45 Titleist gamers within the area switched to the Professional V1. In June, Retief Goosen gained the U.S. Open with a Professional V1 and Karrie Webb gamed the Professional V1 to win the Ladies’s U.S. Open by eight strokes, the biggest margin of victory in over twenty years.
“The Professional V1 responded to the altering nature of the sport,” says Titleist Golf Ball President Mary Lou Bohn. “The arrival of the ability recreation necessitated golf balls that delivered low spin within the lengthy recreation whereas sustaining spin, really feel and management of the premium liquid-center, wound-technology balls.”
USA In the present day and an existential disaster
Within the three months from mid-December of 2000 to mid-March of 2001, the Professional V1 went from nothing to No. 1. Nobody at Titleist had that on their bingo card which meant management had some tough selections to make.
“We simply couldn’t make sufficient,” says Stone. “I don’t assume any Tour participant would have dreamt of hitting a ball as lengthy off the tee because the Pinnacle however with the Skilled’s efficiency across the inexperienced. That wouldn’t have been within the realm of risk.”
The buyer frenzy went thermonuclear in March when USA In the present day printed a front-page story on how the Professional V1 turned golf upside-down. There have been even unfounded rumors that Titleist was artificially suppressing provide to spice up demand.
That spring, Titleist confronted an existential disaster: Absolutely embrace the brand new Professional V1 and out of date 70 years of wound ball manufacturing or hedge its bets, let the market settle and transition slowly.
“The philosophical query on the time was, ‘Are we the wound-ball development chief or are we the golf ball know-how chief?’” says Stone. “That’s 70 years of legacy we’d be strolling away from. You higher imagine there have been folks right here who thought that may not be the neatest alternative.”
In the end, Titleist determined its legacy wasn’t wound golf balls, it was higher golf balls.
“Our model actually exists as a result of, in 1930, golf ball makers hadn’t discovered tips on how to make a golf ball constantly,” Stone says. “Phil Younger discovered how to try this. He felt his job was to make a greater golf ball if he may. It wasn’t as a result of it was wound; it’s as a result of it was higher.”
“We’re working across the clock …”
Retooling to satisfy demand was no straightforward job. It was like attempting to alter tires on a automobile going 90 miles an hour. As you’d count on, Titleist had a tough time maintaining.
“Wally (Uhlein, Acushnet CEO on the time) wrote a letter printed within the golf magazines saying, ‘Hey, we’re attempting our greatest to maintain up with manufacturing,’” says Stone. “We have been working across the clock however we simply couldn’t make sufficient.
“We have been attempting to determine tips on how to retool and reinvest within the vital capability which is how Ball Plant 3 got here to be. Ball Plant 1 was the place we made our wound balls. We couldn’t simply tear it down and renovate it. We wanted a complete new facility.”
The actual fact Tour gamers have been leaping to the Professional V1 in droves made the transition simpler. Professional V1 manufacturing ramped up whereas Tour Balata, Tour Status and Skilled manufacturing ramped down. By July, the final Tour Balata was performed on Tour. By November, the final Skilled was performed on Tour.
How monumental was the 2001 sea change? Golfweek Journal reported in December that 2001 was the primary yr that nobody – not one single golfer – gained on the PGA Tour utilizing a wound ball. Nobody on the LPGA, Seniors, European, Canadian, Purchase.com or Japan Golf excursions gained utilizing a wound ball, both.
In some unspecified time in the future in 2002, Titleist made its final wound ball. The Professional V1 takeover was full.
“Considered one of our mantras is that if it’s higher for the golfer, we’ll determine it out ultimately,” says Madson.
A rose by some other identify
Since historical past is sort of all the time unintended, it’s necessary to notice that Titleist had no intention of calling the Professional V1 the Professional V1. That was merely the prototype identify. They deliberate on arising with a greater identify earlier than launch.
Through the “100 Man March”, Tour gamers grew to become accustomed to the Professional V1 identify. Titleist additionally known as it Professional V1 in the course of the lengthy USGA conforming course of so by the point Vegas rolled round, the identify simply caught. All that early Tour success solely solidified the identify in everybody’s thoughts.
In 2003, there was speak of calling the brand new mannequin the Professional V2. Nevertheless, Advertising 101 says when you may have a game-changing, top-selling golf ball, don’t mess with what you name it.
The addition of the Professional V1x was a smaller game-changer in its personal proper.
“The Professional V1 was the most effective ball for execs and it proved to be the most effective ball for amateurs,” says Stone. “However the Professional V1x allowed for distinctive flight, spin and really feel traits to be designed right into a ball with a objective. It actually created ball becoming.”
2000 versus as we speak
Whereas speaking with Stone and Madson, one query saved bugging me.
“If I performed a 2001 Professional V1 and the brand new Professional V1 (due in January) collectively, how completely different would they be?”
The solutions got here quick and livid.
“You’re going to have a steeper spin slope,” stated Madson. “We’re all the time attempting to drive spin down with the driving force to get extra distance off the tee whereas protecting spin up with irons and wedges.”
Moreover, enhancements in core gradients, cowl chemistry, aerodynamic packages, even paint, whereas incremental, add up over 1 / 4 of a century.
“It’s onerous to see variations from one era to the subsequent,” Madson explains. “However over time, once you maintain at it, you find yourself with huge efficiency modifications over the generations. It’ll be quicker and the higher dimple sample means it’ll fly farther. It’s additionally going to be extra sturdy. It’ll keep whiter longer and the ink goes to look higher.”
Historical past’s Mysteries: The Titleist Professional V1 legacy
So why did historical past select the Professional V1 to alter the sport and never the NIKE Tour Accuracy and even the Prime-Flite Strata? In any case, NIKE had Tiger Woods, an unprecedented U.S. Open blowout and a six-month head begin. The Strata had a two-year head begin.
“It’s one factor to have an excellent product,” says Stone. “It’s one other factor to be dedicated and have a path to the market.”
Titleist had the top-selling golf ball earlier than the Professional V1 confirmed up and it had been tops on Tour for many years. It additionally had a stronger professional store and golf retail presence than NIKE. NIKE had Tiger however was nonetheless a relative newcomer to golf gear and had no actual monitor report. Spalding offered lots of golf balls however, as we’ve documented earlier than, was having its personal troubles on the time.
“There’s a sure credibility that comes from being the market chief in an trade introducing a product, versus another person,” says Stone.
The Professional V1 represented an inflection level that was a long time within the making. Energy was taking on the professional recreation and ball makers may see it coming. That’s why that engineer within the lunchroom requested the everlasting query: What if?
Titleist was uniquely positioned. It had the R&D juice, the manufacturing capabilities, the advertising and marketing power and the distribution channel to show that product right into a game-changing second in golf historical past.
The publish Historical past’s Mysteries: How the Titleist ProV1 Modified Golf Perpetually in Simply 90 Days appeared first on MyGolfSpy.
