Who owns pingg

A tennis player, he never even tried golf until moving to Ithaca, when in at the age of 42 he played a round with coworkers and became enamoured with the game. Putting was particularly troubling to Solheim, who soon concluded that a large part of his difficulties could be attributed to design flaws in his putter, which no matter how consistently he stroked it would twist just enough to send the ball off course. Knowing that a tennis racket employed perimeter weighting, in which the weight was distributed to the rim to allow the strings to provide greater power, Solheim decided to apply the same principle to the putter.

By putting most of the weight at the heel and toe of the putter's blade he would be able to create a forgiving "sweet spot" in the center, allowing the player a much better chance to hit the ball straight. Solheim tested his idea by having a neighbor weld some metal to the back of the heel and toe of a putter, changes that helped the club head to complete a stroke.

He then worked out the design of a new putter by gluing two popsicle sticks to the sides of a pair of sugar cubes with a shaft rising from the center. By the time he had constructed a prototype of his new putter, the 1A design, he had been transferred by GE to Palo Alto, California, where he worked with a team that produced the first banking computer system.

Years later he recalled trying out the putter for the first time in in his kitchen in Redwood City, California: "I heard this noise, it startled me so much I dropped the putter on the floor. And then I knew that's what I would call my new putter: Ping. As he continued to work for GE during the day, Solheim spent his weekends visiting golf course pro shops, giving away free putters to resident professionals to elicit feedback to help him improve the design.

He even was known to lay out graph paper on the practice green to provide objective proof that his putter hit the ball straighter. One proshop owner in urged him to manufacture the Ping putter and sell them through the club professionals. He also warned him not to quit his day job, advice that Solheim followed for several years. First in Redwood City and then in Phoenix after GE again transferred him in , Solheim began to produce Ping putters in his garage at night, hand-grinding the heads in his garage and then heating them on the kitchen stove to fit them on shafts.

His sons helped out, drilling holes in the putter head to accommodate the shaft and adding the grips. To market his revolutionary putter Solheim began to attend professional tournaments, lingering at the practice green to ask the players to try his putter. Many were reluctant because they considered the Ping to be ugly, a fact to which Solheim was indifferent, insistent that his club should be accepted because of what it could do, not its appearance.

Golfers by nature were willing to try almost anything to improve their game, especially their putting, so enough pros gave the Ping a chance to begin to build word of mouth about the new putter, aided to some degree by Solheim engraving his name and address on the head. Winning tournaments, of course, translated into sales, as casual golfers, hoping the magic would rub off on them, invested in the same equipment as the victor of that weekend's tournament.

In the early s the sale of Ping putters was spurred by Gloria Armstong's win in a his-her tournament and John Barnum's win of the Cajun Classic. A Sports Illustrated article on the "musical putter" also helped sell the Pings.

In Solheim received a patent on the heel-toe weighting design on his putter, but continued to work on improving the design while also beginning to develop irons. Because he lacked access to a wind tunnel, he had a son drive him miles an hour in the desert in order to hold his prototype irons out the window to check the drag caused by a typical swing.

In January an idea for a new putter came to him in a flash of inspiration. Unable to wait to get the concept down on paper he grabbed a record sleeve and sketched the design. His wife Louise thought the new putter should be called "answer," a name that Solheim liked but that possessed too many letters to fit on the club. She then suggested that the "w" be left out.

The legendary "Anser" putter, used by countless tournament winners, was born, and Karsten Solheim was on the verge of finally quitting his day job. Marketing of the Anser was still limited to word of mouth, but those voices would become greatly amplified by the rise of professional golf on television, fueled by the popularity of Arnold Palmer and the rising star of Jack Nicklaus.

Solheim, not intending to quit his engineering job, continued to meet the demand for his putters through his garage operation, much to the annoyance of his neighbors, but when GE decided to once again transfer him, this time to Oklahoma City, he decided to try the golf business full time. He was 56 when in July he incorporated Karsten Manufacturing and then bought a 2,square-foot building in Phoenix.

Years later he told an interviewer, "When I moved into that little room I felt like I was a king. The story of Ping began in in Karsten and Louise Solheim's garage in Redwood City, California where he looked to design the perfect putter. He created the iconic Anser putter, the design of which came to him in a flash. He sketched the design on a dust jacket of a 78 rpm record. It was finalised in The name 'Anser' was thought of by his wife Louise.

Originally she suggested 'Answer' as it was designed to be the answer to the problem of putting. Then because the word wouldn't fit on the putter when engraved, she suggested taking the 'w' out and a legend was born. The logo is usually the word 'Ping' but there has been another, the 'Ping Man'. Solheim created him by bending a piece of wire. The company name 'Ping' was named because of the sound the ball made when it hit the metal face.

The company has a gold putter vault to commemorate a golfer's victory using a Ping putter. The tradition began in the 's and each winner is presented with a gold putter that matches their putter specs.

Severiano Ballesteros has the most clubs in there in terms of wins, whereas Lee Westwood has the most clubs overall. During the 's, the USGA changed the rules regarding grooves and deemed that Ping's irons violated those after he rounded off the edges of his U-shaped grooves.

Solheim, is chairman and CEO. We are committed to making the best golf products in the world to help golfers play better and enjoy the game more. In , Karsten Solheim started tinkering with putters because he was frustrated with the models that were available. Over time, the PING 1A putters and their heel-toe weighting gained popularity, to the point in which Solheim decided to quit his job at G. After his resignation, he decided to move the business to a Phoenix-based factory and name his company Karsten Manufacturing Corporation.

PING has carried on its successful legacy as an innovator in the equipment space while staying true to its roots as a family-owned and run business. The new approaches adopted by Solheim — a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame — not only put PING on the map as an innovator in the industry but opened the door for other manufacturers and ushered out the era of persimmon drivers. Login Username.