Who DESIGNS the Maxfli golf balls?

[deepred]

I believe they manufacture Wilson balls as well.

 

[cardia10]

36 minutes ago, storm319 said:

First, the US suit was settled out of court with some kind of cross licensing agreement (there was a future royalty component but the details were confidential and likely long expired at this point given that the patents in question have likely expired). Acushnet settling doesn’t admit guilt of intentional IP theft, it means their corporate council felt they would spend far less in a voluntary settlement vs several years of litigation and a potential injunction on their best selling product. 

 

Next, if you actually read any ball patents it will be clear how big of a joke all of this past litigation really was (Acushnet has been as guilty as any with the questionable litigation). 

If you read the whole case files, it is 100% clear Titleist did the smart thing by settling. It is very common knowledge the settlement included a per dozen payment for yearly sales for a number of years that has now expired. I’m not saying everyone doesn’t do it, but Titleist based the best selling ball in history off these patents. 

[storm319]

2 minutes ago, cardia10 said:

If you read the whole case files, it is 100% clear Titleist did the smart thing by settling. It is very common knowledge the settlement included a per dozen payment for yearly sales for a number of years that has now expired. I’m not saying everyone doesn’t do it, but Titleist based the best selling ball in history off these patents. 

You could make that same argument about any multilayer solid core ball that had been released to that point (the patents are all incredibly similar with exception to the cover production method and dimple designs). Everyone one of these is technically a “me too” of Spaulding’s original design anyways. Additionally the Bridgestone filing sought to proactively contest non-infringement over some of Acushnet’s awarded patents (aka they infringed as well and a cross licensing agreement was part of the settlement). 

 

Also, Bridgestone has never produced a cast thermoset urethane cover which was one of the main differentiators of the ProV1 (dimple design was clearly the best at the time as well). 
 

Ultimately there is no evidence to say that to say that the entire ProV1 design was explicitly based on a particular competitors stolen patent (or even what % of the end result) and to imply that it would not have existed without said patent is ridiculous. 

[cardia10]

8 hours ago, storm319 said:

You could make that same argument about any multilayer solid core ball that had been released to that point (the patents are all incredibly similar with exception to the cover production method and dimple designs). Everyone one of these is technically a “me too” of Spaulding’s original design anyways. Additionally the Bridgestone filing sought to proactively contest non-infringement over some of Acushnet’s awarded patents (aka they infringed as well and a cross licensing agreement was part of the settlement). 

 

Also, Bridgestone has never produced a cast thermoset urethane cover which was one of the main differentiators of the ProV1 (dimple design was clearly the best at the time as well). 
 

Ultimately there is no evidence to say that to say that the entire ProV1 design was explicitly based on a particular competitors stolen patent (or even what % of the end result) and to imply that it would not have existed without said patent is ridiculous. 

But the fact remains that Titleist paid them for years based on the “borrowing” of Bridgestone’s technology. It happens every day in golf, but it was egregious enough that if they didn’t pay, there was a chance that the Pro V would have been changed forever. Cheaper to pay the price and wait for everyone to forget. 

[North Butte]

Wait for everyone to forget what?

 

Titleist never claimed to have invented the multipiece urethane ball. They just claimed to create the first wildly successful multipiece urethane ball that captured more than 50% of the "Tour" ball market almost overnight. And I'd imagine they have made enough money off the Pro V1 franchise by now that the money they paid Bridgestone to settle that patent dispute is basically a rounding error. 

 

This just in...Scotty Cameron didn't invent the Anser-style putter either. 

[cardia10]

6 hours ago, North Butte said:

Wait for everyone to forget what?

 

Titleist never claimed to have invented the multipiece urethane ball. They just claimed to create the first wildly successful multipiece urethane ball that captured more than 50% of the "Tour" ball market almost overnight. And I'd imagine they have made enough money off the Pro V1 franchise by now that the money they paid Bridgestone to settle that patent dispute is basically a rounding error. 

 

This just in...Scotty Cameron didn't invent the Anser-style putter either. 

