Summary
In this conversation, Ben and Paul Wood, Vice President of Engineering at PING, discuss the history and development of PING golf clubs. They talk about the background of PING and its founder, Karsten Solheim, and how the company revolutionized the design of putters and irons with concepts like perimeter weighting. They also discuss the importance of shaft design in PING clubs and the company’s commitment to providing high-quality stock shafts. The conversation touches on the presence of PING clubs on the professional tours and the rise of Bryson DeChambeau and his use of one-length irons. Finally, they discuss the future of golf and PING’s role in the industry. In this conversation, Paul Wood discusses his experience working with top golfers and the importance of club fitting. He also shares his preference for playing golf and his post-golf meal and drink choices.
Takeaways
PING revolutionized the design of putters and irons with concepts like perimeter weighting and the use of engineering principles.
The company is committed to providing high-quality stock shafts and has a team dedicated to shaft design and science.
PING clubs are widely used on the professional tours, and the company has a strong relationship with many players.
The rise of Bryson DeChambeau and his use of one-length irons has brought attention to PING’s innovative approach to club design.
PING’s focus on engineering and quality has made it a trusted brand in the golf industry. Angel Cabrera’s ball striking ability was impressive, even among the best players in the world.
Club fitting is crucial for optimizing performance, even for amateur golfers.
Paul Wood prefers playing nine holes on his own rather than spending time on the range.
After a round of golf, Paul Wood enjoys a club sandwich and an English-style beer.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Background
03:00 The History of Ping and Karsten Solheim
09:00 The Development of Ping Irons and Perimeter Weighting
15:00 The Importance of Shaft Design in Ping Clubs
19:30 Ping’s Presence on the Professional Tours
30:00 The Rise of Bryson DeChambeau and One-Length Irons
39:30 The Future of Golf and Ping’s Role
41:30 Paul Wood’s Top Three Golf Courses
41:55 The Best Player Paul Wood Has Worked With
43:15 The Importance of Club Fitting
46:24 Preference for Playing Golf
48:18 Post-Golf Meal and Drink
Ladies gentlemen and well we’ got some non- gentlemen followers that follow us based on some responses we get to some of the videos um I am joined today by the vice president of engineering at ping Paul wood hello Paul how are you hello everyone I’m doing well it’s good
To see you mate it’s been uh quite a long time yeah so for people who are hearing that weird American accent coming out of my friend’s mouth Paul used to sound like I do CU Paul and I are both from a town well the smallest
City in and Herford and then you left us and went to America and now um are vice president one of the biggest golf manufacturers in the world and have no longer got this accent that’s true that’s true and now the accent’s about halfway across the Atlantic I’m not really belonging
Anywhere you sound like a Hallmark film you don’t you don’t sound full American you don’t sound full English you sound like some really really beautiful homogenized like Hallmark accent from one of those classic Christmas movies where the guy goes to the small town from an escaping fall falls in love
Which is essentially what you did pretty close I don’t think anyone’s described my accent as beautiful before I like that I’ll take it well um for those that don’t probably don’t know and if you will Paul and I um known each other for many many years we uh grew up in a city
Called Herford Paul was in fact the person who I played my first or second uh I say round of golf it was a it was a nine hole um L session at Brockington golf club with you and Jack and your dad no way I was I was going to tell the story
That I think we also had our first um adult game of cricket together I think my de my debut for the men in men’s Cricket aged 14 coincided with your debut aged about 10 or 11 yeah someone didn’t show up and you were you were the substitute Fielder it was you you was
Harold wasn’t it that was it yeah us Harold us Harold because it there’s there’s the photo that goes around on social media every now and again of of you and your dad and my dad at webbley when I was 10 and I wasn’t yet playing for the men’s team and then the next
Season I was and it was yeah it was um and my dad loves to tell the story about the time that he um broke your mother’s collarbone on the Tuesday and um blacked your eyes on the Saturday got a few battle scars from uh from from that cricket team I do people
Listening in America who are trying to figure out what US Harold might be yeah he was Harold as a small village on the outskirts of heran Shire on the Welsh border um yeah you you were you were great you were we’ll talk about Golf and ping and all that that’s but you were
You were a very accomplished multi-discipline Sportsman you were a good cricketer good hockey player you’ve played international hockey representing the USA which made me very sad as you switched Allegiance but hey well done anyway and you and you’ve played golf to a good stand as well so Sports always
Been your blood isn’t it and for Dad was the same and you grew up with a sporty father yeah yeah dad was a really good football player in particular and then when he retired from football he wanted to try some other sports and so he was
Interested in cricket and he was in he was the reason I got into golf he wanted he said I want to learn Golf and I need someone to play with so so I got roped in but but yeah I’ve always liked loads of sports like you said I’m I’m good at
Quite a few Sports without having ever been great at any of them but it’s a pleasure that I was able to make a career in sport because I wasn’t going to do it as a professional sports player so it’s kind of nice to to do it watching other people play good sport we
Play lot of cricket together didn’t we we did play a lot of cricket together and obviously it’s one of those things that you you going you being three and a half four years old me going off to University kind of stopped that so you stopped us playing more together I think
I would have been 14 you would have been 18 going off to St Andrews and that kind of gets in the way then of of of playing of playing in the more we had some really good fun years is playing and obviously your your your your amazing
