Episode 52: Iconic PING Clubs (Feat. Jonathan Wall)

Shane and Marty welcome Jonathan Wall, Managing Editor for equipment at Golf Magazine and Golf.com, to the podcast to discuss several of PING’s standout clubs from the past and present. They talk about PING’s longstanding relationship with staff players, iconic PING clubs like the s55 irons, Anser hybrid, and Rapture driver, and notable Tour victories with PING clubs.

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The guys from Ping. They've kind of shown me how
much the equipment matters. I just love that I can
hit any shot I kind of want.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
We're gonna be able to tell some fun stories about
what goes on here to help golfers play better golf.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Ping Proven Grounds podcast.
I'm Shane Bak and joined as always by Marty Jerts,
and we got a special guest today, Marty Jonathan Wall,
longtime pal of mine, I know, a longtime friend of Ping's,
of course from golf dot com. He's been all over
the internet over the years and also host the Fully
Equipped podcast. And you're listening to this podcast. I'm assuming

(00:31):
you get into that as well. But Marty, I know
you're playing some hot golf as of late, Jay Wall
playing any golf. Is this a world you're you're existing
in or is it just parenting and talking about equipment.

Speaker 3 (00:43):
It's definitely the latter. Right now. The golf on the
golf course is non existent. Lots of testing, but it's
kind to the point where I can't even get to
the range some days. So have the launch monitor, have
the net? Yeah, it's it's It is definitely not the
days of playing golf on a golf course. Right now
with the kiddos chasing me around.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
Well, I've decided, you know, we're going to talk today
about ping equipment, kind of historically talk about ping equipment.
We're talking about our favorite ping clubs. We talk about
some historic golf shots that are hit. Marty's going to
give us some insights into some of the ones that
we're gonna mention over the years and decades of ping
equipment that kind of has popped, if you will. And
I was thinking about this. You know, there was a
main floating around a few months ago, and it was

(01:23):
it was basically men loved sitting around and talking to
other men about old athletes. And I was thinking about
this in kind of the golf world, and I think
the golf equivalent to this is sitting around and talking
about old golf clubs, you know, throwing out a name
of an old club to somebody that's a similar age, Jaywall,
you and I are are similar age players, grew up
in kind of the same era. I know, I'm going

(01:45):
to talk about some pin clubs that you attached yourself
to as well. You've been covering the equipment side of
things for the last what ten twelve years? Is there
a ping club, Jonathan, that stands out to you, both
maybe as a junior and also with somebody that's been
in this face kind of paying attention to the specks
of the clubs and talking to Marty about this as well.
Are their clubs in the ping you know, atmosphere and

(02:08):
ecosystem that stand out to you over the last couple
of decades.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
Yeah, for sure. I think for me selfishly, I go
back to the ping I, to the brilliant Coppers. You know,
those are the irons. They were righty and Bacon. You
and I are lefties, so you always always want what
you can't have, And that was that first set where
I'm like, God, these things look great. All my buddies
are talking about them, they talk about how great they feel.

(02:32):
And then they came out with the ping I side
and those are in Lefty and I was in heaven.

Speaker 4 (02:37):
Man.

Speaker 3 (02:38):
I would take them out there with my blottas. Still
have that the ping jay Z cushion shafts. I mean,
you couldn't even feel the golf ball coming off the
face because it was so buttery soft with that ballata.
But those are those irons that I think backed as
a kid like out on the golf course in Texas,
one hundred and ten degree heat, just pounding balls. Those

(03:00):
are the irons. And it's funny because I was going
back and doing a little bit of research on these irons,
and Tiger actually talked about in twenty eighteen at the
Players Championship stealing his dad's brillium copper one iron and
he said that was the iron that he used to
perfect the stinger. So it's kind of cool that, like
Tiger was using brilliant copper, I had an attachment to

(03:20):
those irons. I'm pretty sure you did too, oh for sure,
But for sure those were the irons for me that
were like the apex, Like if I could get those,
I'm going to be a better player in man? Were
they awesome?

Speaker 1 (03:31):
Marty? You know, you and I have talked a lot
about the clubs that you've designed, which I think obviously
hold a special place in your heart. Are there pin
clubs that maybe you weren't involved in on the work side,
that are stuck in the brain of Marty Jertsen that
you love that you kind of like think back on,
much like Jaywall touched on with the brilliums, Like, are
there pin clubs that you'd think back on, like this

(03:55):
was it? This was the one that I wanted as
a kid. This was the one that I loved as
a kid. This was the one when it got my bag,
I was jazzed.

Speaker 4 (04:01):
Up to hit Man.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
I think I'm kind of with j Wall because growing up,
I grew up in the small mining town and you know,
being in Arizona a pretty close tie to ping, and
all the good players at the course played itubes brilliant
copper eye twos, So those I think my first very
strong memory was brilliant copper eye twos. But Shane, I

(04:22):
think going back, I think digging deep into my childhood
and my first pink club was the B sixty putter.
And you guys remember I remember Jim Colbert winning all
those Champion Tours event and he's going like this, He's
got his ping hecket had on. He's making all these
putts with the B sixty and you know the shape

(04:43):
of that is like a heart, you know, and it's
kind of still has that visual association that I love
that putter. That was my first ping club in my bag,
And for whatever reason, I always think Jim Colbert that
Putter sinking putts.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
OEM's Ping sponsors players, and you hope that something like
that resonates Marty. We're gonna get into some of the
historical golf shots hit with Ping clubs over the years.
But Jonathan, I think one of the coolest parts, like
I see Dustin Johnson now playing on Live and he's
wearing non Adidas golf shoes and it kind of throws
me for a loop right when it really works, when

(05:18):
it really plays, when you have players like Bubba Watson
or Louis Justeysen or Lorena Achoa that kind of attached
themselves to the brand. You think of those players along
with the clubs they use. Do you have somebody like
the Colbert side for Marty that makes sense to you
in that world for Ping? You know, like maybe it's
a Bubba Watson with the pink driver that just popped

(05:39):
for years that almost felt more than a partnership, almost
more than a relationship, almost like Lebron or MJ with Nike.

Speaker 3 (05:47):
It's weird because I think a lot of people would
probably say, like Bubba, he's attached to Ping. But for me,
I think about like on Hell Cabrera like him just
like just smoking heaters, going down the fairways at the
US Open, Like that's a guy or or Miguel I
mean him on the driving range doing his warm routine.

(06:09):
Like just like some of these characters, I feel like
that they kind of resonate with you. You see him
and it's like, that's a Ping guy. Like I've seen
him play Ping stuff, I've seen him win with it.
I think the winning part, obviously is what attaches him.
Like there are so many guys out there that have
had a lot of success with Ping clubs, and they've
had long term success that you realize it's like, yeah,

(06:30):
this guy's a lifer, and I think that's more than anything.
What I associate with Ping staffers is a lot of
the guys that attach themselves to Ping aren't just there
for like a brief minute. They're usually there for five,
ten years, ten plus. I mean look above, But he's
a lifetime Ping guy, signed a lifetime deal. So that's
what I see with Ping is is that it's not

(06:51):
just a guy who's like, Eh, you know, it's a
hot club, I'm gonna try it. It's usually guys that
play this stuff for a while they've been playing it
for a while, and that's just what they druss.