 

The whole wait was for the news to filter away and avoid not a costly, but a publicly shaming lawsuit. The real financial cost would have been if it went to court then the Pro V ceased to exist. For Titleist, obviously a smart payoff. They may have manufactured the most popular ball overnight because the engineering that was "found" seemed to put them ahead of the competition. I could care less about Cameron. I use the putters, but any original design he might as well not patent, they aren't worth "borrowing."  There is little to no originality in golf equipment no matter how it is spun. Titleist just took it to the extreme and got caught doing it. 

Edited May 25, 2021 by cardia10

[chippa13]

I think you're being a little hard on Titleist. How unique can the patent on a multilayer urethane golf ball really be? One of the articles I found mentioned a judge musing about the extremely subtle differences among the patents.

[North Butte]

That's why big manufacturing companies accumulate as many patents as they can. If you can get it into the realm of those "extremely subtle differences" then it's just down to how good your lawyers are versus the competitions and whether you can get lucky with the judge if it goes to court. The patents are just a foot in the door so the lawyers can do their thing. 

[driveandputtmachine]

On 5/3/2019 at 10:04 PM, storm319 said:

> @trackcoach13 said:

> > @MBBG said:

> > > @Minarets said:

> > > I was told TaylorMade makes them by 2 different GG employees in two different cities. Maybe they assume, no clue, but that’s what I was told.

> >

> > TaylorMade to my knowledge doesn’t manufacture golf balls

>

> You are wrong. They mfg balls in Liberty SC.

 

I believe the SC plant only handles urethane cover assembly, painting/stamping, and packaging. Cores/mantles for urethane models and all surlyn models are produced somewhere in Asia.

Correct.  I believe that the other layers are made by Nassau (S Korea).  I think all of that info came out during the original Kirkland golf ball bonanza, maybe Kirkland used some left over cores from Taylormade or something like that.

[storm319]

1 hour ago, driveandputtmachine said:

Correct.  I believe that the other layers are made by Nassau (S Korea).  I think all of that info came out during the original Kirkland golf ball bonanza, maybe Kirkland used some left over cores from Taylormade or something like that.

Nassau was the main factory that TMaG helped establish years ago for their core/mantle assemblies, but now they have both Nassau and Foremost performing this function (take a look at the side of boxes of the TP5 line next time you are in a store, some will say Korea and some will say Taiwan for the core/mantle assembly). From there, all cover production/painting/stamping/packaging happens in the Taylormade owned factory in South Carolina. 

[NRJyzr]

On 5/25/2021 at 6:25 AM, North Butte said:

They just claimed to create the first wildly successful multipiece urethane ball that captured more than 50% of the "Tour" ball market almost overnight.

 

Thats a bit of a dubious statement, at best.  There was no "capturing" in play, 60% of the Tour (or more) were on contract to play Titleist golfballs.  Its not like there was a a mad rush of non-Titleist players to the fifth or sixth solid core ball released to the market. 

 

Edited May 30, 2021 by NRJyzr

[North Butte]

5 hours ago, NRJyzr said:

 

Thats a bit of a dubious statement, at best.  There was no "capturing" in play, 60% of the Tour (or more) were on contract to play Titleist golfballs.  Its not like there was a a mad rush of non-Titleist players to the fifth or sixth solid core ball released to the market. 

 

Six months before the Pro V1 was announced the percentage of Tour players using multipiece urethane balls was in the single digits. Six months after the Pro V1 was announced a majority of Tour players were using mutipiece urethane balls and the vast majority of those were using Pro V1.

 

The introduced the Pro V1 and almost overnight it was wildly successful on the PGA Tour (as well as selling in large volumes at retail). Titleist didn't invent the modern golf ball, they just created the one that took over the world.

 

Apple didn't invent the smartphone either. They only created the one which was an overnight success and continues to dominate the market. It's the nature of consumer products that the first to market with a new category of product are often not the same as the company which comes to dominate the market when it matures. 

 

And yeah, Tour players do get paid to use and endorse products. I think pretty much everyone knows that.

