The guys from paying They've kind of showed me how much the equipment matters.
I just love that I can hit any shot I kind of want.
We're gonna be able to tell some fun stories about what goes on here to help golfers play better golf.
Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Ping Proving Grounds Podcast. Shane Baker, Marty Jerts and Justice to today last one of the year, twenty twenty four. Good year.
It's been a great year. It's been a great year on the pond.
I wanted to ask about your game before we got to some of the questions. We asked people out there for questions across Instagram and Twitter x whatever you're calling it. We got some good ones, we got some nerdy ones. I mean, it's stuff I expected to get. But you had a good summer. Can you give us kind of a recap pilot? Where have we talked about this on the podcast, like a highlight of the way you played throughout the summer.
Yeah, it was one of those years, Shane, where it might have been my best golf year, best year, but I don't have anything to show for it. Okay, it was one of those like type of situations. I played really good locally, I won our match, our Southwest Section match play, but then there was just so many close calls, Like golf feels like it's like a death of a
thousand paper cuts. This was that year for me. Almost made it into the PGA Championship, missed by like four in a four round tournament, lost some playoff to get through US Open locals down into your place down at Suwaylo in Tucson. Then later in the summer, I lost some playoff to get in the Shriners. So I'm like, I was so close. Arizona Open, I had my best finish ever. That's a pretty big state Open, sponsored by Paying down at Papago. So we're playing the new tees.
It was playing like seventy six hundred yard par seventy.
Yeah, the part threes are short, getting like hybrid three wood on everyone.
Getting hybrid three wood. There's a number fourteen. There's like five hundred and twenty yard par four now, so you're like roasting a four iron in there if you crush your drive. But I was tied for the lead with nine holes to play, ended up finishing fourth. So that was my highest finish ever in Arizona Open. A couple battling some young ping guys Michael Figels on the Corn Ferry Tour, Nico Galletti DP World Tour Player. We're in the field, so it's fun to kind of be battling
against them. So I had a great summer, like, played really good, finished second on our Southwest Section points list.
As you look towards twenty five, I know you're a guy that I know in the like the winter time, you will kind of get away from it, which is funny to live in Arizona and not play a little golf in the winner. But I know that's kind of your time to step away. I also know you're looking ahead always, So what does twenty five look like in terms of your golf? Are you gonna do anything different in terms of your prep headed into the next season.
Yeah, I mean every year it's kind of like, uh, your little speed training, kind of get your speed up over the winner. Then the tournament season comes and I kind of regress on my speed. So this is my time here, I'm training. Okay, So a few little nagging injuries, nothing serious, but kind of getting over those right now, doing my speed training, help coach my kids, and then
I need to work on my wedge play. Okay, So especially for Arizona golf specifically, if so many web shots from like pitching wedge, you know, one forty five down to one hundred yards, I gotta get better at that. That's where that's where my competitors in the section might have a little edge on better. So I'm gonna dial in my wedge play this this year.
I'm gonna I'm gonnalean into the stack this winter. I'm gonna do a little stack.
You speed up.
Yeah, James Nitties and I who I do the corn fairy stuff with him and I are doing a little competition with a stack, so we'll see what our numbers look like.
It's really fun to do in the off season. You don't need to care where the ball's going.
Is the point is it just swing? Just just swing really hard and get ready for golf. Obviously, live in the Northeast, it's like, what are you gonna do in the winter anything, So it's a perfect time to do that. I want to get in some questions because we got some good ones, we got some interesting ones. One of these, well, the first question that I thought was great was just how is Marty so smart? Marty, do you have an answer for that?
Twenty years of coming into the office every single day and being around the smartest people in golf. The culture here at Ping is phenomenal. It's like all you have to do is come to work and ask some questions of your co workers. And there's this famous quote which is like the further you are from the shore, the deeper the ocean. So it's like, you come into work, you ask questions. You can't help, but you know, just chipping away and get a little smarter every day.
Lean on someone Chris Colevali I think is the name, said, can you speak to what's coming down the pike for you guys in twenty twenty five. I know you can't reveal too much in terms of new product, but maybe just give people an idea of what to expect over the next couple of months from Ping. Yeah, it's gonna be exciting. It's gonna be super exciting. We have amazing product in pretty much every category coming down the pipe. So some great R and D that we've been working
on here at the proving grounds. The engineers are working on some material innovation, some modeling, innovations. Some technology with regards to new shaft designs is coming down the pipe pretty soon. We're seeding some things on the tour right now, which is super duper exciting. Spring of twenty five is gonna be arguably our most exciting product launch of all time. What a tease, man, It's like you almost have done this for a living Slight asked, how can I recreate?