Speaker 1 (06:59):
You know. Marty Jonathan brings up a great point on that,
because that has been one of the most revealing parts
of doing this podcast and getting a chance to interview
so many of the players under the Ping brand and
getting we get these note sheets sent for missying the
team that are always incredible, and their deep dive note
sheets that kind to help us out as we get
ready for an interview. And it's crazy, almost every one

(07:19):
of those sheets, Marty says, has played Ping since they're thirteen,
you know, a part of the junior program since they
were fifteen. I mean, we talk a lot about the
Ping family, but the professionals that are part of Ping,
to Jay Wall's point, they don't just pop in for
a year or two. It feels like they're there for
a long time.

Speaker 4 (07:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
Absolutely, it's pretty fun. It's how much we support the
junior program and then how much trust we can build
with our players as they go to turn professional. Especially
in today's age, there's a lot of money being thrown
around and a lot of competition out there, and just
to know that, hey, we've serviced the players and the
family and the brand takes such a holistic approach to

(07:55):
helping players out in gaining that trust. I was gonna
mention my association I have in my head Shane is
with kind of the classic pink players, Calcubeccia, because you know,
he won he won that waste management. He's using the
Laker shaft, you know, and the TI aside driver at
the time, and just blazing TPC Scottsdale in the rain

(08:16):
that one year. That's, you know, a pretty strong association
in my head.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
So you mentioned that driver, Marty, and we're going to
get to this, and you already kind of mentioned the
first pink club you had in your bag. I'm an
asked Jay Wall next, the first pink club you put
in his golf bag? Mine was that driver that you
just mentioned, the TSI I had it. I had two heads,
by the way, and I had the three wood in
the bag and I played most of my high school
and junior golf with that. The interesting thing, and I
think Marty, we've touched on this before, but it was

(08:42):
such an interesting slot to put the driver through that
you had to take it back to someone that really
knew how to take shafts out. Yes, if you wanted
to replace the shaft. This was long before you got
the tool out. Clicked it out and pulled the chef
out in six seconds. And I remember I took it
to a guy in Shreveport, Louisiana, said, Oh, I can
do it, no big deal. I got a shop in
the back. I can pull a shaft out if you

(09:04):
wanted it. And I wanted to put the pro force
the Lakers shaft in the driver, much like Kal did
in Phoenix, Lo and Behold. I got it back and
it was a big bubble on the back of like
the whatever you'd call the slot that the shaft went into.
The guy did not do a great job of throwing
that in there. But that was my first introduction to
ping clubs. That was my first driver in the bag.

(09:26):
The head cover was iconic, kind of looks like the
color of the hat I'm wearing right now. And that
thing just played and it was one of my favorite
drivers ever had. I played it for a long long time.
Jay Wall. That was kind of one of those drivers
that in high school in that era, like basically from
what maybe two thousand or ninety nine to one, if
you didn't have that driver in the bag. You were

(09:46):
kind of looked upon as another kind of like not
having a hook for bag, right, like everybody in AJGA
tournament had the ISSI driver had a hook for bag,
like that was part of being a great player at
the time. Do you remember the first kind of ping
bat you had in your bag as a kid? I
was gonna say that the whiff of nostalgia right now
on this podcast is very, very strong. Is just going

(10:08):
out of our goateea right now.

Speaker 3 (10:10):
Geez, you mentioned pro for shaft and I'm like, God,
I remember that shaft. I could not hit it, but
I could not hit it for the life of me, though,
but I still had to like jam it in the bag.
I'm like, everybody has this thing. I got it at
three would yeah, you know? For for me, I go
back to I had a really old answer. I don't
remember where I got it, but it had the sound

(10:31):
slot yeah in the soul and it mean just again,
just that distinct ping sound with the ball coming off.
And It's funny because I've tried so many putters over
the years, I still have this one, but I still
use I mean, now I've got a little bit of
a different I've got a pod answer to with some
tongusten weights and the bumpers. It's a sweet it's a

(10:54):
sweet butter. But if if I were going to go
to something else, it would probably be the old one,
just because again, it has that nostalgia attached to it,
and it's such a classic putter. I mean, we're going
to get into it, I'm sure, but look what's the
most copied club out there. It's It's the Answer. It's
the Answer style putter. I mean people know it by

(11:15):
different names now, but that's an answer and it's always
going to be that way. So yeah, for me, old Answer,
it's still beat. I should pibly pull it out to
show you the gashes in the face. It looks a
little bit like the Tiger wand I think it's I've
beaten on it a couple of times over the years.
But yeah, just an awesome, awesome putter and such a
cool sound to it.

Speaker 1 (11:35):
Jay, Well, we're gonna have to have you post that
when this podcast drops. We'll have you post it on
your Instagram story or something so that people can get
a good look at the putter or the answer you're
talking about, Marty. A little like sports trades, a lot
of clubs come out, they all are part of the
history of a of a company. Maybe not all of
them are bangers. Ye, Like we've seen with certain trades
in sports over the years. We tasked you with kind

(11:56):
of going through some of the iconic pain innovations over
the years, like the ones that really hit. So I
want you to kind of run through some of those,
and Jaywall and I might jump in at times when
we have our kind of personal moments with the clubs
you mentioned, but I kind of wanted you to run
through some of the real marks and kind of the
Ping's company in terms of club innovation over the last

(12:17):
you know, thirty forty decades.

Speaker 4 (12:19):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
Yeah, I think Shane, the one we kind of touched
on already was the Tia side and the Tia side tech.
And the reason why I bring those up is they
were they were way ahead of their time, you know.
And I think Ping is, actually we've actually done this
quite a few times looking back at our history. Is
we'll launch something to the market and it's you know,
arguably it's a little too early, like it it's a

(12:40):
little too innovative, and then these things come back maybe
a decade later. So like with the with the tia
as I, it was having adjustable hazzles, right. It was
the fact that hey, we need to have one head
and we want to have different you know, from a
custom fitting standpoint, we want to be able to manipulate
the lying goal and the loft and get somebody dialed in. Now, Yes,

(13:02):
that embodiment, that solution of using the plastic causal was
hard to do, hard to repair and things of that nature,
but it was very innovative, you know. And it also
created a super lightweight hozzle which is super important to
lower the center gravity and do some things like that.

Speaker 4 (13:19):
So I think that whole Tiasi tia Side.

Speaker 2 (13:21):
Tech metalwood family was super innovative, even down to the
Fairway wood in the player's used that fairy I.

Speaker 4 (13:29):
Know you had in the bag. I certainly had in
the bag.

Speaker 2 (13:31):
I think of Miguel Jimenez had the three five seventy
nine in the bag for probably over a decade. You know,
had laser beams with the tias Side Tech fairrywood. That
one was really cool because they have the hozzle system
and then it had it was titanium body with a
zirconium soul plate with a tungsten weight screwed into it.

(13:52):
So it's like the amount of tech multi material and
these were cast at a foundry up in Prescott, Arizona. Right,
we manufactured them here in the US domestically. We did
all the manufacturing engineering R and D here, So again,
that one really sticks out in my mind in terms
of that transition to titanium to multi material, to adjustable hozzles,

(14:17):
to lowering the center of gravity. All this magic was
kind of put in there into that family, Jay Wall.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
It's interesting to hear Marty say a little bit of
ahead of his time, because something I have noticed with
golf clubs as I've been in and around golf over
the last couple of decades is when something new pops
and it's unique and it's different than everything else you've seen,
it's almost like a lembing group of people. It's like, okay,
now we've got to copy that, right, Like movable weights,

(14:43):
I mean that was a company pop with movea weights.
I mean, square drivers were a thing and then everybody
had a square driver or a triangle driver. But it's
so interesting to hear Marty say it's almost ahead of
its time, and what the TSI was able to do
for golfers because now you think about adjustability and that's
in every basically every club you can you can purchase.

