A Look Back: Sept. 10 1944: Byron Nelson captures the Texas Victory Open. 1966: Gene Littler wins the World Series of Golf at Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio. 1989: Mike Hulbert defeats Bob Estes in a playoff to win the B.C. Open. 1995: Mark O'Meara defeats Bob Lohr to win the Bell Canadian Open. 1995: In what amounts to a battle between two Scots, Colin Montgomerie shoots an 11-under-par 269 to win the Trophee Lancome by one stroke over Sam Torrance.

Equipment
Spalding introduces its new Top-Flite XL 3000 golf ball featuring the revolutionary dimple technology called S.O.A.R. (Scientifically Optimized Aerodynamic Reaction), which allows the ball to travel seven yards longer on average than the comparable XL 2000 balls.
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Dunlop Golf's Long Driver Sean "The Beast" Fister led his team to victory with a 420-yard drive in the final match of the 2001 USA vs. The World Long Drive Challenge held Sept. 1-2 in Toronto, Canada. Fister used a Tad Moore by Dunlop Titanium Driver to help beat the world team, led by Canadian Jason Zuback, and to finish third individually in the competition.
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More than half the field at the Bell Canadian Open wore Softspikes brand cleats, according to the Darrell Survey. Seventy-nine of the 81 golfers wearing Softspikes chose Black Widow cleats.
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Schedules
The PGA Tour announces a schedule of 49 events for the 2002 season. The year starts in Hawaii with the Mercedes Championships, concludes in November after The Tour Championship, and includes four World Golf Championships and the Presidents Cup.
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Courses
Rees Jones' newest design in Michigan, Thousand Oaks Golf Club, is declared "Best New Course" in the Midwest by the readers of Great Lakes Golf magazine.
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Palmer Course Design Company announces the company's latest project, Big Creek, located in Polk City, Iowa.
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Troon Golf announces it will oversee the operations and membership programs for the Hale Irwin-designed Prescott Lakes Golf Club in Prescott, Ariz.
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People
Ajay Sports elects Joseph J. White as its Director, President and COO. White, who will serve in the same role for Ajay Sports' subsidaries, has held senior level positions at many other sporting goods companies including Gary Player Group and Dunlop.
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Barbara J. Gonzalez, former Vice President and Director of New Business Development for Palmer Course Design Company, died on Aug. 30. Gonzalez had been with Palmer Course Design Company from 1973 until her retirement in 1997.
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Business
Clothing producer Hartmax claims The Lincoln Company made misrepresentations about an offer to purchase the company and has filed a lawsuit. Hartmax makes golf clothing brands Bobby Jones and Jack Nicklaus, among others.
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Associations
The Golf Nuts Society offers a chance to let sandbaggers and slow players join the Sandbaggers Society or Turtles Anonymous clubs. Caps and certificates are for sale on the society's Web site.
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People, Places & Things
Golfer's gold: Titanium

Titanium. The element is the fourth most common in the earth's crust and seems like the most popular element found in golf clubs. Used primarily for drivers and fairway clubs, it's a lightweight, but hard and strong metal with about 60 percent of steel's density, making it ideal for creating a large clubhead with a thin wall.

Club designers using titanium to make bigger clubheads can use that extra size to enlarge the hitting area of the club and move the center of gravity back to allow for more accuracy and higher ball trajectories.

Some of the monster titanium clubheads being manufactured these days can approach 400 cubic centimenters, in comparison to traditional persimmon heads that are about half that size but weigh the same.

Not only do many golfers find the giant heads to be easier to hit, but their size is reassuring, adding to their popularity. And irons made of titanium can also be larger with many of the same benefits that fairway metals provide.

Without titanium, there likely would not be an argument about legal or illegal drivers. The coefficient of restitution -- that's the technical term for spring-like effect, or the ability of the clubface to act like a trampoline as it propels the ball -- couldn't exceed USGA limits without a hard, but malleable, metal like titanium.

Not all titanium is created equal. An alloy containing 6 percent aluminum and 4 percent vanadium -- 6-4 titanium -- is most commonly used in clubheads.

Beta titanium is less commonly used because it's more expensive, and also includes chromium and nickel in the alloy. Sometimes manufacturers will use beta titanium for the face and a different alloy for the rest of the club, to keep prices down.

Finally, commercially pure titanium can be used for clubmaking as well. Other alloys are cheap and don't measure up, so check when you buy.

Because titanium has become so popular, manufacturers have also made shafts and balls that contain the metal. Titanium shafts fall somewhere between steel and graphite in terms of flexibility and feel, and have yet to compete with those more popular materials. And golf ball manufacturers can label their products as containing titanium when only the paint does, so exercise caution when buying balls containing titanium.