Acushnet Company - 1910 Origins

1910 Origins

Acushnet was founded in 1910 by a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Phillip W. "Skipper" Young, along with two college friends. Their partnership was called Peabody, Young & Weeks but subsequently became known as Acushnet Processing Company, named after the town in which they set up shop, Acushnet, Massachusetts. Although the company soon moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, it retained the Acushnet name. Its original focus was on rubber, taking advantage of a process Young developed to reconstitute rubber waste and scraps into a workable material. Acushnet developed a steady business with the major Akron, Ohio, rubber companies, which sent them their rubber scraps to be processed. By the end of World War I, in 1918, Acushnet was the world's largest supplier of reclaimed uncured rubber. However, with the dramatic drop in rubber prices in the early 1920s, falling from more than $3 per pound to just three cents per pound, Acushnet was forced to shift its focus. The company began to produce a number of molded rubber products, including bathing shoes and caps, toy boats, and hot water bottles. Acushnet became involved in the golfing business because of Young's fondness for, and frustration with, the game. According to company lore, he was so dismayed by the inaccuracy of his golf shots one day that he decided to x-ray some golf balls to see if the cores were properly centered. He found that most were well off the mark and prone to erratic shots. As a result, he decided to develop a better golf ball.

The first golf balls, dating as far back as the 15th century, were made of wood, either from elm or beech. Although durable, they were far from aerodynamic and could travel only around 100 yards. Next came leather spheres filled with cow's hair. The first major breakthrough in the evolution of the golf ball was the "feathery," introduced in 1618. Inside its leather sphere, painted white for better visibility, were goose feathers. The ball was packed while wet, so that upon drying it would become tight and firm and capable of being driven twice as far as a wooden ball. This process was labor intensive and thus resulted in a product that was expensive beyond the reach of average people. Next came the Gutta Percha ball, developed by Reverend Adam Paterson of St. Andrews, Scotland. It was made from rubber, the name referring to the gutta percha gum used as a raw material. The gutta percha ball could be mass produced, making golf more affordable, but it also had a tendency to break into pieces while in flight. Then, in 1898, Coburn Haskell introduced a more durable golf ball, one that had a solid rubber core around which was wrapped rubber thread that was then enclosed in a gutta percha covering. By the early 1900s, the Haskell ball became the standard in golf. As Skipper Young discovered, however, the balls were not precisely manufactured.