Speaker 3 (15:01):
Yeah, it's it's funny that he mentioned the the tie
side driver because that for me, I can distinctly remember
being on the range in high school and a buddy
of mine, still a good buddy of mine from high school,
he got the driver and he and we all like
congregated around him as he's pulling the head cover off

(15:23):
and like I swear that you could hear like angels
singing from the heavens, and we're all just like wow,
and it's like, hit it, hit it. We got to
hear the sound, and so it is. It's it was
one of those drivers that He's right, it was ahead
of the time. And it's it's interesting because anytime something
comes out that's different, everybody kind of goes eh, I

(15:44):
don't know. And it is funny when when you start
to see and again your success generally leads to interest
not just from the pros but but from amateur golfers.
And the second that you started to see that, drivers
start to gain traction. You know, recreational golf first are
clamoring for it that you know, the manufacturers out there,

(16:04):
the non ping manufacturers are going, all right, what's going
on with this driver? And that's when you you do,
you start to see some of those technologies take hold,
and before you know, everybody's doing it and there and
everybody's claiming that they were the first. Yeah, pin Ping
was definitely ahead of its time with that driver, but
it was just such a distinct head. We were like, ah,

(16:24):
this thing looks like a spaceship. It's it's huge, like
you felt like you couldn't miss. But it was really
it was the tech inside that that made it so unique.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
Marty, what was the difference in the tech side of
that driver, because obviously that came out later. I know
it had a different I think it had a different
paint color as well to the to the top of
the crown. What was the difference in the technology there,
because that was, to me, was one of the first
drivers that there was a secondary market, a secondary club
coming out that kind of resemble the first one, yet

(16:54):
it obviously had some some different personalities to it.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
Yeah, definitely on the driver. I mean, that was our
first time doing a titanium driver with the tire side.
That was the black one had that kind of a speckle,
looked like kind of a bass boat, you know, on
the top a little bit. And so the first time
for us doing titanium driver it was it's very challenging
and I think Shane I've talked about this. I think
one of the biggest meta innovations in golf is the

(17:19):
ability to cast titanium very thin. And now now in
today's age, we're looking at, you know, adding other materials
and getting real weight savings. But that first tire side
the walls were really thick. For example, I think the
crown thickness was like eighty thousands of an inch in
which is, you know, four times thicker than we cast

(17:39):
it now, right, you know, so we've been we've been
able to four x the improvement and how thin we've
been able to go with the wall. So when the
TIA side tech came out, this was the silver top
to it. Yeah, yea, yeah, that was thinning out wall thickness,
improving the manufacturing, improving the casting, studying the durability, see
where we could save some weight, and just like we're
doing with the same physics principles, we are now improve

(18:02):
the center of gravity increase the moment of inertia and
pass that along.

Speaker 4 (18:06):
And then it was really fun to be able to
to do what.

Speaker 2 (18:10):
I talked about in the Fairway Woods back then, which
was all the multi material and that zirconium welded soul plate.
That's one of the things about titanium. You can't really
it's hard to join high density materials to it, so
that's normally where we screw them together and things of
that nature. But zirconium is actually an owl you can
weld to titanium that's heavier density. So that was super

(18:32):
innovative to bring that to the golf industry.

Speaker 1 (18:34):
All right, Marty, what else you got on the long
list of great pain products?

Speaker 2 (18:38):
Yeah, I mean, Shane Man, there's so many. I mean,
there's so many on the putter side of things. The
answer putter, I think that one kind of maybe goes
without saying, I mean, bring the cavity in the plumber's neck,
I mean, just the classic shape to it. I think
when I think about putters, I mean there's a lot
of fun ones we've had specified putters, which was to
be able to kind of build your own putter shape

(19:00):
piece different things together. I think one that came to
my mind though. That was really fun is when the
Gnome putter came out and you know, Hunter Mayhon was
winning the match play with this thing. We launched that
also with our adjustable length telescoping shaft, and I think, again,
when I think about putters, that one really stuck with

(19:20):
me being able to pass along that adjustability. And when
we launched that Noome, we had a long putter and
folks were putting with a belly putter. Super important to
be able to pass along that adjustable length to the
end golfers. They could kind of dial in those those
techniques themselves. That Gnome putter, also kind of talking about
that family was aluminum and then it had this nano

(19:43):
nickel alloy that coated it. And the demo of this
was you could take like a ping pong ball cod
it with this nano nickel material that the Gnome was
coated with, and we did this. You could literally drive
a car over it and it wouldn't crush. That's how
strong this.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
Way crush wouldn't crush.

Speaker 4 (20:01):
The ping punk wouldn't crush it. So it was awesome.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
You could get You could take an aluminum alloy, which
is normally pretty soft, your putter would get kind of
dinged up. You know, it kind of has a distinct
feel to it, and you could make it like the
strongest material out there with this very thin uh nano
nickel coating on it. So I don't know, there's a
lot of tech plugged into that gnome with the adjustable length,

(20:28):
and it was it was that's when Hunter was was
dominating as well, So that's kind of again to tie
it to a player and tour success was pretty fun.

Speaker 3 (20:36):
That was such a hot putter hundred.

Speaker 1 (20:38):
Hunter is a great person as well when you think
about Ping. I mean when I think about Ping, you know,
obviously his career maybe not as long as as some
others that we think about, but I mean Hunter mayhem
absolute monster's amit or player, collegiate player. And then when
he burst on the scene. The thing I kind of
remember about Hunter was that was the first jwall flat
bill hat that a manufacturer made. Yeah, and I remember

(21:01):
Ping sent me a couple. I mean, those bad boys
were ironed flat, and I think they had like the
under arm or u of a on the side, but
they were full of Ping on the front. And I
remember when they showed up. I got a lot aware
on the on the on the Ping Hunter Mayhan.

Speaker 3 (21:15):
Ads, Yeah, definitely, the the hats that he had. It
was kind of funny because that was around the time
where where it was like, is Ping trying to trying
to get with the young the young crowd here because
it feels like they were trending that direction. But you know,
I think about Mayhan's setup and I don't know if
Marty was going to get to this one, I might
be still in this thunder. But S fifty five yeah,

(21:37):
I mean, those those irons. I think about an iron
that has had staying power. I honestly cannot name you
another iron out there that has been around that long
on the PGA tour. I mean, you think about Bubba Watson.
I mean, how many times has he changed those irons out?
I mean very seldom since they were released in twenty thirteen.

(21:57):
Matt Fitzpatrick wins the twenty twenty two USO YEP with
with S fifty five in the bag still. I mean
we're talking about almost a decade after they you know,
a decade after they were released. It it is amazing
to me how how much that iron has taken hold
and guys just can't get it out of the bag.

