Having spent enough time out in the sweatbox of Saujana Golf and Country Club in KL, I’ve retreated to the air-conditioned luxury of my hotel room to muse on a cornucopia of unrelated topics. I’ve just been watching a bit of that brilliant film about the Enigma machine, The Imitation Game, and it made me think about codes and how much of life is coded. Almost every minute of every day we have to read what people’s bodies tell us; not so much what they’re saying as what they’re meaning. I guess the older you get the better you get at it, although it sometimes surprises me how prescient my two young teenagers can be. I’ve decided to re-title my daily meanderings, based on the famous old Churchill quote about “Jaw jaw not war war”. I’ve just dropped the “w’s” for aesthetic appeal. In future I’ll also be signing each blog with my new online signature. Incidentally, Churchill’s official biographer, Sir Martin Gilbert, tells us that what Churchill actually said was “meeting jaw to jaw is better than war” which makes a lot more sense. I wonder how history might have been different if social media had existed when Hitler was trying to rule the World? Can you imagine Adolf tweeting…”Hey Winnie, your boys took a helluva beating today”! I suppose it’s not that different to the very effective propaganda machine they had then anyway.
I love being at a golf tournament on Tuesdays. It’s all so relaxed, the players are approachable, there’s no one else around, apart from the workers completing preparations for the corporate hospitality suites and the tented village and there’s always good gossip to be garnered on the practice ground. I learned some interesting facts from the Titleist rep. The Titleist Pro V1 and V1x golf balls are by far the most popular and successful balls in professional golf and the story behind them is interesting. Back in the 1920’s Phillip “Skipper” Young, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was playing with his dentist friend when a putt he felt sure was going in veered off to the left to miss the hole. He asked his friend to X-ray the ball and sure enough the core was off-centre. They took more X-rays and found that most balls had off-centre cores and were prone to erratic flight. He started to produce his own line of balls that would eventually become known as Titleist. (i.e. the most ‘titled’) He hooked up with the Acushnet Process Company, then essentially a rubber company, and it all progressed from there. Nowadays every single Pro V1 and V1x is made either in their factory in Fairhaven outside Boston, or for the Asian market in an identical facility in Thailand. Titleist now have seventy two R&D chemical scientists constantly working to improve the product, which is already extraordinary. The machines that are used to manufacture the balls are made by machines that are made by Titleist. The tolerances are even tighter than those used by Rolls Royce. You may not know that Rolls Royce engines don’t need gaskets, such is the precision of the milling of their cylinder heads etc. Titleist manufacture one million Pro V balls a day, with the factories sometimes working twenty four hours a day. Every single ball is x-rayed to ensure that it is perfect. Have a guess how many are rejected? I said 3%. The answer is 1. Not 1%. 1 ball, and that is because very, very occasionally the painting process causes the tiniest of flaws. It’s no wonder that a dozen balls retail for close to £50 in the UK; not a price that Tour Pro’s face of course. They pretty much get as many as they want, free. But that’s part of the Titleist marketing budget. Success on Tour translates into massive sales in golf clubs and shops.
If you’re a golfer and you find the whole thing is a bit of an enigma, try the latest Pro V1’s. They go further and straighter and more accurately than any ball ever produced. Period. (Well, ok, there are balls that might go a bit further, but without the same feel, accuracy or control).
2DtC.
ADayInTheStrifeOf 