Welcome again, my pals, to the present that by no means ends. It’s time for one more version of MyGolfSpy’s Historical past’s Mysteries.
We’re so glad you can attend. Come inside, come inside.
In Historical past’s Mysteries, we take a deep dive into the folks, merchandise, firms and occasions which are woven into the material of the sport we love. Right this moment’s story focuses not on a product, however on a course of launched in 1972 that lies on the very basis of the fashionable golf gear enterprise.
Please be part of us as we study the genesis, introduction and evolution of PING’s colour coding system. Its introduction in 1972 can actually be thought-about the start of contemporary membership becoming and one more of Karsten Solheim’s contributions to golf as we all know it.
Historical past’s Mysteries: The start of PING’s colour code system
Right this moment, {custom} membership becoming might be about 90 p.c science and 10 p.c artistry. You stroll right into a hitting bay and the launch monitor will inform you rattling close to every thing you have to know in seconds. You get carry and whole distances and the components behind these numbers. Ball velocity? Examine. Angle of assault? Examine. Face angle and membership path to focus on? Examine.
Wish to evaluate totally different shafts or clubheads? Your fitter has a full array of instruments and choices to just do that.
Nevertheless, in case you flip the clock again a couple of a long time, becoming was virtually totally an artwork kind. Extra precisely, it was educated guesswork.
“It was only a professional watching you hit a couple of photographs and telling you that you just want this or that,” Rob Griffin, PING’s Firm Historian, tells MyGolfSpy. “There weren’t numerous choices again then.”
Right this moment, it’s all about choices. You possibly can laborious step or mushy step a whole lot of various shafts, and AI apps can suit you for mannequin, size, lie and flex in just some swings. Again within the day, nonetheless, you didn’t even have lie angle choices.
“There was no standardized lie angle,” says Griffin. “There was simply what totally different producers thought-about commonplace, they usually didn’t supply the flexibility to vary it.”
As is the case in so many different areas, it was PING founder Karsten Solheim who discovered a greater means.
The engineer’s thoughts at work
As we’ve written on this area earlier than, if Karsten Solheim isn’t in your Mount Rushmore of Golf Gear, you have to reevaluate your decision-making course of.
“Karsten realized early on that the way in which the membership hit the bottom and the lie angle affected the place the ball went,” explains Griffin. “I’m positive there have been individuals who understood that earlier than, however there wasn’t numerous {custom} becoming occurring. On a regular basis customers actually weren’t getting it.”
A typical becoming again then was basically a professional handing you a membership to hit. If it was too upright for you, you’d are inclined to hit it left. Too flat and also you’d hit it proper. Most golfers didn’t actually perceive the trigger and impact. You’d simply maintain making an attempt golf equipment till you discovered one you can hit straight.
Solheim based PING in 1959 however was nonetheless understanding of his storage into the mid-’60s. By then, nonetheless, he had developed a popularity amongst Tour execs as a little bit of a “membership whisperer.” It was not unusual for Tour gamers, when on the town for the Phoenix Open, to cease by his home and have him measure and alter their golf equipment.
“He’d ask the participant which iron they hit greatest and had essentially the most confidence in,” says Griffin. “In the event that they mentioned the 6-iron, Karsten would bend all of the golf equipment to have the identical lie angle as their 6-iron.
“Johnny Miller is one who would come out to the home. Karsten would alter his set and he’d exit and win the subsequent couple of tournaments.”
Sowing the seeds of dot
These weren’t essentially PING gamers who visited Karsten. He’d work on anybody’s golf equipment. Nevertheless, each Karsten and Tour golfers realized a yearly go to to verify loft and lie wasn’t sufficient. As was Karsten’s means, as soon as he recognized an issue, he’d work on it till he discovered an answer.
“He didn’t have a Mitchell machine or something,” says Griffin, because the Mitchell SteelClub® machine wouldn’t be launched for one more 20 years. “He developed his personal factor referred to as The Gage.”