[jjfcpa]

Well, if the Maxfli Tour is being designed by some backroom technicians or worse, using a manufacturers design with some tweaks, then it is one heck of an anomaly based on the MGS ball lab results of the 2019 Maxfli Tour.  It's the best non-Titleist ball they've found thus far.  I've played it for the last year, not because it's as good as the ProV1 but because it's better IMO than the ProV1, costs about half of what the ProV1 costs, and is readily available.  

 

There is no way that this ball should be that good... but it is and anyone who tries it is bound to reach the same conclusion that I have.  

 

If you're the #1 selling ball you can afford to spend lots of money on advertising instead of R&D and very often, that's all you need to do to remain on top.  This is not to diminish the quality of the ProV1/X, but it's obvious that some of that luster is based on paying people to play it.  And since everyone things they want to be tour players... monkey see, monkey do.

[hammergolf]

On 5/24/2021 at 8:25 PM, storm319 said:

You could make that same argument about any multilayer solid core ball that had been released to that point (the patents are all incredibly similar with exception to the cover production method and dimple designs). Everyone one of these is technically a “me too” of Spaulding’s original design anyways. Additionally the Bridgestone filing sought to proactively contest non-infringement over some of Acushnet’s awarded patents (aka they infringed as well and a cross licensing agreement was part of the settlement). 

 

Also, Bridgestone has never produced a cast thermoset urethane cover which was one of the main differentiators of the ProV1 (dimple design was clearly the best at the time as well). 
 

Ultimately there is no evidence to say that to say that the entire ProV1 design was explicitly based on a particular competitors stolen patent (or even what % of the end result) and to imply that it would not have existed without said patent is ridiculous. 

I’m in a completely different industry, but I can absolutely confirm the patent office is borderline incompetent when it comes to approving and issuing patents. My company has literally spent 10’s of millions of dollars defending our patents as well as attacking patents that should of never been given in the first place....

[hammergolf]

23 minutes ago, jjfcpa said:

Well, if the Maxfli Tour is being designed by some backroom technicians or worse, using a manufacturers design with some tweaks, then it is one heck of an anomaly based on the MGS ball lab results of the 2019 Maxfli Tour.  It's the best non-Titleist ball they've found thus far.  I've played it for the last year, not because it's as good as the ProV1 but because it's better IMO than the ProV1, costs about half of what the ProV1 costs, and is readily available.  

 

There is no way that this ball should be that good... but it is and anyone who tries it is bound to reach the same conclusion that I have.  

 

If you're the #1 selling ball you can afford to spend lots of money on advertising instead of R&D and very often, that's all you need to do to remain on top.  This is not to diminish the quality of the ProV1/X, but it's obvious that some of that luster is based on paying people to play it.  And since everyone things they want to be tour players... monkey see, monkey do.

Out of interest, do you find the cg feature actually making a difference?

[jjfcpa]

49 minutes ago, hammergolf said:

Out of interest, do you find the cg feature actually making a difference?

I don't really align my ball according to that so I have no idea.  I go by the way it plays - launch, distance, spin, feel.  Especially feel.

[North Butte]

1 hour ago, jjfcpa said:

Well, if the Maxfli Tour is being designed by some backroom technicians or worse, using a manufacturers design with some tweaks, then it is one heck of an anomaly based on the MGS ball lab results of the 2019 Maxfli Tour.  It's the best non-Titleist ball they've found thus far.  I've played it for the last year, not because it's as good as the ProV1 but because it's better IMO than the ProV1, costs about half of what the ProV1 costs, and is readily available.  

 

There is no way that this ball should be that good... but it is and anyone who tries it is bound to reach the same conclusion that I have.  

I've played 4-5 rounds with that ball (the 2019 version) and it's a good, solid ball. I could easily use it on a routine basis, it didn't have any particular shortcomings for my game. 