Late mother was was a teacher and she gave you that thirst for Education which is why you were not only a good Sportsman but you were annoyingly like a straight A student and it so you able to do both and then ended up taking those Straight A’s getting great a levels and
You end up at St Andrews University so some might say that where you went to University kind of the future was was already written right yeah maybe maybe there certainly um I mean visited St Andrews when I was looking at universities and just fell in love with
The town it wasn’t just the golf part of it was kind of taking a stroll down the beach to walk towards towards the middle of town and just how just how cool a place it is but but now that I’ve been in the golf industry for a long time
There’s a lot of people who are jealous I spent seven years living in St Andrews and playing the courses for free it’s a great place it really is and you and it what’s important there is that you didn’t go to St Andrew University to become the vice president
Of engineering at ping you went actually to do something quite different in the world of science do you want to just give a because people it will blow people’s minds you you now you now design what I call as one the greatest cheating sticks in the world that that 430 is ridiculous
You can hit it off the toe or the heel and it still ends up straight um so apart from your witchcraft of clubface design what were you intending to do oh I like everyone else going to University at least like 99% of people I had no
Idea what I wanted to do I think if you told me that I could make a living working on engineering golf clubs I would have thought you were an idiot um but I went to do mathematics and and Mathematics and economics was what I initially went to study and then I
Switched to mathematics and philosophy and I had Grand visions of being a philosopher or something you know like 18 year olds too um but I was always good at mathematics and got offered a chance to stay there and study just can focus on mathematics and I ended up spending three years doing a
PhD on solar flares uh which are basically huge explosions like volcanoes on the sun huge source of um energy spikes it’s what causes things like the aora Borealis and stuff like that um and it was great I really enjoyed it I L doing mathematics I didn’t dream that you
Could apply that to Sport and then it was sort of coming towards the end of that that I as we as we mentioned I love Sport and I thought how could I find a way to do research but still be in sport and I at the time I didn’t think that was even
Possible in something like Cricket I didn’t think it was really possible in football soccer um and but golf I thought you know I bet the golf companies might want a mathematician and that’s what happened I wrote I wrote old fashion kind of rode off to a few golf companies and it just
Happened that ping were sort of looking for a mathema I and uh came across me I think I think it’s a it’s a great it’s a great story of don’t make assumptions of what you can do just do things and see what happens at times I think carefully planning out
There will be there will be people listening to this that they’re not angry but they’re jealous of that story because they wanted to work for Ping tailor made whoever else it might be and they tried to go a certain way and have never have not got where they wanted to be and
I think your story is a great example of be a great Sportsman understand sport understand being part of a team that’s always great for being an employee and part leader and then you just did so well at school and then you went to a great University and applied yourself
And then just kept kept going and I think so many people do so well just to go actually the vice president of engineering didn’t go to university to do golf club engineering you you weren’t you weren’t an engineer in a physics major looking at how different types of
Metal offset against each other at different speeds I know that doesn’t make sense in what you do but you know the grand SCH what I’m trying to say is that some people have done that yeah no and I it’s not lost on me how privileged to
Position this is there’s a lot of people that would dream of being Golf Club designers or or Golf Club engineers and and not that many get to do it um you know every now and again I get that impostor syndrome that you know other other people more deserving we probably
All get that at some point but my biggest advice would be get get good enough at something to have a skill that people need and in my case being good enough at mathematics and fortunately most people hate mathematics and would much rather have someone else do it for
Them um and so so for me that was the way in was having a skill that that ping felt like they needed and was useful and then now I’ve been there a long time I don’t do a lot of mathematics I do a lot more strategizing and managing and all that but
But it was the being good at mathematics that got me the foot in the door so you got the foot in the door you went to I not I’m not sure if you’re familiar with a podcast called The Society of golf historians it’s um run by a guy called Connor I love it
Fantastic and he he’s he’s got a real Affinity with ping because he actually really loves the Ping story and about Carson do you want to just give the viewers who not maybe on golf Geeks everyone who watches this knows I’m a golf geek I get golf books for Christmas
About course design you even sent me a beautiful course design book ages ago I can’t remember what it’s called but I’ve got that at home and you sent that to me in the post yeah the non-golf Geeks let’s just do how did we go from ping nonexisting to creating the
Putter and then maybe can we do two three minutes on Perimeter waiting and why that was such a big thing in the development of ping and irons yeah now I’d be happy to so Caston sine was an engineer from Norway who who moved to
The US when he was very young so he he was an engineer in in the US he actually worked for General Electric uh among other things had quite a long career before he even thought about golf um and and there’s a book called kasten’s way that kind of describes kasten’s life so