The Gage is a kind of Karsten innovations that’s misplaced to historical past. PING used it to measure and alter loft and lie for years and it was bought within the PING product catalog.
“Tour gamers would purchase one and maintain it within the trunk of their automotive,” Griffin says. “They might then alter their golf equipment themselves once they have been out on the street.”
PING launched its first mass-produced investment-cast irons in 1969. As Karsten knew the correct lie angle was crucial to a correct match, the brand new Okay-1 irons needed to be malleable sufficient to bend with out breaking.
“We discovered to warmth deal with the heads to make them simpler to regulate,” says Griffin. “With out that warmth remedy, we couldn’t bend them. They’d simply snap.”
The unique Okay-1 irons might be bent from 4 levels flat to a few levels upright. That set the stage for Karsten’s subsequent step: growing a repeatable and scalable strategy to match extra golfers to the proper lie angle.
Membership becoming for the plenty
Karsten actually wasn’t the one individual in golf who knew that lie angle affected ball flight. He was, nonetheless, the one one who noticed that on a regular basis golfers would profit from having the proper lie angle. Furthermore, he was the one with the required creativity and engineering experience to develop a scalable answer.
And thus, in 1972, the PING colour code “dot” system was born. Karsten based mostly the system on two key standards: the golfer’s top and fingertip-to-floor measurement (at the moment it’s wrist-to-floor). PING additionally eradicated “commonplace” units from PING’s providing. From that second on, each PING Okay-1 iron set can be custom-built to a golfer’s particular lie angle, denoted by the colour of the dot. This could be accomplished at no additional cost.
“At first, Karsten would match folks simply by their ball flight,” explains Griffin. “However he quickly developed this little custom-fitting device that seemed like a soccer.”
The device, which was really a hand-held sliding chart, would slide left or proper, relying on which means your photographs have been flying and by how a lot you have been lacking the goal. The additional you’d slide the device left or proper, you’d discover the colour that corresponded to your lie angle.
“It modified the golf world as a result of it democratized becoming,” says PING VP of Becoming and Efficiency Marty Jertson. “It’s a staple, foundational piece that put us on the map. Any good iron or wedge becoming nonetheless begins with lie angle.”
In June 1972, PING ran an advert in Golf World that includes its new {custom} color-coded golf equipment. PING would come with “clip and return” playing cards in magazines. You’d write in your top and different measurements and PING would ship again really useful specs.
The primary spherical of adverts generated greater than 14,000 responses. This system proved so profitable that PING continued it nicely into the ’90s.
“I’m a crimson dot, what are you?”
As essential as these little coloured dots have been to becoming, don’t underestimate how highly effective a branding device they turned. It wasn’t lengthy earlier than PING customers recognized themselves as a “crimson dot man”, an “orange dot man” or no matter.
For the primary time, a daily Joe might present you his coloured dot and say, “These golf equipment have been constructed for me.” It’s the type of model identification OEMs pay hundreds of thousands for at the moment.
“Karsten made it simple for customers to grasp the significance of lie angle,” says Griffin. “He created and delivered a easy, logical story with an apparent profit to golfers that was simple to grasp and that nobody else was telling.”
The colour code chart Karsten created continues to be central to PING fittings at the moment. In case you ever go to the PING Proving Grounds in Phoenix, the very first thing they do is take top and wrist-to-floor measurements and reference the chart to get you began.
“We have now higher, extra nuanced, extra nitty-gritty numerical, launch-monitor pushed instruments to get you even additional into the becoming pyramid,” says Jertson. “However we nonetheless begin each becoming with the colour code chart.
“In case you’ve by no means picked up a membership earlier than, you can one hundred pc use the chart as a place to begin for size and lie.”
Days of future previous: Colour codes at the moment
Right this moment, PING’s colour code system isn’t only a becoming device. In line with Jertson, hitting the total colour palette is an R&D mandate.