 

But it's not magic and it's not an anomaly. It's just a golf ball. The technology to design and build very good 3pc or 4pc urethane golf balls is widespread nowadays. It's almost certainly some sort of white label design from a Chinese, Korean or Taiwanese factory. Nothing wrong with that, most of those white label balls have solid performance (although the QC can be lacking in some cases). 

 

There's no trick at all to sources darned good golf balls at fairly cheap price points today. 

[storm319]

4 hours ago, North Butte said:

Six months before the Pro V1 was announced the percentage of Tour players using multipiece urethane balls was in the single digits. Six months after the Pro V1 was announced a majority of Tour players were using mutipiece urethane balls and the vast majority of those were using Pro V1.

 

The introduced the Pro V1 and almost overnight it was wildly successful on the PGA Tour (as well as selling in large volumes at retail). Titleist didn't invent the modern golf ball, they just created the one that took over the world.

 

Apple didn't invent the smartphone either. They only created the one which was an overnight success and continues to dominate the market. It's the nature of consumer products that the first to market with a new category of product are often not the same as the company which comes to dominate the market when it matures. 

 

And yeah, Tour players do get paid to use and endorse products. I think pretty much everyone knows that.

To be fair, the quick adoption of the ProV1 had more to do with Titleist’s huge contractually obligated tour staff that were chomping at the bit to change (many of which would have changed to a competitor much earlier if not contractually obligated). Keep in mind that Titleist had the most to lose with this paradigm shift given that they were the clear market leader (just as they are today with a regulatory rollback).
 

While I do agree that the ProV1 was head and shoulders the best multilayer solid core offering around that time (cover and dimple design were definitely best in class), its adoption on tour really had more to do with contractual obligation than product superiority. 

[North Butte]

40 minutes ago, storm319 said:

To be fair, the quick adoption of the ProV1 had more to do with Titleist’s huge contractually obligated tour staff that were chomping at the bit to change (many of which would have changed to a competitor much earlier if not contractually obligated). Keep in mind that Titleist had the most to lose with this paradigm shift given that they were the clear market leader (just as they are today with a regulatory rollback).
 

While I do agree that the ProV1 was head and shoulders the best multilayer solid core offering around that time (cover and dimple design were definitely best in class), its adoption on tour really had more to do with contractual obligation than product superiority. 

I didn't say anything about superiority. I simply said Titleist did not invent the multipiece urethane golf ball, they simply created the first wildly successful multipiece urethane golf ball. Not sure how that (I thought very obvious) statement generated so much back-and-forth. 

 

It was about marketing, Tour play, Titleist's previous reputation, dimple design, material design, luck, timing and maybe some other factors all coming together. It usually happens with any new category of consumer product. There's a few competing brands and at some point a few years in, one brand becomes the de facto market leader. 

[deepred]

The new Maxfli Tour balls have the same basic dimple pattern as other Foremost balls, like OnCore so I'd say they do most of the design work. The core is Maxfli specific however. They have gone away from the dual core and now use a dual mantle design.

 

[tsecor]

I am not a fan of dicks.....

[cardia10]

On 5/30/2021 at 4:02 PM, North Butte said:

Six months before the Pro V1 was announced the percentage of Tour players using multipiece urethane balls was in the single digits. Six months after the Pro V1 was announced a majority of Tour players were using mutipiece urethane balls and the vast majority of those were using Pro V1.

 

The introduced the Pro V1 and almost overnight it was wildly successful on the PGA Tour (as well as selling in large volumes at retail). Titleist didn't invent the modern golf ball, they just created the one that took over the world.

 

Apple didn't invent the smartphone either. They only created the one which was an overnight success and continues to dominate the market. It's the nature of consumer products that the first to market with a new category of product are often not the same as the company which comes to dominate the market when it matures. 

 

And yeah, Tour players do get paid to use and endorse products. I think pretty much everyone knows that.

 

 

I think you said it correctly, prior to Tiger, tour players would and for the most part still play whatever they are paid to. The first to pay has kept the market share for the most part. Who is to say Bridgestone wouldn't have been in the same boat if the patents hadn't been stolen and used by Titleist to develop the Pro V. They got ahead because they cheated and paid. Doesn't take a genius to do all that.