I don’t need to go into all the details but he was he was a businessman and an engineer he he’d been in sales he he actually his name is on the original patent for the little bunny ears that would go on top of TVs in the old days like the little
Antennas um he also worked on like landing gear on planes so he kind of worked on all sorts of different things and started playing golf this would have been the 1950s and wasn’t great and particularly wasn’t great at putting and found it frustrating and basically was like I
Think I could do a better job of Designing a Potter based on some engineering principles that was that was his idea was like I feel like like I’m never hitting it perfectly and the worst I hit it the worst results get and maybe I can make it more
Forgiving forgiving meaning in his case when I hit it off the toe and the heel I get more similar results it like minimizes the damage for me so his original idea was I’m going to take instead of tots at the time were very much a craft and they were blades like
True blades um they look great they were a Craftsman’s thing but they weren’t using any engineering principles whatsoever and his his they were just strips of metal weren’t they they were just strips of shaped metal and similar to irons were the same right irons were forged muscle back blades
That were beautiful looking I mean they still look cool now but they weren’t applying a ton of engineering principles to like what happens when you slightly mishit it and and so his original idea the 1A poter was he just said well I’m going to instead of having all the
Weight along a blade I’m going to take two honks of metal put them at either end and then have a face in between them and he actually made it so you could hit it right or left-handed so the one a looks like kind of tuning fork it’s two
Sheets of metal and then most of the weight on the heel and toe and the more you the principle is moment of inertia the more you spread the weight out the more now when you hit it off center it doesn’t twist as much it moment of iner
Is like a resistance to twisting so if I take my phone right and when I hit it in the middle everything’s great nothing twists but if I hit it out here now that happens right and the more I put the weight on the outside if I take on and
Put the weight on the outside it just won’t twist as much when I hit off center that applies to pretty much every golf shot you’ve ever hit in your life because it almost never comes right out of the middle you say almost never almost never never no every this is why golf’s great
Right because everyone can think of a shot they hit not that long ago well like that was perfect now I just need to do that again and it’s it’s what keeps you coming back isn’t it but yeah it’s it’s when you have it’s when you have
That run of so what’ you play off for these days I play off a streaky eight okay so I play off a i play off a a very streaky eight and a half nine like I I’ve had some fives recently I’ve had some twelves 15s recently like
It’s a very streaky eight and a half nine but when you’re in that Groove and you hit you go driver a in to 12 feet driver wedge to 15 feet and then you go maybe it’s a path through and you go six iron to 25 ft Nestle Nestle the ball up
Close you’ve had three Pars in a row and you struck everything out in the middle there is I I genuinely having we both played sport and I’ve played a high level of cricket there is no greater feeling in sport than that run of three or four holes where you just pure it out
The middle and everything feels so easy obviously then I’m going to push one 50 yards right and then then then fat one trying to get it back in and and then you’re back down to Earth but no you’re there’s no better feeling is there yeah exactly and and so that’s it right that
Sometimes for some players it happens for a whole round or two for for me it’s a couple of holes where it just feels easy and then then you lose it again and you think but I it felt so easy so how do I get back there um but that so that
Was that’s what the company was founded on caraston had his idea for a putter he built his idea for a putter um and he started going out and trying to show it to people and he was able to go out on I one of the very early people he showed
It to is Arnold Palmer who his first poters were made out of brass which is really soft and Arnold Palmer hit a couple dented the face and said I’m not playing that it’s dented and and I’ve seen that putter the one that Arnold Palmer dented so that’s how far back it
Goes that was 1959 when he started the company and no one else was doing anything like that no one was really applying engineering to golf and you know the putter started to get reasonably popular and then when it really took off was when he developed the answer putter which forever I mean
If you’ve seen anybody on tour putting it was usually some sort of copy of the answer putter yeah like I say this all the time when people talk about Scotty Putters they talk about so basically outside of mallets about 85% of T put Putters on Tor are a derivation of that old that
Original answer design because it works so well and he came up with that in 1966 so it’s been around for a long time um great year an has invented England win the World Cup I mean what more could you want out of a year what a what a superb
Year but but it has the same principles where it only has a single face doesn’t have a bag but it you know it’s got the mass sort of concentrated down and in the heel and toe it has amazing balance to it it just the reason it stood the
Taste of time test of time is because it works for so many players that’s what really started to take things off but he also applied the same in in irons and his first irons were blades where he was Machining bits out of the middle he actually and which is a very expensive
Way to do it but it was the only way he could at the time so the the early Ping irons were blades where theyd machine bits out of the middle to spread the mass and then that labor intensive it is yeah so that’s why he pioneered investment casting for golf like he
Didn’t invent investment casting but the the big benefit of investment casting is you you basically are pouring molden metal into a into a mold into the shape you into the shape you want it to be you can make more exotic shapes back in the day forging was you can make anything