“We’re not going to make an iron we will’t alter to these specs,” he explains. “We would give you one thing that can give us extra ball velocity or do one thing actually unique. But when it received’t match these lie angles, we will’t go it to the client.”
Right this moment, PING’s colour code chart runs from 5 levels upright to 4 levels flat. As you’d think about, that creates some metallurgical challenges. The iron must be sturdy and sturdy whereas remaining mushy sufficient to bend as much as 10 levels. These are two issues that battle one another.
“It’s the structural engineering of the hosel and the geometry of the notches,” says Jertson. “How we clamp them for bending, the supplies of the clamp, what strain we use, all of it issues.
“Then there’s how we warmth deal with the alloys to have the ability to management the bending and the metallurgical properties that permit us to realize that.”
The subsequent step, in fact, is to take the colour code system into the digital world. Most on-line club-fitting apps will ask to your top and wrist-to-floor measurements. That alone will match not less than 75 p.c of golfers into appropriate membership specs. Synthetic intelligence, nonetheless, is opening up much more alternatives.
“We’ve constructed a whole suite of wonderful becoming instruments,” says Jertson. “A few of them ingest launch monitor knowledge and might get you to the closest good spin fee and very best distance gapping.
“We’re nonetheless dedicated to the membership colour code charts. That’s nonetheless our basis however at the moment we have now the know-how and the precision to offer the fashionable golfer what they should assist them play their greatest.”
What would Karsten suppose?
It’s no exaggeration to say Karsten Solheim began {custom} becoming as we all know it at the moment. That’s to not say we wouldn’t be the place we are actually with out his contributions, however he was actually there at Floor Zero.
Karsten made positive that little football-looking machine received out to professional retailers. PING aggressively marketed the significance of lie angle becoming in its journal adverts whereas providing golfers one thing they by no means had entry to earlier than: an precise {custom} becoming. It actually wasn’t the identical as at the moment’s {custom} becoming, however for 1972, it was a serious leap ahead.
As with each dialog I’ve with Griffin, I needed to ask: What would Kasten must say in regards to the degree of becoming in 2025?
“I feel he’d say there’s by no means sufficient knowledge. You understand, we have been the primary golf producer to have a high-speed digital camera within the mid-‘80s. He wished to measure issues and see what was occurring. We might measure spin fee and see what was occurring to the shaft at influence, the way it was bending, the way it oscillated.”
And what would Karsten do if he received his fingers on a Trackman?
“My guess is inside half an hour he’d design a greater one.”
Historical past’s Mysteries: PING and a color-coded postscript
It’s additionally no exaggeration to say Karsten Solheim taught the golf trade find out how to construct a contemporary golf membership. Nobody was paying a lot consideration to lie angle in 1972, and definitely nobody was making an attempt to deliver {custom} becoming to the plenty. He had the thoughts of an engineer however let’s not overlook that he additionally had a very good little bit of salesman in him.
“Plenty of us don’t absolutely respect Karsten’s advertising and marketing skill and his skill to clarify issues in an advert or an image,” says Griffin. “That’s his present: explaining very technical issues and really scientific concepts in a means that the majority of us can grasp.”
Becoming is the subsequent frontier within the golf trade. It’s the one place the place you may really obtain substantive efficiency good points. Many OEMs are leveraging AI to make the method quicker however Jertson, echoing Karsten’s ideas, says there’s by no means sufficient knowledge.
“We will do an excellent job becoming you for the swing you may have that day. However how significantly better of a job might we do if we added your tendencies and on-course play into the becoming course of? We’ve constructed some nice instruments to try this.
“The extra knowledge you may have, the extra you may paint an image on a steady, clear foundation.”
“Karsten at all times mentioned his No. 1 objective was to make the sport simpler for folks to play,” provides Griffin. “I by no means heard him discuss what number of golf equipment we bought or something like that. He simply wished to make the sport extra satisfying for folks.
“As he would say, you need the membership to suit the golfer, not the opposite means round.”
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