Acushnet is the name of the company that owns the brands of Titleist golf clubs, Cobra golf clubs and FootJoy golf shoes. On November 10, the U.S. District Court ruled that Titleist must stop selling Pro V1 and Pro V1x golf balls permanently by 2009. Supposedly, Titleist has infringed on some of Callaway’s patents. The company’s CEO, Wally Uihlein, came out with a public statement discussing their new Pro V1 design. Uihlein stated that the newly designed Pro V1s “will perform differently from and better than the current Pro V1 models. Due to this new design, which has nothing to do with the patents in question, the sale of these golf balls will continue uninterrupted. However, Acushnet is continuing to wage its legal battles with Callaway.
One of the funniest golf commercials ever was for Titleist’s NXT golf balls. They have a character named Ian MacCallister who is a Scotsman and in favor of more traditional style of golf. He believes that the NXT makes golf too easy. The best golf commercial I’ve ever seen in the ongoing series was when Ian was outside of Titleist headquarters carrying a picket sign all by himself, screaming angrily at anyone who helped Titleist put out the NXT. The postman drives by and shouts out, “Hey, Ian.” Ian in a calm, friendly voice shouts back to the mail man, “Hey, Stewart.” I guess you had to see it, but here’s a commercial where Ian goes after Wally Uihlein himself.
On their NXTube.com website, they have most of the commercials available, and they’ve created quite an in-depth character out of Ian MacCallister. Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to find my favorite commercial on their website, so my description of it will have to suffice. However, there are plenty of other great commercials to watch on their website.
