Titleist

Phillip E. “Skipper” Young, an MIT graduate, founded Titleist in 1932. During a golf match, he missed a putt because the ball had a crooked rubber core, which he confirmed with an x-ray.

This inspired him to create his own perfectly balanced golf balls. In 1930, he developed a machine that wrapped rubber string uniformly around a core, resulting in a "dead center" ball called Titleist. In 1935, Titleist was released by Acushnet Process Company, and in 1948, they added "Dynamite Thread" for more distance.

In 1949, the Titleist ball became the most used product at the US Open. In 1976, American Brands acquired Titleist, and in 2002, the company reached $1 billion in annual sales. In 2011, Acushnet was successfully acquired for $1,23 billion by a Korean group.