(22:18):
Blueprint ass Blueprint t great irons. But there's something about
that S fifty five that that guys just love the look,
they love the feel to a prosa like that. Once
they attach themselves to something and they've won with it,
it's really difficult to get it out of the bag,
especially when it is that good. But yeah, S fifty five,
I remember Mayhand using those and and hey, look they're

(22:41):
still around now. So it's it is. It's one of
those irons. It's just great, and it's it's always going
to be great.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
Joy Well, I think when you when you see a
product out there that you know, some some tour guys
hang on to for a decade, I think that's a
good sign that I think that can go on the
iconic club's list, you know. I think even today we
still have a handful of Answer Hybrids in play by
some pretty big name players. So that's another one in

(23:09):
the hybrid category that's done really well. And I think
what's when we talk about S fifty five, we talked
about Answer Hybrid, the question is, well, what are we
doing to study those clubs and turn them into you know,
learn from them and plug them into products that we're
designing right now. The thing with the Answer hybrid was
it didn't go left. It was a hybrid that you know,

(23:29):
we couldn't go flat with it. But it was the club,
the old the tour players and better players like because
it was the anti left hybrid, had really good launch
and spin characteristics, felt really good things of that nature.
But we brought that into our new you know, our
new hybrid designs that we have now. We talked a
lot about when we launched the blueprint s how much

(23:50):
we studied that S fifty five. We basically, you know,
for all intentsive purpose, we did a copy paste of
the Soule geometry and the lead edge in the balance
of the turf interaction because that was like one of
the biggest pieces of the secret sauce, that S fifty
five iron. And why yeah, you had you had Louis,
you got Hunter, you got Bubba, you got Mat Fitzpatrick,
all these players, you know, crushing tournaments and winning majors

(24:13):
and Ryder Cups with that iron.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
Marty, you mentioned the answer and one of my favorite
kind of like dips because you know, I've been I've
been dealing with you guys in terms of equipment and
coming out to the proving grounds, probably for fifteen years,
maybe longer. At this point, I mean when I was Jaywall,
when I'm when I was blogging it like FanHouse, I
think maybe I was doing some stuff with Ping. Definitely

(24:36):
when I went to Yahoo and Beyond, I mean dogs
chasing cars, Dogs and chase cars, And they might not
have been sending me free stuff for those days, but uh,
I might have got in when I got to Yahoo
or Beyond. But Marty, remember when the answer, because you know,
personalization has been such a big part of Ping's existence.
When answer specifically, you could personalize the fairy woods with

(24:58):
kind of colorways and pay and the grooves of the drivers.
I went ben hands with that. By the way, I
think I had red grooves on the driver and maybe
pink grooves on the fairway wood. But I just remember
that being so unique at the time. And Jaywall, we're
talking about again. One company does something, and then a
lot of companies kind of follow suit, you know. After

(25:20):
I feel like it was inking the grooves on the
fairway woods. Then you started to see some companies offer
multiple colorways on the crowns of the drivers. I mean
that became a big part of pushes for some OEMs.

Speaker 3 (25:31):
Yeah, I mean, customization nowadays is so prevalent across the
entire industry. And again you mentioned it. It starts. It's
gotta start with somebody. Somebody has to take a chance
and see what the reaction is. But yeah, to see
it start with being there. And now you know everybody
has a custom option where you can go wild with

(25:52):
the driver, all different colorways, whatever you want to do.
But yeah, customization is now such an important part of
just bring your personality out on the golf course.

Speaker 1 (26:01):
Jay, Well, how do you go about kind of customizing
your setup? Because I can only imagine your world is
box is showing up a decent amount at home and
you kind of have to go through that and either
figure out what lefty Buddy's going to get a new
set of irons or whatever the case may be. What
first t chapter in Dallas is loving the fact that
they're the closest to Wall's house. How do you go

(26:22):
about kind of your customization for your set because somebody
could probably send you off the rack golf clubs, or
they could send you exactly what you want and I'm
assuming these days you get a lot more of exactly
what you want versus the former.

Speaker 3 (26:33):
It's interesting because I used to accept everything, anything and
everything that was that was offered to me. I'm like,
I'll take it. There was a point, probably like six
or seven years ago where I was maybe at the
lowest I'd ever been for golf. I could not hit
a golf shot, and I had like four or five
different setups because I'm like, I gotta test this stuff.

(26:54):
I gotta test this stuff, and I was like, forget it,
I gotta quit. So you know, nowadays, right it is.
It is highly customized. You know, I think I spent
probably half a day at the proving grounds working on
working on the the I two thirty irons. You know,
in my my setup, my build is so highly customized.

(27:15):
I got an extra five grams of weight in the
toe just simply because I'm looking for kind of as
already mentioned with the hybrids, I'm looking for as a
lefty an anti right golf club, I want everything center
line left, and so we worked for a really long
time to build a highly customized set of clubs. Now
the difficult part with that is when I go and
test something else. I will go out there and other

(27:38):
OEMs will pick up my iron and they're like, God,
this thing's like a barbell. It's really heavy. I meant
midsized grips I got. I got a heavier head. I've
gone a little bit lighter in the shafts. But you know,
I've spent a lot of time on these golf clubs
where it's I just don't want to switch very often.
I want to stay with with what I like. So yeah,
I'm not changing out stuff nearly as often as I

(27:58):
used to, but I I am spending a lot more
time just trying to dial in the products. Like if
I just don't like something, I might try a different shaft,
I might try and changel angle a little bit, just
just little incremental things. But it is, it's tough. I
think the great part for me selfishly is I've stopped
getting a lot of product to test simply because we

(28:18):
now have robotic testing, and so we're able to see
what the robot's doing, learn from that, and then if
there's something interesting, then I might like ask for a product.
But yeah, my wife loves it. Because there aren't as
many boxes there are still there's still a lot of boxes.
Not as many boxes come into my house, But I
think my golf games has been better for just simply

(28:39):
because I'm not like adding a new driver every six
months or a new set of irons like it's And
I think golfers need to understand that, like you, once
you find something you like, like, don't chase it if
it's working, like stick with that setup. I think S
fifty five is a perfect example, like tour pros like it.
They've had success with it.

Speaker 4 (28:56):
Why change?

Speaker 3 (28:57):
And I think that's why you saw paying for so
long with fifty five if I keep that in the lineup,
like they didn't just say well this is a great arm,
we got to find something else, Like look how long
it took them to get from S fifty five to
blueprint s and blueprint t Like that goes to show
you that they're not just like chasing money and trying
to go after a new product to get it in

(29:17):
players bag so that they'll spend Like they have always
been really good about being purposeful with the products they
are releasing. They're not going to release something until you
know already mentioned the tyas I you know that's that
was ahead of its time. But Ping's done a really
nice job of always being really thoughtful in the releases.
And I look at adjustability with Ping. You know, they

(29:38):
didn't chase everybody else when they were going to adjustable products.
They were one of the last. It was simply because
they had to find a benefit to introducing adjustability. So
that's my long wited way of saying, like, Ping does
a lot of things right. And I think when you
get their clubs in the bag, that's why I've had
a difficult time getting I two thirty's out, just simply
because I spent a lot of time on it. It's
a good product, and why change it's.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
Custom for you. I mean also, if somebody picks up
the barbell club and they go, wow, this is heavy,
You're like, look about Peloton numbers. Man, I'm pumping out
like five on a thirty minute right Jaywall, by the way,
like top three percent in the entire world of Peloton
right now in terms of the numbers he can churn out, Marty,
He's an animal.

Speaker 4 (30:16):
On the light is Jaywall's I two thirty said? I mean,
it's it's very unique.

Speaker 2 (30:21):
It's a great example for kind of swing weight fitting
and system mass fitting. Right, because you know, when you're
fitting for you know, forarding off a miss with your irons,
you can only go so far with lingele. You know,
you don't want to go too far. Just make them flatter,
make them flatter. It's not your only option in the toolbox.

Speaker 4 (30:40):
You know.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
In his case, we're making him a little heavier, we're
moving to CG a little bit, and we're dialing in
the lingole. I think, all I think that's just a
great example, Jay Will you can use that blueprint of
that build for any future iron builds that come out,
you know, I think that's super cool.

Speaker 1 (30:55):
Yeah, Marty, what else you what else you have in
terms of your list of kind of the icon clubs
over the last you know, I think I feel like
this is this is getting a bit more modern in
which some of some of the more modern clubs on
the list as of now.

