The legs are the wheels of creativity
Albert Einstein

Throughout time, one of the few things that have remained constant is humans’ desire to create and innovate. No matter what century we examine, there have been those people who forge ahead and blaze new trails, no matter what the cost, be it personal or economic. Without these people, society as we know it would not be where and what it is.

We have spoken with some textbook-worthy examples of innovators in Arizona who have not only stared adversity in the face and won, but have used those tough times to their advantage. They are prime examples of this winning attitude, perseverance through the most trying times, and fierce determination. Each one represents a specific period in history. However, innovation is as old as time itself, and will be a part of our culture until the end of time. Humans are masters at invention and reinvention, and the only thing more exciting than seeing what these masters of innovation have come up with is wondering what they will come up with next …

This month, ImagesAZ presents the first installment in our “Innovators” series. The innovators we have spoken with have taken chances and followed their instincts – even when the market may not have been favorable, or when it was downright scary – and those chances have paid off in spades. While you may not achieve the level of global, national, or local success that our subjects have experienced, there are many life lessons to be learned through the attitude and experiences of these masters of innovation.

Karsten Solheim – PING Golf Clubs

The game of golf had been around for approximately 500 years when 42-year-old Karsten Solheim, an engineer for General Electric (GE) first held a club in his hand in 1952.  He began to play and enjoy golf more frequently but one thought could not escape him. While the game had existed for centuries, the instruments that the game was being played with were not suited to the purpose.  The golf club of the day had the weight centered behind the sweet spot, rewarding the perfectly struck shot from the perfect swing.  Any slightly mistimed, unsynchronized move in the complex motion of swinging the golf club would result in a weak impact on the ball, a twisting of the clubface sending the golf ball flying in the wrong direction and not very far.  From observation of others, as well as personal experience, Solheim recognized that few golfers were experiencing perfect swings and perfect results.  So why had not anyone thought of designing clubs to reduce the dispersion of poor swings, make off-center hits still fly reasonably well, and in essence make the game more enjoyable for the majority of golfers? That simple thought drove Karsten Solheim to design heel-toe weighted or perimeter-weighted golf clubs.  Little did he know that his concept revolutionized the game and changed the face of golf club manufacturing forever.

“My Grandfather was striving to improve the stability of the club at impact by redistributing the weight.  Today, golf technology continues to build upon this notion.  We are trying to maximize the moment of inertia, retain forgiveness, and optimize performance through the distribution of the clubs center of gravity,” John K. Solheim, the grandson of Karsten, said from the PING factory in North Phoenix.

But having the idea was not enough to succeed. His early inventions were laughed at and ridiculed.  His later ones caused the governing body of the game to change their rules, all the while his competition was copying his every move.  Yet PING exists today as one of the world’s greatest golf club manufacturers due to the courage, persistence, and innovation of Karsten Solheim. 

To say that his first designs did not receive immediate success would be an understatement.  In fact, Solheim would continue to work his day job for eight years after the production of his first putter, the PING 1-A in 1959.  He would build putters from his home garage late at night, first in Redwood, California then in Phoenix, Arizona after being transferred by GE in 1961.  He would take his putters to local golf courses on the weekends, talk to the club professionals and explain his inventions.  His putters looked unconventional, and made a funny ‘ping’ sound when they struck the ball, but he would attempt to prove that his putter was superior.  His conviction along with the moderate support he received from golf professionals was enough for Solheim to keep pressing forward.  In 1962 Solheim was awarded a patent on his heel-toe design, but it would be four more years of late nights and weekend golf course visits before his landmark design.

In 1966 Solheim received a vision of a new putter shape.  Energized by the clarity of the vision, he sketched the design on the nearest scrap of paper he could find, in this case, a 78-rpm record cover.  His excitement at the design led his wife Louise to exclaim that this putter must be the answer to all golfers’ problems.  The name stuck, “Answer,” except the word did not fit on the design.  Louise suggested that the ‘w’ be dropped and the PING “Anser” was born.  When Julius Boros used the PING Anser to win the 1967 Phoenix Open, PING had arrived on the big stage and sales of PING putters skyrocketed. 

Solheim quit his job with GE and incorporated Karsten Manufacturing in 1967.  He purchased a 2,200 square foot warehouse in North Phoenix to keep up with the heightened demand for his putters.  In 1969, Solheim began manufacturing irons, using the same heel-toe weighting design concept that had revolutionized the putter industry.  Again, the clubs did not look conventional but Karsten was convinced that his clubs would outperform the traditional models.  He was confident that performance was more important than appearance, and eventually people would accept his designs.  He began to gain market share as golfers began to appreciate the performance characteristics of his clubs.

On the Tour, the PING putter was having enormous success and was spiking sales.  Solheim came up with a unique idea concerning a way to say “thank you” to those who have won championships with the help of their PING clubs. Each PING-carrying victor is awarded a gold-plated replica of the putter that brought him to victory, with their name, the tournament name and year etched into the face. For each club awarded, another one is created and placed in the “Gold Putter Vault” at the Phoenix manufacturing plant.  At that time, Solheim probably never imagined that the vault – which could be referred to as golf’s version of Fort Knox  - would grow to more than 2,500 putters!  

As a golf club manufacturer, Karsten began to apply his curious mind to the process of manufacturing.  Golf clubs of the day were made by forging, or pressing the shape of the club into a piece of carbon steel.  The process was labor intensive and slow.  Karsten explored the idea of building casts or molds of the iron shape that he desired and pouring molten steel into the cast.  His process proved to be accurate, timely, and cost effective.  He began manufacturing the first cast golf clubs in the early 1980’s.  One of the earliest models to be produced by this process was the Ping Eye 2, arguably the most innovative golf club ever produced.  The Ping Eye 2 iron became the number one selling iron of its time and catapulted PING to be the premiere manufacturer for the latter part of the century.  The popularity of casting irons soon caught on with other manufacturers.  Today, almost 85 percent of golf clubs that are on the market are produced using this process.

Though, PING has come through tough times and still exists today as one of the most revered and respected names in the business, Solheim’s insistence on adhering to strict engineering principles and tight manufacturing tolerances raised the level of the product performance and quality throughout the golf industry. After Karsten’s passing in 2000, he was honored by being the first and only golf club manufacturer to be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame (WGHF).  His profile at the WGHF reads, “Karsten Solheim revolutionized golf club design and manufacturing, thereby making the game easier and more enjoyable for hundreds of thousands of amateur golfers.  Elected into the World Golf Hall of Fame in the lifetime achievement category, Solheim is heralded as a golf innovator who changed the game by examining the mechanics and technology of the sport.”

Today, the Solheim family continues to bring the PING brand into the Twenty-first Century with the same rate of innovation and attention to detail that Karsten introduced to the industry. John K. Solheim explains, “Innovative thinking and design was how PING first experienced success, and it is what we continue to build upon today. There is always a better way and that is what we look for every day, whether it is a new driver design, a more effective way to custom fit golf equipment, or a more precise manufacturing method. We focus on innovating everything we do.”

The conviction, persistence, commitment to quality, attention to detail, and constant search for a better process that Karsten Solheim demonstrated throughout his life made him an innovator and successful on a global scale.  Those same qualities can be incorporated into the daily life of everyone from a business owner to a stay at home mom.  Global success may not be the outcome, but innovative thought breeds an excitement in the pursuit of excellence and increased quality in life and the lives of those around you.  These qualities create the kind of success that is not global; it is immeasurable.