You like as long as it’s a forge muscle muscle back blade casting could make perimeter weighted irons again spreading the mass increasing moment of inera making them more forgiving and and he needed to use casting to do that so that’s that’s why all Ping irons were cast at that point
These days it’s a lot muddier that you can make pretty cool shapes using forging techniques and we make our new iron that’s coming out in the spring has it’s forged but you know it has a cavity back to it and and we can choose also to
Make cast irons out of soft metals and and make them feel really soft we can make a blade casting if we want so these days you can kind of make what you like with forging and casting but back in the day that’s what Caron was doing and so
He he was an engineer at heart I mean he was also a good salesman he had years in the field you know he was a Salesman before he started appearing and so he knew how to sell the product he knew how to work with tour players and and get
Them to test him but he was an engineer at heart and his son um John a solheim who was our CEO for about 30 years after casting passed away he’s an engineer and then his son John K solheim who’s our current CEO my boss he’s an engineer too
The whole Sim family are are engineers and and I think that’s what makes us a bit unique we’re a family-owned Company still owned by the Sim family almost all of the Sim family worker ping um it feels very much like a family because it is um but but ultimately everything comes
Down to the engineering so we’re not you know we don’t invest as much as others in in the marketing side but we tell our story as Engineers it’s they put me on podcasts and and things like that because that’s who we are which is which
Is kind of fun I mean for for a scientist it’s really fun but that’s that’s why you’ve taken that to a different stage as well though haven’t you because like you’re one of the few manufacturers of your own shaft that stands up against the shaft guys I put that really poorly but obviously
Everyone’s got their own stock shafts but you are one one of the few firms where your stock shafts actually are right up there with the Shaft Specialist and a you see a lot of players on tour that play ping gear still using a ping shaft you don’t see
That and I I’m not expecting you to break your your your your your um compatriots other firms but you don’t see Taylor Made titless um Callaway using their stock shafts but you do see that a lot with ping what did you do in the shaft world because you’re Engineers
You’ve got perimeter waiting got all that history there but it felt like how do I put this out being like I’m taking a mick it felt like you guys like a bit like Carson with the very first putter I think we can do this just as well as you
If not better it felt like you did that with the shaft yeah that’s it I mean we’ve just we’ve always felt like we’re we’re we’re making and selling the whole Golf Club obviously the shaft and the grip is a big piece of that um and we
Just want to make the entire Golf Club the best it can possibly be and it’s the tough thing is there is just a conception out there that you know companies like us stock chefs are not great you just kind of make them cheap and and that’s never been the case for
Us we we’ve been super involved in everything about our shaft design and our shaft science I mean I remember for a long time my early days of ping our chefs were um designed or at least designed in Partnership by Marty Json who’s now our VP of fitting in
Performance and he’s pretty well known around the industry you know played in a few majors has designed a lot of our like most iconic clubs and now he runs our fitting and performance you know he was in very heavily involved with shaft design we’ve had a whole team devoted to
Shaft design science we built we have our own motion capture system that we funded and and own the code to it’s called our focal system that’s genuinely the best measurement system in the Hall of golf and in large part that was to understand what the shfs doing during
The swing because it measures the whole swing and what happens when you’re in the transition from the back swing to the down swing so that we could understand shafts as well as anyone and more recently we actually um our director of chefs John oldenberg he was the the head guy designing shaft at
Older for 20 years um and then more recently La golf shafts and and now with us so we have one of the best shaft designers in the industry working our ping designing our shafts we it it it annoys me when people call it the engine of the club it’s not the
Engine of the club but it is very important and a bad shaft can take a good head and mess up the results you know a good shaft can’t take a bad head and suddenly make it amazing but but having the wrong shaft in your Club can really hamper you from playing good golf
And so for us it’s just it’s a natural fit that we design the shafts as well as the heads you’re one of the few that actually manufacture all your own shafts as well aren’t you you got is that right we work with we work with Partners in in
Asia so you we they they’re designed specifically to our specs they’re designed specifically in partnership with us it’s not a hey someone else designed it and and it’s made for paying it’s it’s our shaft same as we don’t actually have our own shaft Factory but you but what I means you got
That design specific specific to you working with manufactur which is which is great and I think so I I play um I play sub 70 irons sorry mate I play sub 70 irons all good but I play the um I play the Ping 430 and the Ping 430 the Ping 430 um two
And two and three hybrid and I play the Ping Glide 2.0 wedges like just I remember I remember mening you about about two years ago when that 4:30 came out maybe two and a half three years ago I sent you me is the does this club conform because
It feels like I’m cheating and you said are you hitting off the toe where you hitting out of I went everywhere and went is it going straight went yeah and you went what more do you want like like what more and and it does feel that for
Me and like I think you look around and that you talk to a lot of golfers I talked to a lot of friends I play a lot of golf that there are there’s a mixture of there’s a mixture of Manufacturers dotting around everyone’s
But I do see that more of my more of my friendship group and more of the people I play with now do tend to have a ping driver the irons are mixed to match every as everybody there us to be more ping drivers more ping hybrids around