Speaker 2 (31:07):
Yeah, so I'll throw another Putter one out there, which
is the jas Putters. So these didn't really necessarily explode
in the market, but super fun project to work on,
very innovative. John Solheim, our owner, came down with this
idea like I want to make the ultimate kind of
Putter design and embodiment I want to have beautiful shapes

(31:30):
and sizes, beautiful designs, and get the CG super low
so we can optimize the role of the golf ball
and get the inertia really really high. So these putters
we made were fully machined, milled out of titanium, and
then we brazed in tungsten weights and then milled all
the different surfaces and finished them off. These JS putters.

(31:53):
They felt amazing and they were super forgiving. Talk about
robot testing, jawall. When we put these things on our
putting robot and hit it across the face and measure
the ball speed retention, the down line absolutely incredible with
what we were able to do with those putters. So
that's the JS putters. Super fun, very expensive to make,

(32:18):
but it's that family in that line. We've done these
JS lines named after our owner, John Allen Solheim, a
few times and it's really fun for us. It's challenging
for the engineers because normally we're kind of working within
a box and then he'll come down and say, hey,
spare it no expense, let's do the ultimate solution here,
and it's actually quite challenging for an engineer to kind

(32:41):
of go into a space without any boundaries, per se
and innovate.

Speaker 1 (32:46):
Well, I mean the thing ping is done with the
putters and Jay well, I know you know this as
well as anybody. They are not scared of trying new
things with the putters. I mean there have been some
very unique looking putters over the years, successful looking putters,
different mallet styles. I mean you kind of go across
the board over the last twenty five thirty years of

(33:06):
ping putters and you're gonna see some styles that only
exist at one place in the world, and that's out
of Phoenix, Arizona.

Speaker 3 (33:13):
What about the ISO pure is so pure?

Speaker 4 (33:16):
Love it?

Speaker 3 (33:16):
Oh, I was on my ISO pure with with with
the Ping logo right in the middle of that right
your insert Yeah, I mean, who else, Nique, It's super unique,
Like who else is doing stuff like that? Where you're
getting the logo in the face of the putter like that?
That is that is marketing at its finest. I mean,
if you get one of those putters on a Sunday
afternoon at a tour event and they zoom in they

(33:39):
get the face of that putter, normally you're like just
a it's a putter face. And then now you're seeing
the ping logo looking back at and you're like, well,
that's really cool. So yeah, they've done a lot of
innovative things in the in the putter space for sure.
I mean way more than just the answer putter, which
I think is the first thing that comes to mind.

Speaker 2 (33:55):
Yeah, I mean, I mean the doc putter, which is
named after John Suza here and uh you know he
so he was a great player. He's in charge of
our works department, done a lot of things for peeing
over the years. I was just a moon valley the
other day I saw his name on the on the
list of winning a bunch of tournaments over there.

Speaker 4 (34:11):
Well, he was struggling with the putter.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
Let's call it the hev gbs with putting, and he's like,
I'm gonna makes on.

Speaker 1 (34:18):
The podcast nobody's as their putting.

Speaker 4 (34:21):
Hopefully I got hey, I gotta respect Johnny. We'll call
it the yips.

Speaker 2 (34:26):
Maybe it's the yips, maybe it's the hev g b'ss like,
And then he had the idea, I'm gonna design a
gigantic putter. So he got a block of illuminum and
this thing's like literally like as big as a steering wheel.
Super high moment of inertia, and he put it with
it and it helped him a ton. And then we
scaled it down and we made other different versions of
it that were a little bit a little bit smaller,

(34:47):
but uh, that was another great example.

Speaker 4 (34:50):
You know, all the way from the dock down to
like the fetch, which that gets.

Speaker 2 (34:53):
The ball out of the hole, and you know we
have west Wood fetching it out of the hole after
he wanted tournament on the Deep World Tour.

Speaker 4 (34:59):
I think that's an iconic moment as well.

Speaker 1 (35:01):
Yeah, I was riding down, Marty to that point. I
was writing down some kind of iconic moments over the
years from pro golfers using ping equipment and the two
thousand and seven LPGA Championship Suzanne Peterson won that week
with a DOC fifteen putter. She borrowed that putter out
of one of the amateur player's bags that she played

(35:23):
with on Tuesday. I mean, you talk about incredible moments, Marty.
I'm always shocked at pro golfer's ability to tinker. You
think about what we saw at the US Open this
year with Bryson right goes into the final round driving
the ball well changees driver heads fifteen minutes before the
final round and goes on to win the US Open.
I feel like, and Jay Wall said this earlier. You know,

(35:45):
you have a golf club that works, stick with it
or stick with something similar to it. You know, don't
go searching for something if you have a club in
the bag that it plays. I mean, pro golfers do
this a lot. We see so many kind of older
clubs in the bags of professional golfers across the board.
But one of the best players in the world at
the time in seven to pull a putter out of
the bag of somebody she's playing with on Tuesday and

(36:06):
then go win the tournament on Sunday. That doesn't happen.
By the way, you win a major championship at Ping
and it's not gold plated, it's solid gold. I don't
think Ping was excited to see the bill on the
DOC fifteen, considering that was gonna be a solid gold
Ping putter in the vault for Suzanne Shane.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
I was gonna mention that man, that was that's a
heavy Uh, that was a heavy one.

Speaker 1 (36:28):
So hopefully they sold a couple extra docks when when
Suzanne won that one.

Speaker 4 (36:33):
Yeah, so so that was a lot of fun.

Speaker 2 (36:36):
I think, you know, in terms of the innovation innovation shade,
I mean it's hard for me. It's it's hard for
my brain to not stick to the driver category, you know.
I think we talked about Tya SI. Then if you
go into I would say, we have the you know
that you know, to the the changing of the garden
our eras was the our era here in the driver
category was the G two driver that kind of put

(36:59):
us on the map in terms of being beautiful shape,
thin wall, cast titanium in some really good things. And
then that turned into the I think my next one
in the driver category, I would say, is the Rapture
driver that was on my list. Yep, yes, because that's
like again you go to Hunter May and you go
to Anhelicebra, you go to Louis.

Speaker 3 (37:19):
Christy Kerr went in the US Open and seven along
with Kurr both went.

Speaker 2 (37:23):
With Rapture, absolutely incredible. So that was kind of built
off the base technology like the G two, G five drivers,
and then adding the composite in. And again, I think
so many of our innovations have been both designed but
also manufacturing innovation. The isopure Putter's j Wall. I mean
that was a you know, developing that manufacturing process that

(37:43):
we have in house for that was incredible. The Rapture
Driver we did, we did a manufacturing process there because
the composite was bonded from the inside out. So the
question is, well, how do you get inside the cavity
to bond the carbon fiber to the crown. We actually
insert literally a bladder inside the back of the head

(38:05):
and then you pressurize it and expand it so you
you and then you put it in, you cure it
and that's what bonds kind of the the resin in
the carbon fiber to the crown, and then you deflate
it and pull this little baggy or this bladder out.
Absolutely incredible manufacturing process. So in my mind, that Rapture

(38:26):
Driver I talked about the tech a little bit, but
also has some iconic players, iconic moments.

Speaker 1 (38:31):
Marty, do you know where the name came from for
that club? I'm always interested in, like the such the
origin of the names of these clubs. And I know,
sometimes you've got to feel for it and sometimes maybe
it was it was somebody else that came up with it.
But do you have any idea of where Rapture came
from Yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:47):
I mean, I think the Solon family is a very
very strong family of faith, and so John Solheim personally
involved in the family in naming our products. And that
was kind of like the you know, the the resurrection
of the Driver family and you know, so it was
really fun to kind of be part of that process.

