PING : Play Your Best Karsten Solheim, founder of Karsten Manufacturing Corporation, creator of PING golf clubs, engineer and inventor, got his start as an engineer working for GE in Ithaca, New York. His passion for golf set him on a journey to create a better putter. At the time he thought he was simply building it for his own personal use, but in 1959, Karsten’s ongoing garage experiments yielded an innovative putter he called the 1A design. This putter had very distinctive design qualities, among them, a unique tone at impact, a sound that would echo throughout the game for generations to come…“Ping.” The Anser putter began a long and proud history of truly innovative equipment design throughout Ping’s entire product line (ultimately resulting in over 400 patents) that has set Ping at the top of the list of golf design and manufacturing companies. Solheim's heel-and-toe weighting theory for clubs revolutionized the industry. He pioneered investment casting in the golf club manufacturing business. It didn't take long for other golf club manufacturers to copy his methods. The company is headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona. Karsten passed away in 2000 with complications resulting from progressive Parkinson's disease. He was 88. His son John Solheim has taken the helm since then.
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