“It’ll never happen”.

[Bantam Ben]

In 1988, I had a meeting with Bert Haines, Legal counsel for Ping.  At the time, Ping was heavily engaged in its ‘square groove’ controversy with the PGA.

 

I met with Bert on other issues (we were providing services to Ping), and Bert showed me around the factory.  Bert introduced me to the heir apparent sons, Alan and John Solheim, and we agreed to meet for lunch to talk more.

 

After Bert and I concluded our business, we went to the cafeteria where we had lunch with Alan and John.  We talked about the impact of Pittsburgh Persimmon and the other metal wood companies, and I asked, ‘will Ping ever make a metal wood’?

 

In unison, the brothers said, “It’ll never happen”.

[golfandfishing]

The Solheim family is not known for saying “never”.  

[jholz]

Just goes to show you that the big boys can afford to be wrong much of the time. People always like to say that individuals who have been successful in business are "geniuses." Not really. Most of the time it is a person who persevered and/or became monumentally lucky. 

 

Thankfully, Ping had the bankroll to support their stupidity. 

[cardoustie]

Love stories like this

[gvogel]

Or maybe they already had a metal driver in design, and they didn't want the word to leak out.  That makes more sense to me.

 

Who wants to let the competition know what is coming down the pipeline?

[cassel191919]

How long did it actually take them to get into the metal woods?

[DavidCrockett]

Watching this thread is going to be like deer hunting over a feeder.  Something is going to happen; it's just a matter of how long the wait is going to be.

 

[caniac6]

Was the Zing the first one?

[Bantam Ben]

3 hours ago, golfandfishing said:

The Solheim family is not known for saying “never”.  

I did learn that the Ping engineering team spent an inordiate amount of time to introduce new products...to your point.

It's a great testing ground for millions of customers who can fog a mirror with the letters PING.

[Bantam Ben]

2 hours ago, gvogel said:

Or maybe they already had a metal driver in design, and they didn't want the word to leak out.  That makes more sense to me.

 

Who wants to let the competition know what is coming down the pipeline?

EXACTLY! Never let'em see you engineering.

[tatertot]

Didn't Ping say something similar about forged irons once?

[Christen_The_Sloop]

Forged Eye2 with a hair of offset and updated sole. It will never happen right? Right? In BeCu.

[Bantam Ben]

7 hours ago, DavidCrockett said:

Watching this thread is going to be like deer hunting over a feeder.  Something is going to happen; it's just a matter of how long the wait is going to be.

 

I'm betting on Lou to follow Babe's shot (confess I don't recall the batting order).

[kasting333]

18 hours ago, jholz said:

Just goes to show you that the big boys can afford to be wrong much of the time. People always like to say that individuals who have been successful in business are "geniuses." Not really. Most of the time it is a person who persevered and/or became monumentally lucky. 

 

Thankfully, Ping had the bankroll to support their stupidity. 

Bill Gates said 640kb “should be enough for anybody”

 

If you make a good product of course you can afford to be wrong every now and then. 

[dlygrisse]

17 hours ago, gvogel said:

Or maybe they already had a metal driver in design, and they didn't want the word to leak out.  That makes more sense to me.

 

Who wants to let the competition know what is coming down the pipeline?

At the time the metal woods weren’t really any better, just less labor intensive to produce, and Ping felt laminate was better than persimmon.  While purists drool over a beautiful persimmon they felt a manufactured piece of what was essentially a block of plywood was better.  And they were probably right at least from a QC standpoint.  
 

When the Big Bertha was introduced everything changed, much like it did with the introduction of Ping irons and putters.  They just didn’t have the vision to see it coming. 

[Bye]

16 minutes ago, dlygrisse said:

At the time the metal woods weren’t really any better, just less labor intensive to produce, and Ping felt laminate was better than persimmon.  While purists drool over a beautiful persimmon they felt a manufactured piece of what was essentially a block of plywood was better.  And they were probably right at least from a QC standpoint.  
 

When the Big Bertha was introduced everything changed, much like it did with the introduction of Ping irons and putters.  They just didn’t have the vision to see it coming. 

I can still remember going to buy a Ping 3 wood and coming home with a Big Bertha driver. 

 

[gvogel]

33 minutes ago, Bye said:

I can still remember going to buy a Ping 3 wood and coming home with a Big Bertha driver. 

 

Ping drivers and fairway woods were ugly.

[golfandfishing]

2 minutes ago, gvogel said:

Ping drivers and fairway woods were ugly.

I never understood how anyone hit a ping laminated 3 wood off the ground. Chip Beck got slammed for laying up at Augusta, but off the slight downhill lie he had there was zero chance he would have hit that green with his ping 3 wood. His options were layup, hit a rocket over the green and into the water long or hit a smotherhook into the water short.  

[dlygrisse]

5 minutes ago, gvogel said:

Ping drivers and fairway woods were ugly.

I think pretty much all of Pings clubs were considered ugly by a lot of people, but they worked.  

[Loki]

9 hours ago, kasting333 said:

Bill Gates said 640kb “should be enough for anybody”

 

If you make a good product of course you can afford to be wrong every now and then. 

When did Bill Gates make a good product?

[Gsea]

2 minutes ago, Loki said:

When did Bill Gates make a good product?

Never, biggest con man going