(39:08):
And and there's so much tech brought in there being
able to weave those two things together nice.

Speaker 1 (39:14):
It's like a shout out revelations if you will, Ja
Wall New Testament in the Ping podcast, you j Wall,
you're going to mention something about the Rapture. You're just
had it on your list of of kind of the
iconic clubs over the last few years.

Speaker 3 (39:25):
Yeah, I think Marty nailed it. You know, the the
Carbon It'd been around for a little while, but this
was this was a first for Ping.

Speaker 4 (39:35):
Again.

Speaker 3 (39:35):
The name that the fact that on Hell Caberra and
Christy Kerr both win the two thousand and seven US
opens the Women's and the Men's with this Driver in
the bag. I think every manufacturer hopes for success for
the products when they bring him out on tour, but
nobody ever expects to win two US opens in the
same year with with that driver in the bag, and

(39:57):
I think that just goes to show you you know
that the tech was there, but when you're able to
marry that up with success on tour, I mean, that's
what makes it an iconic product. And I think that's
why if you ask golfers out there, like, what's one
of those drivers? You know, not going way back, but
what's one of those more recent ones. Rapture always is
that one where I hear people. I still hear people

(40:17):
talking about that driver. Hell, I've even seen it in
the backs of some guys when I go play golf.
So there's just something about that product that, again, it
resonates with pros, it resonates with amateurs, and it's just
one of those unique designs.

Speaker 1 (40:31):
Marty. I remember my mom called. My dad was having
kind of a big birthday and my mom called years
ago and said, I'm gonna get him some golf clubs.
What should I get him? And he got the Rapture Drive.
It was like, get the Rapture driver, get the Rapture
three when it was really popular at the time, got
both of them in the bag. I think they're still
in the bag today, still plays them still loves them.
Doesn't play as much golf as he used to play,
but I guarantee I'm gonna see him over the weekend,
and I bet they're in the bag and when we

(40:53):
go out there and see it up.

Speaker 4 (40:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:55):
The other thing about the Rapture Driver that I think
I should mention on the technology side is, you know,
there's so much buzz out there of you know, using
AI to do club design and that type of thing
is we actually used modeling techniques and a kind of
a form of AI, I guess early on, if you
want to call it that, to figure out where to
put those windows, because that Rapture Driver had these window

(41:17):
like a lattice structure, these windows in the crown, and
those windows they weren't just there for design styling.

Speaker 4 (41:24):
They were there to.

Speaker 2 (41:25):
Save weight in a way that didn't compromise the way
that the crown moves structurally.

Speaker 4 (41:32):
Right.

Speaker 2 (41:33):
So this was through some modal analysis, which is a
way that numerically in the computer, through modeling techniques, we
can shake the driver and see what it's going to
look like. Look for those low stress areas, take material
right out of there.

Speaker 4 (41:46):
So super cool.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
And then the way we finished it was even cool
Shane and Jwall where you could kind of see the
titanium underneath. So we had to develop this special paint
process where you could see the carbon fiber, you can
see a little bit of the titanium crown. So I
don't know, my brain just goes into all the blood,
sweat and tears that went in all the way from
the design innovation, to the manufacturing, to the finishing, to

(42:10):
the paint to the green color, to the name and
then boom the tour success.

Speaker 3 (42:14):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (42:15):
Definitely iconic in our history.

Speaker 3 (42:18):
Was that early dragonfly Marty? Oh, absolutely, that's really cool.
I don't do where that started.

Speaker 2 (42:26):
And you know what's fun is that we're still doing
those kind of same things today, but with you know,
more advanced tools, a deeper understanding, and you know, still
still using that same fundamentals though in terms of our
product development approach.

Speaker 3 (42:40):
That's awesome.

Speaker 1 (42:41):
Jay, Well, when when people listen to this podcast, do
you think they throw their clubs less after they listen
to these podcasts? And here we already talk about inventing
new paint for a driver. Head, You're like, this is
serious business, guys. Let's not throw the expensive driver you
just purchase I.

Speaker 3 (42:55):
Think more than anything. When you hear about, you know,
listening to Marty talk about the how they're designing a
product like Rapture and all the all the work and
effort that it takes. Ties I with with, you know,
bringing these different materials together, these different metals, and then
hear people grow about you know, this driver is so expensive.

(43:17):
But I think this just reinforces like there's a reason
why it's expensive. It's because it takes so much time
and effort to bring these products to life, to bring
these different materials together. It's it's not cheap to do this.
So yeah, maybe maybe people will throw the golf clubs
yet less. I don't think so. But one can help.

Speaker 1 (43:34):
Just helicopter you never never never, you never want to
hammer it. You always helicopter the throw. Then that thing's
not going to break that way Marty.

Speaker 2 (43:40):
On the topic of paint, I mean, Jay, well, here's
an example, Like I think we work on that Rapture
driver and the first paint process we put on there
was like three different coats and trying to get the
tint in the clear coat right, and the paint is
not you know, it's it's not weightless, right, So I
mean I think at the time, I think the first
engineering solution we had for that in the process engineering,

(44:03):
the total paint weigh like five grams, and you can
think about how much like for the design engineer if
you say one gram you are celebrating, you know, are
like it's painful, like oh this looks good, but it's
too heavy. So we had to go re engineers the
paint systems designed to try to strip a couple of
grams out there, and I think I think the final

(44:24):
paint finishing process weighed three grams and that was superb.
So again we even there's there is even a lot
of engineering and thought and pain that goes into the
paint finishing process because going back to the ties I
ties that tech, that paint was super thick. You could
go on there and look at and feel the edge
and those probably like, you know, six grams of paint

(44:45):
on that. So we've been able to strip that down
and four x are are the massive paint finishing processes nowadays.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
Marty hit us with a couple of more of the
clubs you have on your list, and then I want
to get everybody's kind of favorite paint club of all time.
If you Will I'm going to hit you with a
couple of iconic moments from pink clubs over the years,
and then we'll jump out of here. I think we
could probably do this for four hours and be fine,
but I'm assume people probably have something else to do after,
you know, we hit the hour mark talking about the

(45:13):
iconic pink clubs. But Marty, if you've got a couple
more on your list, hit us with them.

Speaker 4 (45:17):
Yeah, let me throw it out there.

Speaker 2 (45:18):
I think we've talked a lot about clubs have done
super good on tour and had great innovative stories to it.
I'm gonna go in a little different directions. Still in
the Rapture family, though, which is the Rapture irons. So
not a tour iron. This was an innovative iron for
the high handicap, the everyday golfer. And this iron was
super innovative because it was a steel body with a

(45:40):
titanium face and tungsten weights. And again I talked about, Hey,
the hard part is a designer is being able to
you know it might it sounds easy, Oh, just join
titanium with steel and put it all together. Well, in
practice that's very very hard to do. So this rapture iron,
which was super popular, kind of an iconic club with
the high handicapped golfer because it was super forgiving. Had

(46:04):
a titanium face attached to a steel body with tungusten weights.
And the way we joined that titanium face it was
it was machined milled grooves. Then we placed it into
the steel body and we did this process called swedging
where we came down with these dies that had very
specific angles to them, and we kind of smashed the

(46:25):
steel over in a very methodical way and joined that
titanium face to the steel body. We did it in
a way where the joint was perfect and so that
you know, the feel of the iron was amazing with
this kind of thicker titanium face because you could make
it thicker because the material is so lightweight, but still

(46:48):
machine grews to it.

Speaker 4 (46:49):
Then we had a lot of.

