Acushnet Company - The 1990s and Beyond

The 1990s and Beyond

In 1990, Acushnet reorganized its golf business, forging a single operating unit, Titleist and Foot-Joy Worldwide. A third major brand joined the fold in January 1996 with the acquisition of Cobra Golf Inc., maker of high-tech golf clubs. Cobra was a much younger entity than its sister companies. It was launched in 1973 by Thomas Crow, a former Australian Amateur Champion who also had 20 years of experience in golf club design working at Melbourne-based Precision Golf. Crow emigrated to San Diego, California, and launched his own golf club company, producing a unique club called the Baffler, the first utility wood that golfers could rely on to help them escape from especially tricky lies. The company then built on a reputation for innovation. In the mid-1980s, it embraced lightweight graphite shafts. Later, it developed the first full sets of oversized irons.

At first, Cobra Golf Inc. operated as a separate unit from Titleist and Foot-Joy Worldwide, but in August 1999 Acushnet's management decided to consolidate the golf club business. Although the brands continued to maintain separation, their operations were combined and streamlined to cut costs and gain efficiencies. A year later, the Titleist and Cobra sales forces were also consolidated, a move designed to help Cobra, which lacked a large enough stand-alone sales force to achieve the level of sales Acushnet expected from the brand. In 2000, Acushnet did away with the two division format, opting instead to do business as a single entity, Acushnet Company, featuring its three premiere brands.

In the last two decades of the 20th century, Acushnet expanded its golf business internationally. In 1983, the company formed a joint venture with Tokyo Tire and Rubber Company to distribute Titleist products in Japan. Acushnet Foot-Joy Thailand Ltd. was launched in 1990 to manufacture Foot-Joy golf gloves. Acushnet GmbH became operational in Germany in 1992. A year later, operations were established in Canada, Sweden, France, Denmark, and Austria. In 1994, Acushnet Nederland BV was launched, followed in 1995 by a joint venture in Taiwan to manufacture Foot-Joy golf shoes. The Acushnet South Africa office opened in 1996. Finally, Acushnet Singapore Pte. Ltd. launched operations in Singapore and Malaysia in 2002.

Leading Acushnet into the new century was president and CEO Walter R. Uihlein, a long-time executive with the company. An avid golfer from childhood, Uihlein went to work at a local pro shop as a teenager. He was, by his own admission, entranced by the image portrayed by the Titleist sales rep, who was always better dressed than the competition and had the air of the consummate professional. One Titleist rep, Jim Kernohan, took Uihlein under his wing and helped him land a job with Dunlop after college. As soon as a sales job opened up at Titleist, however, Uihlein was quick to lobby for the position. An enthusiastic and hard worker, he quickly made his way up through the ranks. Hired as a sales rep in 1977, he was promoted to national sales manager little more than a year later. By age 33, he made vice-president, and three years later, in 1985, became the youngest general manager in the company's history. In 1989, he became president and CEO of Titleist and added the chairmanship in 1995. In that same year, he became president and CEO of Acushnet.

The emergence of Tiger Woods in the late 1990s increased golf's popularity and also added to the complexities Uihlein faced in leading Acushnet into the new century. In 2000, Woods dropped his endorsement of Titleist balls, opting instead for the new line of Nike golf balls. Although Acushnet lost some sales, Titleist continued to own a third of the market. In fact, Titleist faced greater challenges elsewhere, as a number of other companies began introducing a wide variety of high-tech balls. Titleist kept pace by offering its own advances. Acushnet as a whole had to contend with increased competition as well as the fallout of poor economic conditions that adversely impacted golf. The number of rounds of golf worldwide fell off, resulting in a glut of golf balls in inventory. In the summer of 2002, Acushnet cut nearly 300 jobs. In May 2003, the company announced further cutbacks, with another 200 jobs to be shed over the course of the next year, including the elimination of Ball Plant I, the original ball-making facility in Acushnet, Massachusetts, which opened in 1932. Despite making fewer golf balls, Acushnet was still able in 2002 to crack the $1 billion mark in annual revenues for the first time.