In August 1946, I first hit a Titleist golf ball. I was 9 years old and my returning war hero brother told me I could caddie for him if I went out behind Big Beaver school, laid out two golf holes, and practiced until I could hit the ball every swing and then find it.

I showed him the two golf holes I made by sinking peach cans in the ground. He smiled. Then I gave him back the three Titleists he had loaned me. He stopped smiling but the balls didn’t. They looked like they had been hit by a lawn mower.

But that started me in golf and eight years later I won the Evans Scholarship to the University of Michigan where I played, of course, nothing but Titleists. Eight years later, I bought 100 acres in Jackson County and designed and built a golf course. It took me four years and every cent I had or lots of cents I didn’t have. The first ball struck on that course was a Titleist, as were the most popular balls I sold in the pro shop at The Boondocks Golf Course, Grass Lake, Michigan.

I am now 73 years old with an eight handicap. For 64 years now, I have played nothing but Titleists and now prefer Pro V1’s. The golfers I play with are much higher handicappers and so I get to search the woods and waters for lost balls while looking for theirs. Over the last three years, my golfing partner and I have donated 8,000 balls to the boys and girls golf teams of Brandon High School and Goodrich High School, two schools hard hit by the recession and where sports programs are in peril. About one third of those balls are Titleists, and those are the most popular with the kids.

Much has changed in my 64 years in golf. One constant is that Titleist is the number one ball in the game and it is the only ball I will play.