And for a company that was heavily irons and heavily Putters in the mind of the if You’ said 20 years ago name me the three or four most prolific Drive dve driver manufacturers I don’t think ping would have been in the soci social Consciousness as that but it does feel
Like it is now and that must make you proud to see how that’s that that change has taken place yeah yeah no I think like you mentioned we’re a company that was founded as a pter company and and I think in the height of the I2 days you
Would have said we were an irons company when we absolutely dominated the world of lions in the I2 days um now strongest area is metal woods and I I would still stand by we make amazing irons we make amazing wedges and Potters but but you’re right and the thing the thing
With metalwoods is if you get the g430 and you go out and play with your friends and you’re now hitting it you know places on the golf course you weren’t hitting it before they noticed that very quickly probably more quickly than than other clubs in the bag necessarily you know the something like
Your putter the results speak for themselves over time but it builds up over time but with the driver you can see it on the first round if someone suddenly gained 10 yards and now it’s also the dispersion that’s that’s the big thing every everyone in my group
Hits it sort of between 225 and 260 more near the 225 range but is the Ping I had the 410 no the 420 is it 420 the red one 410 was the red one 410 was the red one four four 410 and then and I think the thing that I
Noticed with both of them that that my brother-in-law’s got one a good dozen or so players I play is that dispersion you can hit it off of Center and you can be a little bit wrong side of it and the dispersion so much better how I don’t
Expect you to be able to explain to everyone how that works but what is the concept behind how you’re able to get that dispersion down what is the thinking and how yeah I mean the simplest one is we go back to moment of inertia that where the driver it’s the
Lightest head in the back so it’s the one one where you have to work the hardest to spread the mass I mean I know people look at it and go it’s really big but it’s only a it’s only a 200 g head versus your pter which is 350 grams or
Your wedge which is 290 gram so you have to work that much harder every gram that you can spread out makes a big difference and it also has to withstand the highest forces in the bag you swing it the fastest so that’s why we use titanium it’s extremely strong it’s
Extremely light like the light becomes that much more important that’s why we use you know Carbon Fiber we we’ve been judicious about how we use that because carbon fiber itself is very strong and light but then you’ve got to glue it somehow to the titanium so you end up
Adding some weight back in uh uh John aim our previous CEO made a great comment uh in one of our meetings recently where he said we’re in the business of like moving weight around which is which is a lot of what we do we’re like basically trying to figure
Out how do you move grams of weight around a golf club and still have it you know perform you know withstand your 90 100 110 mph golf swing but give you the best possible results when you m hit it so moment of inur is the number one there’s a few
Other things we do you know exactly where you place the center of mass makes a difference you know where The Sweet Spot Club is what are the Aero foils doing tell me about that because I love them I actually use them to line line up
And I like them and I love the matte finish but talk to about the aor foils because I think that a few people have said oh what can they do and again I don’t expect a uh a mathematician who is the VP oping to be able to make break it
Down in in in too quickly but they’re a fairly unique featur it was a fun it was a fun project there was one that I was involved in pretty heavily in early in my ping career so it’s that it’s been going that long they’re called turbulators and what they do they’re for
Aerodynamics the quick version if you don’t want to get into the science is they basically help you swing the club just a little bit faster because a golf club is not a very aerodynamic shape um you know if you want to make it something that you can swing fast you
Don’t put a big blunt face on it you make it shape more like a bullet but then especially if you come from here and then cast it over the top and try and drag it back around sure so so actually the the drag on the head of a
Club makes a difference I mean we’re not talking 10 miles an hour of swing speed but we’re talking two three four miles hour of swing speed if from a really poorly designed aerodynamic driver to a really welld designed and and as it as it turns out those turbulators are a way
To they basically they basically um help the air flow stay attached to the club but you don’t get such a big wake I think everyone’s familiar with the idea of a Wake On A Boat like if you watch a boat going through the water you have this wake that’s an area of
Um it’s you know it’s an area where that there’s like a lower pressure it’s kind of sucking the the boat or in our case the club back what you want is to keep the FL the air flow attached to the crown and the so of the club as much as
Possible and reduce the size of the wake and you get lower aerodynamics and turbulators do that without us having to do something funky to the whole shape of the club so it’s kind of it’s kind of aerodynamics for free because we’re not really adding any weight up there we’re
Not changing the overall shape of the club but we’re getting better aerodynamics so the difference between them being on and off is about a mile hour of swing speed which is about three yards on every shot you hit so that’s part of your distance right there is is
The turbulators but it it enables us to keep with other things that help us keep the mass in a place who want to keep it and they look cool I like them I think they look cool it’s a bit of a in the eye of the beholder when we first did
Them we agonized over whether people will be okay with looking at them because golfers are usually quite traditional and putting these little ridges on the crown and the club some people hated them but over time people have decided they’re okay mostly um I I think they
