Ping Founder Dies

Karsten Solheim, the man who invented a putter with a "Ping" and went on to found one of golf's most successful equipment companies, has died in Pheonix, Arizona, aged 88.

The founder of Karsten Manufacturing and the creator of Ping golf clubs, Solheim was the first to develop perimeter-weighted irons, and his popular brand of putters have been used to win more than 1,800 professional titles around the world.

He also gave women's golf an international presence by sponsoring the Solheim Cup, biennial matches shaped after the Ryder Cup between Europe and the United States.

"He paved the way for all of us," said Ely Callaway, founder of Callaway Golf. "He was a great pioneer. He designed the first clubs that varied from conventional design. He changed it all, and we give him a lot of credit for that."

Ken Lindsay, former president of the PGA of America, said: "Perhaps no individual has had as profound an impact on the golf industry as Karsten Solheim."

Solheim stepped down as president and CEO of Karsten Manufacturing in 1995 and was succeeded by his son, John. He had been confined to a wheelchair in recent years because of Parkinson's disease.

John Solheim is now chairman of the family business which celebrated its 40th anniversary last year.

"It's unlikely there will be another era in the golf industry like Karsten Solheim's last 40 years," said Sandy Jones, executive director of the PGA.

"His dream was to build a better golf club so that golfers could enjoy the game. He more than fulfilled that dream and made the game of golf fun for millions."

Most of today's club innovations were developed by Solheim, a native of Norway who left his job as a mechanical engineer with General Electric not long after he designed his first putter in 1959.

He was the first to use investment casting, aimed at improving the consistency of irons. He also developed the concept of perimeter weighting, which distributes the weight of the iron to the outer edges to increase the sweet spot and allow more room for error.

And it was Solheim who first put an "L" on a high-lofted club that has become one of golf's essential implements - the lob wedge.

"Knowing that he's helped so many people's golf games just made him feel real good inside," John Solheim said.

In 1996, Solheim received the Ernie Sabayrac Award from the PGA of America for lifetime contributions to the golf industry.

It all started with two popsicle sticks glued to two sugar cubes with a shaft in the middle, the model for his 1-A putter that got him started in the business. That first putter made a distinctive "ping" when it made contact with the ball, giving birth to the name.

Solheim was looking for an improvement to the blade putter that Arnold Palmer had made so popular in the 1960s, and he sketched the "answer" on the sleeve of a 78 rpm record - a cavity-back design for heel-toe balance and the offset hosel. His wife Louise suggested he remove the "w" so the name would fit on the club, and the Anser putter remains one of the most popular designs.

Ping evolved into much more than putters - a series of perimeter-weighted irons, a new model of blades, and fairway metals and drivers all emerged.

But it wasn't always smooth sailing. Solheim sued the USGA over his use of square grooves in irons. The case was settled out of court in 1990, and the PGA TOUR backed off its threat to require only V-shaped grooves in competition.

Born on September 15, 1911 in Bergen, Norway, Solheim moved to Seattle with his parents as a boy and originally followed his father's footsteps as a shoemaker before becoming a mechanical aeronautical engineer.

He worked on the Fireball jet fighter plane as a flight research engineer in 1945, and later joined Convair as a project engineer for the Atlas missile's first ground guidance system.

Solheim joined General Electric in 1953 and helped design the cabinet and rabbit ears antenna to clamp on the company's first portable television.

He is survived by his wife, whom he married in 1936; sons John, Allan and Karsten Louis, all of whom work for the company, and a daughter, Sandra, a Ping sales representative in South Dakota.