Acushnet Company: A dedication to resilience
Publish Date •
17 April 2025
But as any golfer knows, nothing in this game is as effortless as it seems. Titleist has spent decades perfecting the art, science and engineering of making golf balls. When everyone from professional stars to everyday dedicated golfers depends on your product, you must stay at the top of your game. There are no gimmes here. There are no mulligans, either.
That is why Acushnet Company—owner of the Titleist and FootJoy brands—partners with FM to protect its purpose. Because a company built for dedicated golfers needs a dedicated insurance company, too.
“At Acushnet Company, we strive to get our quality product out to the dedicated golfer,” said Charles Sands, facilities manager at Acushnet. “And it’s not just in the product. It’s in the process. It’s in the care. It’s in the manufacturing. It’s in the engineering. And it’s very helpful to have a partner in FM that’s as dedicated to their line of work as we are to ours.”
The partnership between FM and Acushnet goes back 50 years. Today, FM insures a range of Acushnet’s facilities, including three ball plants that can produce a combined million balls every day.
From start to finish across its production lines, Acushnet must ensure every ball, club, shoe and glove meets specifications. The company got its start in golf after a missed putt almost 100 years ago.
Philip "Skipper" Young, who worked in the rubber processing business, was convinced his ball was off-center. His golfing partner that day was a doctor and the head of the radiology department at a local hospital. They took the ball in to be X-rayed, and Young was right: The ball was definitely out of round.
Acushnet’s technology has evolved since those early days, but the commitment to excellence in process has not. To this day, every ball Titleist makes is inspected, even X-rayed, to make sure dedicated golfers can trust the quality and performance of every Titleist golf ball.
Along the way, in addition to strenuous quality control, Acushnet must account for a number of risks: dust, ignitable liquids, hydraulics systems, even the coastal New England weather.
“Luckily here at Acushnet, they’ve made the investments to safeguard each step of their process,” said Timothy Hawthorne, FM engineering specialist.
FM has become a trusted advisor for Acushnet, Hawthorne said. Acushnet uses FM’s plan review services not just when acquiring a new building, but even when developing new manufacturing processes. It has also used FM’s facilities to test different dusts for explosion risks. Over the years, Acushnet has installed sprinkler protection in ductworks, moved dust collectors outside and protected its buildings with robust roof and wall cladding systems.
Because of these investments, Acushnet has faced few significant losses in recent years. The most recent big one didn’t have anything to do with golf. And it could have been a lot worse.
About 30 years ago, based on FM’s recommendation, Acushnet replaced glass block walls at a facility in Brockton, Massachusetts, with cinder block walls. About a year and a half later, an adjacent building caught fire. The adjacent building burned to the ground. Acushnet’s building suffered damage—but stayed upright.
“If we had not made that change,” said Sands, “those losses would have been substantially higher.”
Even 50 years into their partnership, FM and Acushnet are finding new ways to work together. New production processes, new facilities, even new media: That was Titleist Ball Plant 3 you saw if you caught FM’s first-ever TV commercial during the inaugural FM Championship.
About 600 people work at Ball Plant 3. Some of them are members of families who have worked there for generations. They take a lot of pride in the work they do, said Mike Lowe, vice president of brand management and communications for Titleist. The Pro V1 golf ball that a tournament champion hoists in the air in celebration, or that a dedicated golfer sinks for birdie at their favorite local course, was made right here in New Bedford—with a focus on quality, innovation and performance.
“One of the special things about Acushnet is the commitment to process that our associates show daily," Lowe said. "That’s closely aligned with FM and what’s resulted in such a long partnership.”