Look good and I think they help you line it up they help show you where the middle of the face is but they’re they’re there for physics that’s the real reason they’re there is for the physics well talking about overtime people decide it’s okay let’s move on to
The hot button topic that everyone loves to discuss which is live and live golf and obviously with Callaway announcing that they’re going to be sticking with JN as he come as he comes across I think it’s noticeable for me having been to some live events that ping stuck by
Pretty much all their players and you even provided um resource the tour truck for live London and a few other things and it’s I don’t expect you to draw an opinion on behalf the company about live that’s not what Ian but what I’m saying is that it’s great to see that so many
People have been using ping and I think what is a great indicator of your product is how many free agents on p on live went to Ping including Bryon and a few others for irons and I think for me having been there it’s you’re probably the most used Club
Manufacturer yeah um I would say so and and I I’ll stay on you know safe safe Turf as I Give opinions on this but but we’re we’re a big relationship company and most of the Ping players have been ping players since they were kids have
Stuck with us a long time and if you look at the the guys who went onto the live tour from ping you know these are big long relationships Bubba’s been a ping player forever Lou Us’s been a ping player forever Lee Westwood’s been a ping player forever I mean even the
Younger guys like yako Neiman I mean he grew up I don’t think he’s ever played anything other than ping so for us it was relatively easy decision to stick with them in terms of they’re part of the family we’re a family company they’re part of the you know it’s caused
Us some challenges of just figuring out what does that look like it’s hard to plan out the next three or four years I mean if anyone knows exactly what the Liv tour is going to look like three years from now if they could let me know that would be really helpful right
We it is disruptive but if there’s people playing professional golf and they’re ping people then we’ll still support them and like you said we have a a guy who’s been supporting most of the events and where it’s changed the game a bit and it was already going this way
The amount of money and professional golf a lot more players it makes sense for them to be free agents that what we could pay them as a company maybe isn’t as big as what they can make you know if Liv’s offering you 500 million then whatever we could offer is nothing
Compared to that um I was really surprised by outside of maybe some of the really top players so my views on owgr I think it’s a defunct system but let’s just take owgr for the minute I was really surprised by how little players between say 880 and
200 no wgr actually get paid by by manufacturers I don’t mean just P I’m talking in general I was actually quite surprised that getting the setup in your bag right with the clubs you want to have a better chance at winning is a financially better decision than taking an amount
That that people were getting paid to be a club representative and I think that’s what as you’re saying like there’s so much money around now pick the clubs for you yeah and I think you know I mean let’s just stick with the you know on the PGA tour the elevated events if if
It’s if winning an elevated event is worth three and a half million um is it’s similar on the on the LIF tour that’s if you think you can make decisions about you know what’s in your bag to help you win that event that’s probably worth more than you’re going to
Get from a lot of endorsements unless you’re one of the top top guys um you know that said our job is to like convince people that like you can stick with ping and know that you’re going to have 14 clubs in your bag that are perfect for you and and there’s still
Plenty of players that that like to do that but uh I think it’s it’s a good time to be a player you definitely um you know you’ve got choices you’ve got you know you’re not going to struggle to look after your family if you can make it onto the top tours it’s it’s
Different you know it’s a lot harder work down in the mini tours right but uh we believe in our product and we think hey look stick with us and you’ll make sure that you you get pink clubs that you like all the way through the bag but the reality is a lot more
Players are picking and choosing they already were before Liv I think I counted up on the on the last Liv event there were as at least one ping Club in over 30 bags out of 48 which was great so that was yeah I I
I’ I when I was at when I was in London I think it was 20 players either had you as their metal wood setup or part of their metal wood setup so like a hybrid or like a or utility iron or whatever it might be I I I know
A utility iron is a metal wood set but you know what I mean it’s that it’s that long Club it’s that hybrid that’s in that same family I was like that’s that’s not a small amount of representation not at all yeah so that’s been you know I think probably just like
Everyone else I’m personally as a golf fan just curious to see where it goes you know like it’ll certainly make the majors interesting this year as that’s those will be the one set of events where everyone comes together but who knows where things are going to
Go the next couple of years yeah I don’t I don’t think anyone does you’re in a position where I’d never ask or draw an opinion from you that that would be inflammatory but I think we can all agree that the last two years in golf has been head scratching
In different at times in certain decisions and I think I think I speak for most golf fans that whether you’re Pro PGA Pro live pro whatever that it’d be really nice in the next three to six months to see things kind of start to work out on how it’s going to go forward
And just move on with gol a bit are you GNA are you g to dance together or not let’s just make our mind up yeah well yeah like with any sport I think most most of the fans just want good opportunities to see the best players playing in the best format whatever you
Think that is right but we can argue about what’s the best formats and what’s the best way to arrange it but that’s what people just want to see their favorite players competing against the best and one way or another we’ll get we’ll get back there so the one big name I suppose that
