Let’s fireplace up the Wayback Machine, fellow GolfSpies. It’s time for one more version of Historical past’s Mysteries—MyGolfSpy’s take a look at the patchwork quilt that’s our sport’s previous.
In golf historical past, there are three, possibly 4, iconic putters. For the true historian, there’s Calamity Jane, the hickory-shafted wand Bobby Jones used to rule the Twenties. Then there’s the Wilson 8802 and Jack’s legendary MacGregor ZT-Response.
However I’m prepared to guess all of Warren Buffett’s cash and a large portion of my very own that almost everybody studying this text has performed this membership, or one similar to it, sooner or later of their {golfing} profession.
I’m speaking, after all, concerning the PING Anser.
Historical past’s Mysteries: The PING Anser
If Karsten Solheim isn’t in your Mount Rushmore of The Most Influential Folks in Golf Historical past, then I recommend you reevaluate your record. To paraphrase Connor T. Lewis of The Society of Golf Historians, if you happen to’re enjoying a contemporary golf membership, even when it doesn’t say PING on it, you’re enjoying some PING expertise.
“I heard Karsten discuss it so many occasions,” says PING Firm Historian Rob Griffin. “He simply needed folks to have the ability to benefit from the sport of golf. And if he might make it just a little simpler for folks to play higher, that was actually what he was about.”
PING is celebrating the 55th anniversary of the Anser patent this week. However to really recognize the story of the Anser, it’s vital to grasp Karsten Solheim’s most uncommon journey.
It’s not what you’d count on.
Sneakers, Skates and Cookware
Karsten Solheim was born in Bergen, Norway, in 1911. Two years later, his household moved to Seattle. His mom died giving beginning to his brother Ray. Karsten and Ray have been raised by household buddies whereas their father Herman labored to help the household. With all of the turmoil, Karsten didn’t study to talk English till he was nearly seven.
In his teenagers, he labored together with his father within the household shoemaking and restore enterprise. After graduating highschool in 1931, he enrolled on the College of Washington to check engineering.
Destiny had different plans.
“Throughout his first semester, his dad had an damage and couldn’t do the work within the shoe store,” says Griffin. “So Karsten got here again to assist. Working within the shoe store taught Karsten methods to work together with his fingers.”
Simply earlier than Christmas in 1935, destiny intervened once more, this time fortunately. At a church social, younger Karsten met Louise Crozier. He proposed 10 days later and so they have been married the next June.
“I consider that if Karsten had married a special younger girl, we’d not be right here at present,” says Griffin. “Louise was so vital to the enterprise and to Karsten. She had a manner of protecting him targeted and she or he was his closest enterprise advisor.”
5 years and three children later, destiny would intervene but once more. In early 1940, Karsten broke his wrist whereas ice skating. He couldn’t restore footwear however nonetheless had a household to feed.
He was provided a job at a automotive dealership but it surely was an indication of Miracle Maid aluminum cookware that caught his eye.
Yep, the person who designed the Anser and the Eye2 bought pots and pans door to door.
Miracle Maid and World Struggle II
Miracle Maid employed Karsten as its Seattle gross sales rep. By his second 12 months, he was the highest salesman on the West Coast, finally turning into West Coast division supervisor and shifting to Fresno, Calif.
When World Struggle II halted Miracle Maid manufacturing, Karsten was out of a job. The army, nonetheless, wanted engineers. Karsten, with one semester of school underneath his belt, signed up for a 10-week crash engineering extension course on the College of California in Fresno. Because it turned out, Karsten was so good his professor handed him after six weeks and he was positioned in an engineering job at Convair engaged on airplanes.
Karsten was drafted in 1943. To verify he would have a job after the warfare, he utilized to Ryan Aeronautical. Ryan employed him on the spot to work on the FR-1 Fireball, the Navy’s first jet-propelled fighter. Karsten helped develop the Fireball’s hydraulic touchdown gear.
After the warfare, Miracle Maid got here calling with sufficient money to lure Karsten again. He turned the quintessential touring salesman, usually on the highway all week.
“Louise helped him with the enterprise a part of it,” says Griffin. “He would go do these in-house demonstrations and he would really cook dinner meals with the pots and pans. That’s the place he discovered to be a salesman.”
In 1951, Karsten returned to Convair. He labored on the Atlas Missile undertaking and in a while a missile monitoring system. In 1953, he was on the transfer once more, going to work for Basic Electrical in its Superior Electronics Middle in Ithaca, N.Y.
Up till this time, the 42-year-old Karsten had by no means even appeared at a golf membership.
A Pivotal Spherical of Golf
Whereas in Ithaca, Karsten labored on GE’s first moveable tv. He designed the steel cupboard and is usually—erroneously—credited with inventing the “rabbit ears” antenna.
“He didn’t invent the rabbit ears,” says Griffin. “However Karsten designed rabbit ears with a ball-type socket in order that they might be moved in any path so you could possibly tune in stations higher.”