And I don't know if we can recreate it, but how do I recreate Ping's grip taping spindle in my garage?
Ooh, the taping spindle? Now that's great if anyone's ever been on a tour Ping, I think we have a video. If you go to our web page, you see that we tape our grips different than everybody else. So Carston, our founder, he was trying to figure out. He was always questioning everything. You know, you want to kind of be that little skeptic, like is this the right way
to do it? In? The classic way to tape to tape regrip your clubs at home is you use tape, you fold it over, you get a little seam that can be kind of annoying if you're not like.
I do it at my house. That's how I do it, right, I mean I don't have a spindle. That's how I do it at home.
You get that little seam. And he actually did testing back back when Carson came up with this process. The tape wasn't as good, okay, so you could actually pull the grip off and it would get loose or twist. And so he tried the spindle method, which is both faster to do in production so we could build club quicker, and the strength was more when he tried to pull the grips off. So he came up with this method. It stuck. It's our proprietary equipment. We do a lot
of things here that are kind of trade secret. We build all of our own equipment manufacturing equipment here to support our team that does our assembly. So it's a fun method to do. I'm really slow at it when we go down work production, but if you go down and see our production folks doing that, they do it so fast it's incredible.
So for a slide dog leg, the answer is come to ping and get your clu script. There you go. That's the answer for you. John Gilman said, how do you know what's actually time to upgrade? Your clubs, which I do think is probably a question that would be considered generic, but I also think it's probably something people think a lot about a lot.
Yeah, No, it's a great one, I think. In you know, the way I would look at that is you look at the most important categories for scoring, which is driving and putting. So I would be almost continuously looking at those those those clubs. If you're in a really well fit driver, it does not hurt once a year to go out and see if our latest technology can beat it. Your game and your body evolves also, so your swing changes.
I think this is like the way to really think about a tour fitting is that no tour players ever really like static in their their clubs. The everyday golfer is the same. Your your your swing could change, your angle of attack, could change things of this nature. So at least once a year I would go check in
on your driver, make sure it's fit well. We actually have tools built into our apps we make, like pink Co Pilot that can do a strokes gain comparison, so you could go in and hit your driver, hit it compared to one of our new ones and let the strokes gain do the talking.
Yeah, I mean, if the numbers look good to you, I think that's probably your answer, right, Like it's timed upgrade exactly. How do you get the PLD patina finish? Somebody asked, Yeah, it's very popular and it's one people I think are big fans.
Of the Patina is a beautiful finish, And what patina is it's kind of like an oxidation process. So when it happens out on I don't know, you have like a copper wind chimes and have that turquoise color to it, or the Statue of Liberty is the kind of a version of a Patina finish. It's a natural oxidation that
occurs out in the natural environment on certain types of alloys. Well, we have a way to do that in a super controlled fashion that gets that oxidation to occur perfectly uniform on the putter, so you get that beautiful look, that beautiful oxidation. So it's a chemical process that we do under very strict process controls that allows us to get that uniform look.
I think all the answers to like the super like like in depth golf questions, is it takes a lot of time and a lot of effort from the team.
Yeah, No, it's we were still trying to perfect that Patina finish, and that's why it took us a long time to be able to launch it to consumers. We've done it for tour players, but we could do it. It's not perfect. We rework it and do it again, but we're finally excited to pass that along as a finish in PLD.
I think you get this question a lot. I think it's been a popular talking point throughout the podcast. Full Specs on Jersey on Marty's Thriver build. How often do you get asked about the Thriver first foremost?
Yeah, no, a ton.
I mean it's like, I mean, this might be your lasting legacy at ping, is the Thriver?
Quite honestly, it's It's part of It's one of the reasons I had a really good playing season this year because I can't remember a time where I hit my Thriver like in the desert or got a penalty shot or something, you know, which with the traditional three wood I would definitely have done. So Yeah, I've been playing it close to two years now, a good year and a half. I played it last season. This season, my specs are twelve degree max head, so G four to
thirty twelve degree max. I put the seed the Hozle trajectory tuning hozzle in the flat position, so it's three degrees flat. This is kind of the semi secret settings opposite the dot position three degrees flat. For langle, I put the CG shifter in the fade or the toe setting. I've built in about D four swing weight, and I put our Tour two point zero black shaft. This thing is. It's pretty stout at forty three and a quarter inches, so that's my specs for the driver. Absolutely love it.
It's functional enough off the ground, but I mean eighty ninety percent of the time I'm hitting that thing off the teeth.
What's the distance on your thriver?
I just I usually kind of tee it low and sort of chip it down there, and it's never full.
