The chances are if you’re a committed golfer, at some stage in your golfing life you’ll have put a Titleist ball into play.

It’s been 13 years since the iconic Pro V1 range was launched, and it’s 80 years since the company was founded. But had it not been for an X-ray machine in a dentist’s surgery things could have worked out very differently, as director of Titleist Golf Ball Product Management Michael Mahoney explained.

Acushnet has more than 900 active US golf ball patents; each ball goes through rigorous testing; a fine layer of paint is applied.

In 1932, avid golfer Phil Young was out playing in New Bedford and on the 18th hole he had a relatively short putt to win his match. He stroked it pure, but the ball missed outside the hole, even though he was convinced he’d put a good stroke on the ball – if there was no way it could have been the golfer, it had to be the golf ball. He was given a hard time by his partners for that, but he was curious, so he asked a dentist friend if he could use his X-ray machine.

“He X-rayed the ball he missed the putt with and found that the core wasn’t round – it was off centre and the ball rolled impurely as a result of a product that wasn’t consistent. He felt he could do it better and he could make products better and more consistent, and he spent three years working on that process.”

Titleist may have started out small, but it’s grown to be the dominant ball brand in the market today. And while lots of things have changed in the 80 years since, Mahoney is adamant that certain values still remain.

“Part of our identity has to do with how we haven’t changed and what our core values are. We started out as a process company, we continue today to be a process company. When the company was set up it was really about looking at how to make a better, more consistent golf ball. To this day we spend so much time and attention on the process – be that the process of development or the process of making golf balls. The scale has obviously changed dramatically – we make 25 million dozen golf balls a year now – but the attention to detail has remained constant.”