Speaker 2 (46:50):
Extra weight to play with, so we put a huge
amount of mass, like it was like forty grams of
tungusten in the low toe to get the inertia up.
That iron, I think has a grassroots kind of had
a grassroots following with a high handicap golfer because it
was so magical.

Speaker 4 (47:07):
From a forgiveness standpoint.

Speaker 1 (47:09):
Jaywall, when you get iron questions from readers, followers, whatever,
what would you say the percentage mixes asking high handicap
iron questions versus somebody that would, you know, maybe want
to try out the Blueprint tea or something.

Speaker 3 (47:23):
I think it was probably like seventy percent like fifteen
plus handicaps and thirty percent on on you know, I'd
say like a single digit handicap. There's just I think
because of of the industry that I work in and
the time that I spent out on tour, I just
I just think that everybody plays you know, compact, you know,

(47:44):
Cavity back irons, and then you get all the questions
and then you realize, like the average golfer out there
is never going to break eighty and they're just trying
to find something to have fun. Like that's at the
end of the day, that's all they want to do.
They want to go out on the golf or they
want to lose lose less balls. They want to you know,
get a couple more pars and have a good time

(48:05):
with their buddies. And so that's where the questions usually
come is just like hey, this is my big miss
and I'm just looking to try and like mitigate that.
So for sure, like higher handicappers like that's like that's
my audience, whether whether I want to believe it or not.
That's that's who I'm hearing from from more often than not.
And again they just they want to have more fun
and I get it.

Speaker 1 (48:26):
But that's that's golf's audience, Jonathan. I mean, I think
that's something that you mentioned that we all forget a lot.
I mean, Marty, I've mentioned this multiple times over the years.
I caddied at St. Andrew's for five months. I had
one player break eighty you know, I mean that. I
mean that one player player and I was caddying twice
a day almost, you know, five six days a week.
I mean, it was a lot of golf looping and
it opened my eyes to Jay Wall's point, I mean

(48:48):
it kind of even opened my eyes at the time
where I'm sitting there thinking everybody's able to shoot eighty
five and you realize that most golfers will never break
ninety in their in their life. And Jaywall nailed it.
I mean, the idea of club manufacturing. At the end
of the day, Marty is you're trying to do the best.
You're trying to make it cost the least. You're trying
to make it the most efficient for the player. You're

(49:10):
also just trying to allow them to go have a
little bit more fun. Pick up five yards with the driver,
ten yards with the driver, you know, kind of kind
of you know, shrink that distance in terms of how
far off line they're hitting irons. I mean, that's the
idea of all of this, is to make people have
a little bit more fun with the game.

Speaker 4 (49:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:25):
I mean, one philosophy I've tried to bring to the
team here is this kind of Barbell approach like, which is,
if we can take care of the most elite ball
striker on the PGA Tour, Victor Hobland, and then we
could take care of the beginning golfer, the high handicap golfer.
If we understand those two golfers, we have maximum empathy
for what they're going through, what their needs are, we'll

(49:48):
be able to take care of everyone else in between,
because that's where most people live.

Speaker 1 (49:53):
By the way, I love empathy is the word you use.
I think that is so great, It's so true. All right.
I wanted to ask you, guys, you're your personal favorite
pink club. Now, now, this isn't your first club, this
isn't the thing the one you think was the best
club ever invented. And I'll start us off. I've actually
got mine right here. I have probably had this pin
club in my bag the longest. It's not in my

(50:15):
bag right now, but it dips in every now and again.
If I'm really struggling. This is a G twenty. I'll
show it on camera here. This is a G twenty
fourwood that I had built. I mean, I mean, what
is this, Marty twelve, fourteen years old? I mean, how
old is the G twenty family. I'd never had a
four wood before. I remember Bill built me this forward
because I was talking about gapping with my bag. This

(50:38):
was well before Marty had come up with the gapping
system online that you can use to simplify the process.
This was just simply me telling Bill my numbers and
how far stuff was going, and he said, you should
get involved in a four wood. So this G twenty
four wood, Marty, I have had for a long time.
I've gotten rid of a lot of clubs over the years.
Jonathan knows that as well as anybody. This thing is

(51:00):
not leaving. So that's mine, the G twenty four wood Marty,
I'm interested in your answer there.

Speaker 2 (51:06):
Mine Shane is a G four to ten driver. G
four to ten driver. For a number of reasons. It was,
you know, I've worked on the G thirty drive. It's
almost it was almost a G thirty because I loved
that driver. I worked on that one in first one
of turbulators, but the G four ten turbulators. Different shaping
of turbulators is where we brought the CG shifter in.

Speaker 4 (51:29):
Again.

Speaker 2 (51:29):
We talked about empathy, Shane. The motivation for me with
that was to be able to bring all the tour
players being able to custom hot melt their driver healing
tow to dial in the left right. Let's bring that in,
but do it in the pingway, our way, high inertia
right around the perimeter.

Speaker 4 (51:44):
So we brought that in.

Speaker 2 (51:45):
We had really cool kind of shaping on the crown
of the driver that was like the hood of a
sports car. Also optimized through modal analysis kind of stiffening
in certain regions. We changed the hozzle in there so
we could get more adjustment with our trajectory tuning sleeve.
We had great different model designs with the PLUS and

(52:06):
the LST and the SFT did great on tour and selfishly,
like Jaywall was saying earlier, that's the driver I used
to accomplish my you know, kind of life stream was
to make the cut in a major. So I used
that driver when I made the cut at the PJA
Championship twenty nineteen.

Speaker 4 (52:24):
Beth paid Black attach.

Speaker 1 (52:27):
Attach yourselves to the world the most. Like it's like
the suit you were on your wedding. You're like, this
is my favorite suit. This is the one I'm gonna
be rocking. Jwall, do you have kind of a pink
club that stood out over the years just as your
favorite pink club, not necessarily the most popular one out there.

Speaker 3 (52:42):
Yeah, I go back. I had a set of S
fifty nine irons and this is going back to like
when I was basically scratch probably plus any cap playing
in college. Thankfully, my my parents had a membership at
Tradition's Club when I went to A and M. And
that was when that was when the Nickels courses kind
of just getting off the ground, and there weren't a

(53:02):
lot of people out there, weren't a lot of homes
yet and so I kid you not, I would go
out there every day and this set of irons was
they just they.

Speaker 4 (53:11):
Fit me so well.

Speaker 3 (53:12):
And I don't think I could play them now because
they're they're a bit more the bit too blady for
my for my reference. But they had that stabilizing bar
in the back. They they were such a great looking club,
but they had they had a little bit more forgiveness
than than the shaping. And I just remember just wearing
those things out. It's like I don't even have them
anymore because the grooves on them, especially like the nine

(53:34):
iron a pitching gudge, were just completely shot. And I
think that's like, that's the fun part, is like that
that set of irons I had for a couple of years,
and I just played so much golf I had. I
just had a blast with them the great iron out
on tour. But yeah, that for sure. S fifty nine
and Big Surprice they turned into S fifty five and
and you know those those are pretty decent irons. Like

(53:56):
we talked about.

Speaker 1 (53:57):
Exactly, I think we know which one your true favorite is.
I think I had the fifty five's Marty. You remember
when you got them out of the works program and
they'd have the W on the toe.

Speaker 4 (54:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:05):
I don't think that's the case anymore, but I remember
I had the the W on the toe with my
fifty fives that I'd have people that would randomly ask you,
Sweat what that was or what that meant, and I
was like, I don't worry about that. That that's for
me to know and you to find out.