Sadly, GE determined to not promote the TV with the antenna attributable to an obscure luxurious tax. So Karsten gave his patent to a Chicago firm referred to as Radion.
“You’d purchase your TV from GE,” Griffin says. “However if you happen to needed an antenna, you’d purchase it from Radion. After they bought two million units of rabbit ears, they gave Karsten a gold-plated set.”
Whereas nobody is sort of positive, Griffin believes these gold-plated rabbit ears impressed the PING Gold Putter Vault.
It was throughout this time that Karsten, coaxed by some co-workers, first tried golf. And like many first-timers, he was brutal. Particularly at placing. He seen that even a slight mishit would trigger his blade-style putter to twist. The engineer in him went to work on an answer. He discovered a small block of aluminum within the GE motor store and set about fashioning his personal putter.
Karsten tried to resolve the twisting drawback by drilling holes at both finish of the putter and filling them with lead. His crude, perimeter-weighted putter did the trick and his placing bought higher.
The Subsequent Stage
“Karsten by no means thought of constructing putters to promote,” says Griffin. “He was simply making an attempt to enhance his personal placing.”
Destiny, as soon as once more, had its personal plan.
By 1958, GE transferred Karsten to the Bay Space in California to work on a brand new computerized banking system. It was there, whereas on the placing inexperienced at Palo Alto Municipal GC, that head skilled Pat Mahoney complimented Karsten’s talent with the flat stick.
“You need to have seen me earlier than I made this putter,” Karsten is reported to have advised him.
After some dialogue, Mahoney stated if somebody might invent a putter like his that will additionally get the ball rolling sooner, as an alternative of skidding, “he might promote 1,000,000 of them.”
At that second, the figurative gentle bulb turned on above Karsten’s head.
Inside a day, Karsten sketched what would change into the prototype of the very first PING putter, the 1A, and had a good friend weld it up.
“With Karsten’s first putter, he didn’t take into consideration low middle of gravity,” says Griffin. “He simply thought of heel-toe weighting to stop twisting. It was Mahoney that bought him eager about rolling the ball as an alternative of skidding. When he made his drawing, he had what he referred to as the Torsion Bar on the only to get the burden decrease on the putter.”
And PING? That got here from the sound the putter made when it hit the ball.
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With the 1A putter and the identify PING, Karsten began making putters in his storage. He was nonetheless working full time for GE, whereas PING consisted of Karsten designing and milling prototypes, son John because the meeting staff and Louise taking care of the books, answering the telephone, taking orders, dealing with the delivery and managing stock.
“Over the course of their lives, Karsten and Louise acquired the right talent set to start out this putter enterprise,” Griffin explains. “Louise all the time labored. She was a math whiz and labored for Convair of their wind tunnel. Her job title was ‘pc.’”
By 1960, Karsten was a fixture at PGA TOUR occasions, displaying his putters to professionals and charging them $5 every to purchase one. He figured in the event that they needed to pay for putters, professionals have been more likely to worth them. In 1961, Karsten began experimenting with irons. The proprietor of Golfcraft gave him a batch of unfinished solid heads. Karsten machined out cavities and finally created the PING 69 Ballnamic irons which featured a signature double bend within the shaft proper beneath the grip.
GE reassigned Karsten, now in his early 50s, as soon as once more, however the putter enterprise continued to develop. In 1962, John Barnum gave PING its first PGA TOUR victory by profitable the Cajun Traditional in Louisiana. And in 1965, Susie Maxwell gave PING its first LPGA win.
However in 1966, the PING world was about to interrupt large open.
Three Days in January
The primary PGA TOUR occasion of 1966 was the Las Angeles Open, Jan. 6-9. As typical, Karsten was there together with his array of putters. He discovered few takers. Everybody, it appeared, was utilizing Arnold Palmer’s putter—the Wilson 8802. As soon as he bought again dwelling, he advised Louise, “I’ve bought to search out a solution for Arnie’s putter.”
That very night time, he began sketching on the very first thing he might discover: the internal sleeve of an outdated 78-rpm vinyl report cowl.
“On Jan. 14, he made a extra detailed drawing on a bit of graph paper,” says Griffin. “And on that drawing, he references a pattern made on Jan. 13.”
Such was the thoughts of Karsten Solheim. In a matter of three days, he sketched, designed and prototyped the preferred putter within the historical past of golf.
Three days.
That prototype sits in Griffin’s workplace and is proven right here subsequent to its direct descendant, the Fifty fifth-anniversary mannequin released earlier this week.
And the Anser identify? That’s all Louise.
Whereas the design got here simply, Karsten couldn’t work out what to name his new putter. It was Louise who famously stated, “Why don’t you name it the Reply?” In spite of everything, it was PING’s reply to the 8802.
Karsten’s reply is equally well-known: “That’s no identify for a putter.”
