COVER STORY
50 YEARS OF INNOVATION
PING reaches a major milestone this year as it celebrates 50 years of innovation in golf.
The company’s inventions include such ground-breaking concepts as investment casting,
heel-toe balance, perimeter club weighting, custom fitting, cavity back design, not to mention
the iconic PING ANSER putter and the best-selling PING Eye-2 irons.
HE PING story began gave to his son, Allan, who milled out
T
in 1959 in the Redwood the back. By distributing the weight to
City, California, the extremities of his clubs, Solheim was
garage of Karsten and among the first pioneers of perimeter
Louise Solheim where club weighting, an innovation which
Karsten, a Norwegian-born engineer increased the size of the sweet-spot and
and frustrated golfer, set out to design a reduced twisting on off-center hits.
putter that would improve his golf game The early prototypes, which Solheim
by applying what he called “the simplest and his teenage sons, John A. and
laws of physics and mechanics” to the Allan, perfected in their garage, were
problem of knocking little white balls produced in limited quantities during
into a hole. Little did he know then that the early 1960s, albeit with some
he would end up revolutionizing the impressive results. “In those days, my dad
golf industry and establishing one of the worked on new clubs in the evenings
most successful companies in the history and I handled production,” said John
of golf. A. Solheim, who became the company’s
In 1961, Solheim, who at the time president in 1995 and assumed the roles
was employed by General Electric, was of Chairman and CEO in 1999.
KARSTEN WITH ONE OF THE ORIGINAL ANSER
transferred to Phoenix, Arizona, where “We’d have Johnny Miller, or Gene
PUTTERS IN THE 1960S
he and Louise looked for a house with Littler, or Gary Player visit the garage,
a big garage. With more room to work, and my Dad would ask them what their
Karsten finds the Anser
the business began to grow. By night, favorite iron was.” As the first PING clubs gradually gained
Karsten made putters. By day, Louise Armed with that information, he acceptance among serious golfers,
managed the business. She kept the would take the club in question, check word started to spread about Solheim’s
books, took orders, mailed putters and the set up, and then adjust their other scientific approach to club design and the
handled correspondence. clubs so that they felt the same. Time real turning point in his career came in
It was also in 1961 that Solheim after time, John A. Solheim recalls, 1966 when he sketched an idea for a new
developed his first cavity-back iron, the these golfers would win their next putter. This refined version of the original
PING 69. It was a forged iron which he tournament. PING prototype putter — dubbed the
PING Anser, because the word “Answer”
KARSTEN RECEIVES THE PRESIDENT’S “E” AWARD FOR EXPORT EXPANSION FROM RONALD
was too long to fit on the toe of the club
REAGAN IN 1988
head — cemented Solheim’s reputation
among PGA golfers. It was a message
that was reinforced when George Archer
used the new putter to win the Masters in
1969. The Anser would go on to become
the most popular putter in golf history,
to date accounting for over 600 of the
more than 2,400 PING putter pro Tour
wins worldwide.
Another ground-breaking innovation
that Solheim perfected in the 1970s was
his patented loft and lie gauge, which a
few years later would be used to calibrate
the specific colour codes that made up
the renowned PING Colour Code System
for custom-fitting and custom-building
irons. Acknowledging that not all people
are the same height, he colour-coded
16 January 2009 PRO SHOP EUROPE
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