Speaker 4 (54:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:19):
S fifty nine, that was a great That was our
first blade. That was our first true blade iron. I'm
obviously we made the I three I three plus blade,
but nothing like that S fifty nine.

Speaker 4 (54:29):
And you know, it was fun.

Speaker 2 (54:30):
Again, going back to the naming, we were sitting around, Hey,
what should we name this iron? Shoot fifty nine? That's
the goal with that iron. So where it all started.

Speaker 1 (54:39):
I love that. Well, now it might VJ. Well, we
see a lot more fifty nine these days than we
have previously, especially when those irons were popping up. By
the way, if you're listening to the podcast and you're
enjoying this, if you will send in. You can tag
ping on Twitter or Instagram or whatever, but just send
in your favorite ping club of all time, and if
you have a picture of it, or if you have
it at home or whatever. We love to see it

(55:00):
as well, and we'll share some of those as we
kind of wind down. I'm just going to hit you
guys on some iconic clubs over the years. Obviously Baba
Masters twenty twelve. I think I'd argue this is the
most iconic shot ever hit with the Pink Club. Is
that fair to say, Marty?

Speaker 4 (55:14):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (55:15):
I think yeah, absolutely. I mean just Bubba, the club,
the conditions, the shot. He's the only person probably on
planet Earth that could pull that one off, and he
did it when it mattered most.

Speaker 1 (55:26):
Yeah, that was a ping tour w wedge for Bubba
when he hit that to win the Masters in twenty twelve,
same Masters, by the way, Louis double eagle, if you remember,
that was a Ping S fifty six four iron I
think that was two fifty six jwall, which as I
get older, you're like four iron two fifty six. I mean,

(55:48):
I know he landed it on the front, which is
probably too two.

Speaker 3 (55:51):
Yeah, he was jagged, you know, Louis, I mean he was.

Speaker 4 (55:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:55):
He didn't miss the center often with those clubs, especially
back in the early twenty two ends. But that was amazing.
And then Sadie Lyle one iron eighty eight Masters. That
was back in one iron days. But I believe he
used a ping one iron when he won both his
major championships. But those then, of course, the Suzanne story
I told you with the Doc Putter earlier are some

(56:15):
of the iconic ones I have. Marty, did I miss anything?
Do you have anything that pops in your brain in
terms of an iconic pink club used in a big moment.

Speaker 2 (56:22):
Yeah, I mean I'll throw I'll throw it out there.
That might be a little non consensus, but you know
in a major it went to win a major. In
a US Open, I know because I've played in one,
I'm like, if you hit the fairway, you can you
know You're like, okay, I'm gonna make a par Yeah. Right,
So I'm going to say, on hell, Cabrera raptured driver
Tiger staring down his neck and he just crushes it

(56:45):
right down eighteen and Oakmont guarantees the victory.

Speaker 1 (56:49):
I mean he bombed that one bombing You mean that
that was like, I think it might have been the
longest t shot of the day on eighteen and Cabrera
hit the fairway. Then if you remember Tiger poses on
his and it kind of kept going right, got in
the in the first cut, kind of up against that
second cut, and it was not a great lie. He
had a really good shot there, nearly made birdie. But yeah,
I think that's a great call on the on the
Cabrera Raptors driver there at eighteen, because, like you said,

(57:10):
one of the hardest closing holes in golf. I think
you could go through Oakmont's eighteen and say that's the
hardest first, and hardest second, and hardest third hole, but
definitely one of the hardest closing holes.

Speaker 3 (57:18):
Is We're forgetting one boys nineteen eighty six PGA Championship
bopped play. Yeah, falling out I too, great point, Such
a great moment with him jumping with it with his
arms up in the air. You can't see my arms
right now with the right but you know, it's just
it's one of those iconic moments. Beat Norman. I mean, yeah,

(57:39):
that's and we haven't really really talked about that wedge.
I mean that that's another product that's been copied by
a lot of other manufacturers over the years.

Speaker 4 (57:46):
Yeah, a great point.

Speaker 2 (57:48):
You got the hold out from Bob Tway, you got
the Zinger Azinger the in memorial with the Eye two.
I mean, how many times is an io lob wedge
hold out out of a bunker to win a tournament?

Speaker 4 (57:59):
Is the question.

Speaker 3 (58:00):
We could spend it now talking about that.

Speaker 1 (58:02):
Yeah, and mart and Marty they're back. I mean, I
think that's one of the coolest part of the New
Wedges is you can go back in time in a
way and play kind of one of the more iconic
ping clubs that existed.

Speaker 4 (58:14):
Totally. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (58:15):
I mean that's a theme across all these clubs we've
talked about, is that we go we as the designers,
we go study these like what are the important attributes
about all these and we plug those right into our
latest and greatest designs and design theories.

Speaker 1 (58:29):
Jay Wall, I've been really really considering starting a golf
tour called nineteen ninety six Golf Tour, and you just
basically have to only play equipment that was built around
nineteen ninety six. I feel like this podcast now makes
me more than ever want to go like put together
a bag of high school Shane Bacon club. You should
know because of that, it just sounds like so much fun,
Like Hickories or Hickories and everybody enjoys maybe going out

(58:52):
and doing that here and there. I want to play
the clubs that we've talked about, the nighties era that
I played when I was in high school. This has
been great. Anything else, guys before we sign off, because
I have a feeling we might have to do this
again in the coming years, because we could probably go
down and go down kind of the the memory of
all the iconic clubs over the years and bring on

(59:13):
some different voices to touch on it. But Martin, anything
else before we sign off?

Speaker 2 (59:16):
No, I think next time, Jaywall, this would be fun.
We should do We should do this kind of focused
around shafts and grips. I think that'd be super fun,
just throwing that out there.

Speaker 3 (59:25):
Boys, there's a very iconic grip that we didn't mention,
used by a guy that's won fifteen majors.

Speaker 1 (59:34):
Yes, it's a great point. You know what, maybe one
of the more why was someone using this thing in
the history of golf? And uh, I feel like the
story is maybe worth another podcast, Jay Wall, what do
you got coming up? I mean, obviously this is going
to air a little bit after we record, but I
know you're always kind of focused on the equipment world
and what you're doing in that. I mean, you're always

(59:55):
venturing out talking to players and such. Just pay people
pay attention to the podcast and and go to golf
dot com and check out the writing.

Speaker 3 (01:00:02):
Yeah, for sure. This is actually my favorite time of
the year because I'm not crazy busy, but it is.
It's kind of the calm before the storm as we
ramp up for our yearly club test later in the
year and start testing new product and getting the robot
fired up. So yeah, it's just check out golf dot com.
We'll have a lot of cool content. And just had
so much fun just being on this podcast. Was this
was a lot of fun to kind of go back

(01:00:22):
down memory lane and talk about a lot of clubs
that I remember, clubs that I use. It's all fun
to do that.

Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
It's the best. Like I said, I mean, you can
go around and throw out random athletes names if you want,
and you can do that if you're a basketball fan
or a football fan. For US golfers, it's do you
remember the Rapture driver? The guys like, yeah, I had
the three would I mean, that's just like one of
the great parts of being a golfer and nerding out
on equipment, so Jaywall really appreciate it. Man, been a
buddy of mine for a long long time in this industry.

(01:00:50):
We will never remember the restaurant that we eat at
in Palm Springs, but we will forever and remember the
moment that we had enjoying that. And Marty will catch
back up very very soon. Congrats on all the success
lately on the golf course. Man, it's been fun to
watch jwallgolf dot com fully Equipped podcast. Make sure you
subscribe if you're not already. This is the Ping Proven
Grounds podcast.