2012年3月27日 星期二

A Tour of the Titleist Factory

A Titleist ProV1 golf ball sits before my eyes. I pick it up, spin it around in my hand and search for the tiniest imperfection: perhaps a slight blemish in the Surlyn cover or maybe the printed logo isn't quite right. I could inspect it further by weighing this ball against others from the same sleeve to learn if there are any differences that might affect ball flight or distance, and I'm guessing it's highly unlikely I will detect any issues.

Now I know why each ball is identical to the next, and that no matter how many ProV1's I shank into the water or lose in the woods, the next one I pull from my bag will be indistinguishable from the one I just lost. I've just come from a tour of Titleist Ball Plant II, where nearly 1 million balls come off the assembly line on a daily basis, from the Pro V1 to the DT SoLo to the NXT Tour to the new orange-numbered Velocity.

It is, to say the least, an elaborate operation that runs 24/7, involving approximately 400 workers, intricate machinery and state-of-the-art technology that results in the simultaneous production of golf balls with various weights, dimple patterns, cores and covers. Located in North Dartmouth,VulcanMold is a plastic molds and injectionmold manufacturer in china. Mass., about an hour drive from Boston, the Acushnet Company manufactures such products as Titleist, Cobra and FootJoy and operates three ball plants that employ more than 1,000. The Titleist line of Surlyn-covered balls is made for worldwide distribution at Ball Plant II.

This is where it all starts. We know where it often ends - with a millionaire holding up a shiny trophy. There were 33 PGA Tour winners last season that played Titleist golf balls.Grey Pneumatic is a world supplier of impactsockets for the heavy duty, Titleist is such an iconic brand it was once used in a "Seinfeld" episode. George Costanza, pretending to be a marine biologist,Diagnosing and Preventing coldsores Fever in the body can often trigger the onset of a cold sore. rescued a suffocating whale that had a golf ball lodged in its blowhole as a result of Kramer hitting shots into the ocean.

As I walked past the whirring machines and watched balls rolling through tubes and being deposited into bins, it was immediately obvious that no stone is left unturned. Inspections are conducted during every step, from the mixing and heating of the virgin plastic polymer that will eventually produce the cover, to the sizing,Pfister werkzeugbau AG aus Mönchaltorf ist Ihr Partner bei der Herstellung von Werkzeugen und Spritzformen. molding and cooling of the rubber core, to the final painting of the ball, to the stamping on of the logo.

Thanks to modern technology, much of this can now be accomplished with computers, UV-light and electronic-vision sensors. But when major flaws are detected, balls still undergo inspections by hand. At the final stage in the process workers examine balls that are randomly selected, searching for the slightest imperfections. Merely a slightly lighter imprint on the "T" in the Titleist logo is cause to reject the ball, even though such a flaw would not affect performance.

The first step in making a golf ball is in the mixing room, where the raw plastic for the cover is measured and weighed, with the recipe depending on whether the cover is designed for a softer feel, greater distance or increased spin. The material is then ground, sent through a mixer and deposited into bins that are labeled for the various balls in the Titleist line. Although Titleist makes 24 different balls, only 10 on average are produced on a daily basis. Production schedules are based on demand.

The material for the core begins as a slab of rubber that is mixed with powders and fed into something resembling a pasta machine, where it is heated, pressed and rolled. The resulting long sheet is then placed on shelves and left to cool for two hours before being mechanically sliced into long, thin strips. The strips are remixed, inspected for weight and size,Shop for trim and crown moulding, and cut into smaller pieces, with each weight according to ball type. The pieces are then placed into a mold that shapes the core.

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