“They hemmed and hawed for a couple of days,” says Griffin. “And John Solheim remembers it was the morning Karsten was going to the engraver to have the nameplate for the putter made and he nonetheless hadn’t provide you with a reputation.
“Louise stated, ‘I advised you, name it the Reply.’ And Karsten stated, ‘That’s too many letters. It received’t match.’
“And he or she stated, ‘Properly, take off the W. It’ll sound the identical.’”
The PING Anser Takes Off
Karsten arrived on the Phoenix Open three weeks later with an armful of Ansers. Gene Littler, Kermit Zarley, George Archer and others gamed them nearly instantly. One week later, Lionel Hebert and his Anser received the Florida Citrus Open. And two weeks after that, Harold Henning received the Texas Invitational with an Anser.
Together with Karsten’s signature heel-toe weighting, the Anser featured a hollowed-out cavity to assist decrease the middle of gravity. It additionally launched one thing all of us take without any consideration at present: the plumber’s-neck hosel.
On the time, PING was identified for its bent Ballnamic shafts. They helped golfers to maintain their fingers forward of the ball at affect. The plumber’s neck wound up doing the identical factor however with a straight shaft. As well as, the Anser’s straight strains and proper angles helped golfers sq. it up simply. It was balanced, steady and extra forgiving than another putter going.
Karsten utilized for a patent on March 21, 1966. Precisely one 12 months later, the U.S. Patent Workplace granted the PING Anser design patent quantity 207,227.
The timing couldn’t have been higher. At about the identical time, the USGA had determined to ban croquet-style placing, the place golfers straddled the road and used a croquet stroke. Unrelated was an add-on ruling banning any shaft bends greater than 5 inches above the only of the membership.
Since almost all of PING’s putters and all of PING’s irons function the Ballnamic shaft, Karsten had nothing to promote. Apart from the PING Anser.
“The rule was purported to take impact in 1968 however the Tour adopted it immediately,” says Griffin. “The one putter Karsten had that complied with the principles was the Anser. It saved the enterprise.”
It wouldn’t be the final time PING and the USGA would butt heads.
PING Turns into PING
All through 1966, PING was nonetheless run out of the Solheim household storage with Karsten doing the design and gross sales and son John dealing with meeting. And Karsten was nonetheless working full-time for GE. However by early 1967, GE needed to switch Karsten to Oklahoma Metropolis. The Solheims had moved an estimated 20 occasions over their 25 years collectively and sufficient was sufficient.
Apart from, Louise had been protecting the books. She confirmed Karsten he was making more cash promoting putters than he was with GE. It was time.
So, on the age of 55, Karsten Solheim give up his job at GE, purchased some land and a constructing and formally created Karsten Manufacturing and PING. Inside two years, gross sales would develop from $50,000 a 12 months to greater than $800,000. The sprawling PING campus at present sits at the exact same location at 10834 North 21st Avenue in Phoenix.
On the time of his dying in 2000, Forbes Journal listed Karsten as one of many 400 richest folks in America.
And it’s apparent to anybody who performs the sport that the PING Anser is probably the most copied putter design in historical past.
“The factor concerning the PING Anser is that it was a design patent, not a utility patent,” says Griffin. “And design patents expire rapidly. It was in impact for under about 14 years.”
Moreover, Griffin admits PING didn’t defend the patent all that vigorously.
“I don’t know precisely why however Karsten didn’t defend the patent significantly properly,” he says. “We additionally didn’t renew it, though we might have. I believe Karsten was extra involved about folks utilizing his identify or the PING identify.”
The PING Anser: Thriller Solved
In direction of the top of our dialog, I needed to ask Griffin a easy query. If Karsten walked right into a golf store at present and noticed all these PING Anser copies, what would he suppose? What would he say?
“He’d in all probability say one thing like, ‘Hey, I do know the place that design got here from,’” Griffin replied, laughing. “I believe he can be flattered. That’s the factor about Karsten that we don’t discuss sufficient. His actual aim in life was to make the sport of golf simpler for folks so they’d get pleasure from it extra.”
We at MyGolfSpy meet with OEM R&D engineers on a regular basis and also you’ll invariably hear them discuss perimeter weighting, forgiveness and low CG. They discuss getting the ball up within the air simpler and protecting mishits in play. And as a rule, they’ll remind us it’s all stuff Karsten was speaking about within the ’60s and ’70s. And it was Karsten who found out that by decreasing the CG and including perimeter weighting, you could possibly strengthen lofts to make the ball go farther.
It’s no exaggeration to say that nearly each golfer on the planet at present has benefitted from Karsten’s improvements. Even if you happen to’re not enjoying PING, you’re enjoying a descendant of PING expertise.
And it might probably all be traced again to an engineer who by no means did have an engineering diploma, who thought he might make a greater putter.
And that, my buddies, ansers that.
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