Karsten Solheim started designing putters in 1959 in his garage in Redwood City, California. He believed the equipment of the day was inefficient and that with his engineering degree, he could come up with a better design.

Although it took him eight years to give up his full-time job with General Electric, he was confident he had a superior design, from his original A1 putter to the PING Anser. Up to 1967 he was still making the putters in his garage with the help of his wife and children.

The Anser putter was radically different and he would go to tournaments armed with handfuls of putters and convince the pros to try them. Once they had, many of them were sold on the concept of toe-heel weighting and the goose neck.

Solheim’s breakthrough came in 1967 when Julius Boros won the Phoenix Open with an Anser putter. Around that time, a gentleman from South Africa heard about these putters and secured the agency.

From the mid-1950s, Herbie Prout sold golf equipment to the club professionals. By the late ’60s he was a very popular man in the SA golf industry and his one partner was Gary Player. That is why the first PING putters in South Africa had Player’s signature on the base; they were only sold in this country and have become valuable collector’s items.

In 1967 my parents went to the US for the first time. My father had worked at Zwartkop for 27 years and needed a sabbatical, so they took three months off and drove all over the US. They watched a few tournaments, like The Masters, and went to Phoenix to visit the “new” PING factory.

He bought six PING putters and they were the first ones to get to South Africa. When my parents arrived home they gave me one of the shorter ones. I was so proud that I had a club that wasn’t available in the country. I was 14 years old and would use that putter for my whole amateur career.

But back to Mr Prout.

He and my dad were great friends, and today that company is run by his daughter Anne, and her husband Doug Vilas. They have had the PING agency for longer than anyone in the world.

While Solheim was selling his putters, he was also working on irons, using the same concept of toe-heel weighting, which reduced the opening and closing of the clubface and increased accuracy.

At first he just drilled weight out of the back middle area of the head, but eventually he came up with investment casting, which made it easier to design heads that were toe-heel weighted.

The K1 irons were radical for their time. Firstly, they were darker and dull, they had no ferrules between the shaft and the head. They were also offset and the biggest difference was the big hole in the back of the head. The golf market was confused. Most people who tried them, loved them. However, others like my father, told Herbie they would never sell.

There were numerous reasons they took the market by storm. The toe-heel weighting worked then, and still does today. Golfers quite simply hit straighter shots, and they hit them further because there was better contact and the lofts were stronger, which Solheim never promoted. The offset hosel also helped straighten out most golfers’ slices.

Solheim’s inventions changed golf forever. Most golf clubs sold today use one or more of his ideas, including the toe-heel weighting, and the biggest-selling putter style is still modelled on the Anser.

PING’s quality control is also superb. When woods were still made of wood, most brands had issues with the insert in the face – or the base plate – moving. Solheim solved this by making the base plate larger and the face insert 40-50% wider. This increase in size gave the golfer more confidence because it looked like they had more space to connect with the ball.

PING is still owned 100% by the Solheim family and although the two founders, Karsten and Louise, have passed on, it’s in the hands of their son John, and their grandson, also named John. They continue to run the business simply: “We don’t release a new product on to the market unless we think it performs better than its predecessor,” says John Solheim. If they have made a minor change to a product, there’s a good reason for it.

When I visited their factory in the ’80s, Karsten Solheim took the entire day to show me around. When we were in the the showroom, he picked up a golf bag and asked me if I noticed what was different about it. I had a good look and I didn’t see anything different. Well, he turned the bag upside down and showed me the base. The middle was angled lower than the outer edges so that when you dropped your club into the bag, it had some give. The water would also run out of the base when it rained. Amazing detail.

An interesting observation is that the professional golfers who endorse PING’s products stay with them for a long time. The reason for this is that the company is loyal, ethical and honest, and they constantly and consistently make the best golf products on the market.

IMAGES: CARL FOURIE/SUNSHINE TOUR/PING/SUPPLIED