Came over to you in all of that was Bryson the the mad scientist as some people refer to him I I spent time with Bryson at London walked with him for nine holes chatting to him and he had the Ping he had the Ping irons in his
Bag so are you now one length IR manufacturers or was that was that was that was that a was that a new thing for you we it wasn’t totally new we’ve we’ve done a few sets um so uh Bryson worked with Chris Koo the coach for a long time
And and Chris is a ping Ambassador a good friend of mine and so we’ve we’ve had some kind of relationship with Bryson for a while in terms of just knowing who he is and providing some advice to his coach from here from here and there but you know he’s fun to work
With he he thinks deeply about his game he works a ton he’s got tons of ideas um he’s not willing to hit thousands of blls to try out these ideas so for for engineers it’s kind of fun to to work with him you know the one length isons have been
Around in one shape or another for a while you know there’s some challenges taking a set that were designed to not be one length and make them one length but our team did an amazing job you know we we build our is with lots of weight adjustment flexibility and we can youve
Been doing a lot with custom grinding and this and that and so we took our our regular set of our I series ions and made them into one length clubs for him and the wedges and the wedges were great for him it’s it’s cool to see I mean he’s a free agent we’re
Not um you know we’re not contracted with him but if if he’s interested to work with us we’ll always be happy to do that no I think it’s always your very you’re very aidite and you speak well on that and it’s a case of he’s chosen his
Bag he’s got different clubs in there but he seems very happy and since he’s been using you as irons and wedges and and the the the other brand I can’t remember the name for for his driver he seems to be very very happy and ultimately very competitive it was sort
Of that turnaround period And so that was fantastic and I think it’s Testament to to what you guys are doing that you have people want to work with you when when you’re not offering the money they still want to work with you and that that’s that’s that’s a really really
Really good indicator um I’m conscious that you’re in the UK to work isn’t it great you’re in the UK I’m not having to do I’m not having to do this at some silly time in the evening it is yeah just sat here in our uh we have a little
Research team in lro which was set up a couple of years ago so I I come over here three or four times three or four times a year you know most of our engineering is in Phoenix but now we have some Engineers here in the UK as
Well which is uh which is really fun well you’re here you’ve got work to do so let me try and draw this to a close people like to hear about our guests and some of their experiences so you’ve had a chance to play some fantastic courses what are your top
Three courses you’ve ever played oh goodness that’s a tough one well okay so I we’ll try to keep it somewhat simple old course and Andrews um I played there for seven years I didn’t play it all the time I I’ve played all the courses in St Andrews a lot tried to
Keep the old course slightly special and not play it every day now that I don’t live there that seems like a terrible life decision but um I genuinely think you could play s Andrews for 50 years and not get Bor of them that’s that’s why they’ve stood the test of time and
The old course is just wonderful a shout out to the new course as well though I love the new course um I did get a chance to play Pine Valley a couple of years ago um absolutely incredible place um every hole is memorable I it just wasn’t something I thought I’d ever get
A chance to do and and and through a friend um got to play there for a weekend and and that was so Pine Valley was absolutely amazing I’m not exactly surprising anyone with that vote the other one which I just thought was probably rounding out my top three was
Uh the course at cran cier where they host the um the open in in Switzerland every year oh yeah yeah yeah is that the Omega classic of course yeah yeah so CR Montana or cran cier that you know halfway up a mountain in Switzerland overlooking the Alps it the setting is
Amazing but the course is actually really really good fun too and and those would be my my top three it’s also incredible when you think that that course it cannot be accessed for any form of maintenance for four months of the year yeah I don’t even want to think how
Short their golf season is because I mean it must take them a few months of kind of preparing the yeah so I I read I read that it’s four and a half months to five months of being able to be used that course yeah well which is
Savage is and but it was amazing uh absolutely wonderful place to just visit as well best um best player that you’ve had the privilege of working with just being up close and marveling like you’ve been around all the best players in the world way more than I have um but
You’ve just stood there and gone is it that easy really yeah okay that’s uh that’s you know I’m going to reinterpret it slightly because like you said I’m I’m very lucky and I’ve had a chance to see most of the best players in the world up close and and obviously the Ping folks
Have worked with a lot the one who maybe would surprise people a bit who just I remember just blowing me away by how just how amazing his ball striking was was Cabrera Angel Cabrera and and he won he won two majors um he has that interesting stat that I think he won
More Majors than non- major PJ tour events in his career but his ball striking was UN un believable one quck story I remember we’re taking we we’ve got him on the range of ping and we’re taking some data we’ve got a prototype showing him and we’ve got you know we’re trying to take
Trackman data so we get the radar and he’s he’s aimed at a different point on the Range than we’re after and so we’re trying to very po hey Mr Cabrera do you think you could just and we’re working through his interpreter because he doesn’t speak a lot of English and he
Just goes he goes what you know if if you wouldn’t mind aiming at that that flag it’s about 300 20 yards down the range that little red flag that’s your target line if you could aim with that we’d be great he go okay he’s hitting drives off the deck by
