Ely Would—Callaway Golf Company

If all of our golf ball inventory could be placed into a big golf bag, shaken up and emptied, a Titleist or a Nike might roll out like a white marble—or maybe a Callaway, a popular brand for golf gear, would zoom out ahead of the crowd as the company has done in the last few decades. Today, we celebrate Callaway golf balls for their velocity, courtesy of aerodynamics, but some golfers might not be quite up to speed with their history and ingenuity.

How do we do this, you ask? Easy. We kidnap PGA professionals from golf courses around the country and force them to sort, inspect, and hand-shine each and every golf ball.

Nike began its foray into golf in 1984 with a business plan, a couple promotional shirts, and a football cleat converted into a golf shoe. A little over a decade later, a young phenom would catapult their meager presence in the golfing world into one of enormous power and influence.

Team Titleist introduced industry’s most popular golf balls Pro V1 on October 11, 2000. On the heels of its record-setting success, a second model – the Pro V1x – was introduced three years later in 2003. Today, roughly more than half of all TOUR pros tee up a Pro V1 or Pro V1x.