[NRJyzr]

One wonders if it weren't for the 1995 Kobe earthquake, perhaps Maxfli would be at the top now.  They had a healthy market share in the 90s, so its said....

 

Edited June 9, 2021 by NRJyzr

[North Butte]

4 hours ago, cardia10 said:

 

 

I think you said it correctly, prior to Tiger, tour players would and for the most part still play whatever they are paid to. The first to pay has kept the market share for the most part. Who is to say Bridgestone wouldn't have been in the same boat if the patents hadn't been stolen and used by Titleist to develop the Pro V. They got ahead because they cheated and paid. Doesn't take a genius to do all that.

When every major brand is paying Tour players to use their products, by what possible definition of the word is that "cheating". Doing the exact same thing all your competitors do isn't "cheating" it is simply playing the game. 

 

Titleist already had the largest share of Tour ball use before the Pro V1 came out and then that share increased when the Balata era transitioned into Urethane. Not sure what gets all stuck in your craw about that, somebody has to be the market leader (it happened to be Titleist) and somebody had to be the one who first stumbled on the ball that most players chose to play (that happened to be Titleist). 

 

If that had happened to Macgregor or Spalding instead of Titleist would you still be banging on 20 years later with conspiracy theories silly posturing? 

[cardia10]

44 minutes ago, North Butte said:

When every major brand is paying Tour players to use their products, by what possible definition of the word is that "cheating". Doing the exact same thing all your competitors do isn't "cheating" it is simply playing the game. 

 

Titleist already had the largest share of Tour ball use before the Pro V1 came out and then that share increased when the Balata era transitioned into Urethane. Not sure what gets all stuck in your craw about that, somebody has to be the market leader (it happened to be Titleist) and somebody had to be the one who first stumbled on the ball that most players chose to play (that happened to be Titleist). 

 

If that had happened to Macgregor or Spalding instead of Titleist would you still be banging on 20 years later with conspiracy theories silly posturing? 

The cheating occurred when Titleist stole Bridgestone patents to create the Pro V. It is well documented and Titleist paid an amount per dozen sold to Bridgestone for years as a settlement so it wouldn’t go to court. I guess you can call it cheating or stealing or whatever words you prefer. 

[North Butte]

2 minutes ago, cardia10 said:

The cheating occurred when Titleist stole Bridgestone patents to create the Pro V. It is well documented and Titleist paid an amount per dozen sold to Bridgestone for years as a settlement so it wouldn’t go to court. I guess you can call it cheating or stealing or whatever words you prefer. 

I call it Full Employment For Lawyers, intellectual property rights are notoriously subjective and difficult to enforce. Money is constantly getting shuffled from one company to another. In the end, Bridgestone got paid didn't they? 

[storm319]

44 minutes ago, cardia10 said:

The cheating occurred when Titleist stole Bridgestone patents to create the Pro V. It is well documented and Titleist paid an amount per dozen sold to Bridgestone for years as a settlement so it wouldn’t go to court. I guess you can call it cheating or stealing or whatever words you prefer. 

Give it a rest 

[cardia10]

7 hours ago, storm319 said:

Give it a rest 

Oh, I thought we were talking about ball manufacturers and origins of some of these balls. Kind of what internet discussion forums are about...

[storm319]

2 hours ago, cardia10 said:

Oh, I thought we were talking about ball manufacturers and origins of some of these balls. Kind of what internet discussion forums are about...

This thread is about the Maxfli brand. If you want to continue your incessant ranting about the Bridgestone/Acushnet litigation, start another thread. 

[North Butte]

1 hour ago, storm319 said:

This thread is about the Maxfli brand. If you want to continue your incessant ranting about the Bridgestone/Acushnet litigation, start another thread. 

I think there was a skit on SNL many years ago with a Harry Shearer character who wouldn't talk about anything except the injustices of the Spanish Civil War.

 

Also, this just in. Generalissmo Francisco Franco is still dead.