At Ping it’s personal. This also applies to those who play for the clubs

Be careful with first love, my father once told me. It only comes once. That must be true, but I’m here to tell you: I got it right the third time.

My first serious relationship was with a set of Wilson Staff irons, stamped Dynapower on their backs, with red dots on their soles, along with the words Liquid Feeling. Wilson Staff was the crown prince of elite irons in the mid-1970s, and I saved for months to buy this used set for $100.

Later I replaced them with a set of Japanese-made PRGRs, irons with a dull matte finish, as nice as a club could be, although part of the appeal was the space-age shafts, black graphite and chosen to match the player’s swing speed. These PRGRs cost a fortune, but I was single and what else would I spend my disposable income on?

And then I fell for Ping. It wasn’t love at first sight. The courtship unfolded over time, during a kind of long honeymoon. (There was no end date.) Christine and I married in the fall of 1990, and in February 1991 we flew to France, where I did a weeklong caddy tryout with an American journeyman on the European Tour, Peter Teravainen, a Yale student with an economics degree and a mind turned to numbers and logic.

It was a period of heightened awareness for me: Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” was playing in the cab we took to JFK; our Pan Am flight to Paris was choked with cigarette smoke. On our first morning in Saint-Raphaël, Christine gave me a ride from our run-down hotel to the trail on the back of the moped and through a misty rain. Breakfast was a chocolate croissant, out of a bag and still warm. Etc.

I met Peter. He had small teeth, a broad forehead, and his pants were shiny with wear. His bag was filled with Ping irons, along with a Ping putter. His bag itself was a white staff bag with a single strap, with his name stamped on one side Ping on the other side. When I wore it for the second week (I got through the test with some adventure) the bag had a small dent on the side where my left hip was in it.

I cadged for Peter all summer, when the tour reached Scotland and Christine and I got off the bus. At that time, the European Tour still wintered on the continent, in the southern parts of France, Spain, Portugal and Italy. Somewhere during those weeks I started leaving my toothbrush at the House of Ping. Part of the appeal was that Peter used his Ping clubs so effectively. (He made cuts.) Since then I’ve been playing Ping Eye2s, the model that played Peter.

The design of Ping’s irons and putters (the Ping Anser, the Ping Pal) was once considered radical. For decades, the clubs themselves were a testament to the vision of Karsten Solheim, the company’s founder, who valued functionality over everything else. His irons had a wide sole, a high toe, a stubby hose and a huge amount of offset. The company’s putters, its first product, were considered bizarrely different upon their debut. But Tom Watson made his Ping Pal putter look great simply by winning with it time and time again. Tiger Woods did the same with his Anser 2, going back to his amateur days. In terms of shape and usability, the early Scotty Cameron putter line is a direct descendant of the early Ping putter line. You know what they say about imitation.

I met Karsten Solheim only once, during a tour of the Ping (Karsten Manufacturing) factory in Phoenix 30 years ago. Karsten was 84 and had recently handed over the company keys to the youngest of his three sons, John A. Solheim. A small group of us entered Karsten’s office, with John as our guide. Karsten sat hunched over a drawing table like a doctor looking at an X-ray. I told Karsten about my affection for the Eye2 and he said, “We’ve never made a better iron.” The others weren’t exactly thrilled, but that’s what he said. Karsten, op Forbes magazine, was then one of the 400 richest Americans, but his motivation in business wasn’t primarily money. It was the pursuit of better tools for golf. His super wealth stemmed from that. He lived like the GE engineer he once was.

A few months ago I shared Karsten’s long-ago comment about the Eye2 with Robin McCool, a retired Ping salesperson and experienced amateur golfer. While Robin readily acknowledged Karsten’s commitment to the Eye2, he offered this addendum: “But he also said this: ‘We’ve only just begun to explore the surface.'”

John A. comes in, scratching. He was 50 on the day of that Ping factory tour, when the company tried to promote an iron with John’s fingerprints on it, the ISI. That club was never a top-40 super hit, but a year or two later John’s TiSI driver was. Now he is 80 and chairman of Ping.

For thirty years – from 1996 to 2026, from ages 50 to 80 – John has been a steward of what his father started and then some. The company is still family owned. The company has steadily maintained its employee count at around 1,000, with low turnover. Intensely personal customer service is still a hallmark of the company.

But there has also been a remarkable change. In the Karsten years, there were players who left Ping after winning majors, including John Daly, Mark Calcavecchia and Bob Tway. They wanted the guaranteed payday that comes with being a top golfer, and Karsten, a stubborn Norwegian and a child of the Depression, despised the idea of ​​pay-to-play. His system was a bonus pool, based on what you earned on the job. John changed that policy and thereby kept Louis Oosthuizen, Bubba Watson and others in the Ping fold. John A.’s son, John K., now president and CEO of the company, came up with a stunning realization: Visual and tactile elements of club design—the feel of it, its finish—actually influence performance. Somewhere Karsten is stroking his little Colonel Sanders beard in contemplative confusion, but this third generation Solheim is certainly right. You Doing You must have a good feeling about your club in all respects. To love a club you have to love the look and feel.

I’m drawn to Eye2s because they work, because I know what I can do with them – and because I like their look and feel. The throwback Thursday statement they make speaks to me. I love the memories they bring back: discovering Europe off the tourist trail; early marriage; Peter’s tendencies under tournament pressure. These things came later: the decent shots I played with my Eye2s; the reaction of playing partners to these shots; the courts on which they were played.

I have a backup set and a backup of the backup. There might actually still be a set somewhere. Steel and beryllium copper models, with black dots, for my fellow Ping heads. (The black dot represents the default location on the Ping fitting system with its color-coded map.) Don’t tell me I’d shoot lower scores with other irons, because I don’t believe it and I don’t care.

Ping’s footprint is gigantic. You can see it in women’s professional golf. (For starters, the Solheim Cup.) Collegiate golf. (The Karsten Course in Oklahoma State.) Left-handed golf. (Ping has always targeted left-handers.) Senior golf. (Clubs with weight toward the perimeter make it easier to launch the ball.) Etc.

But my goal here is to pay a more personal tribute to Ping, and to John Solheim at age 80. His family business (one might almost say) is not a business at all, not in the conventional sense. The ROI of it comes with our joy. As the company has gone from the Karsten era to John A. and now John K., it has kept a close eye on that idea.

I have seen John A. Solheim, who represented the second generation, dozens of times over the past thirty years at Ryder Cups, British Opens, LPGA events, merchandise shows, in restaurants and hotel lobbies, and at World Golf Hall of Fame inductions. (Karsten is a member.) At the age of 80 he is fitter than at the age of 50. He is on the course at these events, strolling and paying close attention, usually with a friend, family member or co-worker. He is always gentle, unhurried and warm in his own austere way. Once I asked John if he was optimistic about the future of golf and he answered with a resounding yes.

“Golf is such a beautiful game,” he said. “It teaches you so much about life. There is no game like it. To be able to play with friends, in beautiful conditions, this game has to grow.”

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com