Ping Golf Putters
Both traditional and nontraditional looks may be found among Ping Golf Putters designed to fit your game and help you cut down on strokes while you are out on the green. Every one of these putters can be custom-fit to the putting stroke of a particular player.
Of all the Ping product categories, Ping golf putters are the most prolific. Ping’s history began in 1959 in the garage in Redwood City, California, where Karsten Solheim invented the Ping 1-A putter. A Norwegian-born mechanical engineer for General Electric, Solheim merged his theory of heel-toe balance with the concept that the twisting of the putter head at impact should be reduced.
For the original putter that he designed and crafted, he chose the name Ping because of the “ping!” sound the putter made upon ball contact. In the beginning, his putters seemed slow in gaining acceptance from pro players and from golf shops, but in 1961, Solheim transferred to the GE computer facility headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona, and later decided to leave GE and devote his time to his product; at that point, the demand for Ping golf putters was increasing.
In 1966, Solheim designed the Ping Anser Putter, and sales rose. His business outgrew the garage and was moved to a building in northwest Phoenix. As the business continued to grow, pro golfer Julius Boros won the PGA Tour Phoenix Open in 1967 with a Ping putter. The Ping Anser putter came to be considered the “winningest” and the most copied golf putter.
Solheim had been working on his own line of irons and woods too, and he incorporated in July 1967 as Karsten Manufacturing Corporation. Ping golf putters were soon being used by amateurs and professionals to win more golf tournaments than the other brands. Solheim’s heel-toe balance theory epitomized in Ping golf putters was not his only industry-revolutionizing idea. He also pioneered the use of investment casting in golf club manufacturing.
Ping Eye2 model irons in the 1980s became the number 1 seller in the history of golf. More recently, Ping i3 irons also achieved great popularity. As recognition of Solheim’s club-making skills and custom-fitting of equipment to the golfer’s needs, the Guild of Master Craftsmen (England) inducted Karsten UK Ltd. as its first golf equipment corporate member. Karsten UK remained the guild’s only golf equipment corporate member.
Solheim and his corporation have received many statewide and national awards. Induction into the Phoenix Open Hall of Fame in January 1987 and the Arizona Golf Hall of Fame in 2000 are counted among these honors. Whether you seek the feedback of steel-faced Ping golf putters, the feel of insert putters, or the precision of 100 percent milled putters, Ping has the technology you want.