The way at this point hits his next shot smashes as you do just just casually sitting drives off the deck just to smashes it into the flag I mean the target this big right he hits the flag on the fall and he just turns around and goes is that okay
Boss yeah that that yeah that that that that’s what I wanted yeah um yeah that that an answer I suppose did surprise obviously you got you got Bubba the great shot shaper you got Louie who whose timing is like Silk you’ve got all those players that’s I think that’ll be take everybody surpris
And that’s a great great story favorite you know there’s been so many good ball Strikers um we’ve had a lot and different like this is what this what I tell people about I said I can’t imagine I was talking to to John I said I’ve got
You coming on the podcast and I said we talking about Club manufactur I said can you imagine trying to manufacture a golf club that works the same for the same swing as Louie Bubba and Tony feno like talk about three Tony takes the club back about four inches Bubba’s looping it anywhere he
Wants trying to shape it and Louis is like a metronome and you somehow got design a club that works for all of them isn’t obviously it’s the point of impact that matters they get it back to square I know that but the point is that golf manufacturing must at times you must go
Our club works in the hands of all of these people it is almost defies belief and and that’s about as good an advert for Club fitting as you could possibly imagine I mean you so you you know for a fact that all those players are playing vastly different like fitted setups of their
Clubs and you’re not as good as we are not as good as them and we think it’s fine just to buy clubs off the rack and not get them tuned to our swing it getting a decent Club fitting is so important like the pros get their clubs tweaked every week and they’re all
Amazing at golf so my biggest advice to anyone out there is find the best club fter you can that’ll be worth a ton to your golf game and by ping obviously yeah you you got two you got two things there you’ve got Bing and um two quick
Last ones before I let you go um if you got the choice you got 90 minutes spare which I know you never have 90 minutes spare but let’s imagine that you did somehow your wife and two lovely daughters are off somewhere for a couple of days and uh there was a power
Cut at the factory and you had to go home I’m trying to I’m trying to engineer you some way of getting you 90 minutes free because I know with your life you don’t are you going to go to the range or you going to play nine holes on your
Own oh i’ I’d be nine holes on my own all all day long I I’ve learned to appreciate the range and how how you can make that fun and interesting but I grew up much more in the let’s go play golf Camp yeah that’s that’s the right answer
Only one pro out of all the people we’ve spoken to has gone nine holes some people said depends how I feel some people have said range Eugenio Shakara is the only person who went no stret nine holes don’t don’t want to play on the Range I’ll do the range if I have to
It’s it’s bizarre it’s it’s just one pro people said I’ll play nine I I’ll play on my own depends how I feel but only one pro has gone flat out I’m gonna have nine holes isn’t that amazing like that that I thought more them would just want to play Golf I mean yeah know I I suspect that Bubba would say nine holes and at least when I’ve talked to him you know he’s definitely a on the course kind of golfer from from my memory but you know I think if if you’re professional you’ve probably spent so many hours on the
Range I’m not a professional I I don’t grind on the Range as much I get to do Player test at ping which is really fun um but playing the sports always been more fun than practicing for All Sports I play for me oh and also for me
Watching like I I’ve never I like watching sport but I’ve never understood people I can’t I can’t play golf mate England are playing football in a thir first the in a group match of the World Cup I’m like what you’re going to turn down playing sport or watch it never
Understood that either but maybe that’s just me so we finished our round of golf and you’ve got a choice what meal are you going to go for what drink are you going to go for what’s your post golf beverage and meal of choice oh goodness me
Um post golf see I would normally always say a curry I don’t know that a curry is like exactly what I think right after around a golf but um yeah I’d probably just get you know go get a club sandwich or something and have a nice especially
Now I’m back here a nice English bitter that’s something I miss when I’m in America America had a lot more good beers than it used to but you don’t they don’t make the English style beers you don’t get a proper bitter do or a proper ale it’s all ipas that’s something I
That’s something I miss do do they do half and half chips and rice in America with a curry or not is that still is that’s a British thing I think that’s a British thing right to to our viewers who were like are they going to go into more
British and American stuff no we’re not Paul thank you so much for your time I’m so grateful um it’s been amazing seeing my friend from my hometown go from studying solar flares to being the vice president of one of the biggest names in all of golf
Um staff that sounds really proud of you what an amazing achievement um and just think that what you guys do of there’s fantastic so thank you for coming on the show I really appreciate thank you buddy thank you looking forward to we’ll go out and play 18
Holes ourselves at some point well I will be in the US a couple of times we’re talking maybe professionally about having some presence in the US for my actual firm so if I do I’ll I’ll make sure I hit you up and I’ll probably try and base any
Office I can in Raleigh because why wouldn’t I want to be there and just play Tobacco Road and pineer all the time there you go all right thank you buddy Take Care thank you everybody for listening uh let us know what you think in the comments as I always say if you
Like it comment if you don’t like it comment it’s still helps the algorithm so thank you everybody um and Mark will give you a great outro better than I can and he will introduce our next interview which is the amazing Billy go of fair play exchange thanks everybody take care bye-bye
2 Comments
Really great interview, and so many great insights on Ping.
Thanks for the great interview. Love the content.