I don't think I'm ever trying to. I mean, you've you've talked me into the thriv I love it as well, but you're never going for full four at it.
I mean I fly it between two sixty five and two seventy depends on the course conditions how far that thing needs to roll out. Obviously I can hit it. You could do the same thing I mean, we could build a club to go further, but then it turns into your driver.
There's no point. I mean, you don't want it like that. And we talked so much about gappy and we did it, especially early in the podcast. We talked a lot about gapping, and I think that is one thing is just making sure it's not overlapping another golf club way right.
Yeah, I actually don't want it to go too far right because I needed to go that very specific number. Is it probably flies two seventy stock you know, then average rolls out to maybe two eighty something right in there.
J Pat Brown said, your favorite interview of the year, Marty, do you have a podcast episode that comes to mind?
I would.
I'll start. I mean, I I got a chance to talk to Bubba and do a podcast with Bubba Masters week in Augusta, and he came in and he was in an awesome mood, and he was, you know, like really excited about chatting about you know, not just the week, but just kind of his experience at Augusta, Nashvill and the Masters and stuff like that. And I really enjoyed it. I mean, I like getting to chat with Bubba when
Bubba's rocking and rolling. I don't know if there's anything more fun to do in golf, and he was dialed, so I'd say Bubba is very high on my list.
Yeah, I would. Yeah, No, that's great. I think in twenty three it was Victor right after on the BMW.
You know, we were talking about that before the podcast started. You know, you forget you know, Victor and people behind the scenes like getting players to agree to do stuff. I mean, it's not always the easiest thing in the world because they've got a lot of stuff going on, and then a guy wins a big tournament like Victor did, and stuff gets complicated. He has other interview requests, he's got other you know, maybe TV appearance he's got to do.
On that Monday, he came right in on Right in the Rock and he he jumped in, didn't get a out of sleep, and he admitted on the podcast. But yeah, getting getting Victor right there was fine.
That was my favorite twenty three. I think this year's version of that was like probably Lauren Coughlin. We had her right during the middle of her hot run, right. I think we talked to her a few days after she got picked for the Solheim Cup team, so I would say, yeah, pretty close between her and Matt McCarty. Yep, we had both of them on right and similar to Victor, I love talking to the players right when they're in the middle of their their golf heaters.
The McCarty one was great. I mean, you know, obviously get a chance to like I've known that for a long time, but getting a chance to kind of cover that corn Fairy Tour run and it felt like every single week and to see it click in, you know. I mean, he came so close in twenty three to get his PJA Tour card. I mean he missed out basic make it a big number on the last hole of the finals. I mean, that was what kept him from getting his PGA Tour card. And guys can go away.
It's easy to go away when something like that happens. We actually had an unfortunate situation at Q School last year in twenty three where a guy had a penalty and really struggled this past year in terms of playing. I mean, he was very close to get his PGA Tour card that way, and to see Matt bounce right back and then to find this form and him talk about it on the podcast. I would urge people. You
mentioned the Lauren episode, which I thought was great. I would tell people if there's a couple to go back and listen to Matt's. Matt's story is very cool, you know, seeing guys kind of do that level. Joe Smith asked a question, and I actually think this is interesting for you, Marty. How do you choose your pink clubs? There's so many pin clubs out there. How do you go about choosing what goes in your bag versus some of the other clubs that maybe might not make the cut?
Yeah, meet me personally. Yeah, this is kind of a hard thing for me to do because I do get to experiment and go hit all the clubs, and I could kind of self fit myself heal. But I schedule a fitting and we talked to the Summer Hayes family. They do this too. They have Summer Hayes Day here at Ping. Everybody, whole family comes in. It's it's like a pilgrimage, you know, they come in, they all get get their bags settled. For the most part. Obviously, they'll
make a little micro tweaks throughout the year. I tried this. I make a very concerted effort to schedule a fitting for myself. So with with our master fitters made with Brad Millard, our one of our PGA tour reps, who's a great fitter I ever lied a upon for a long time and I just blank out. I just tell them treat me like I'm up, you've never seen me before, right, and fit me into whatever. And I love doing that.
And that's when I can open the open, open the door to maybe try something to them and tried normally. You know, Brad Millard was the one that got me into the shaft that I use my been using my driver for the last couple of years, the RDX blue shaft. I would I would not have known that, right, And so uh that's what I try to do and be super open minded about it now. Yeah, I do kind of No I want. I'm gonna be a blueprint ass type of player.
That's what I was gonna say.
For you.
I'm sure it's tough because I'm sure you go into it. I mean, you can tell a fitter, you know, approaches like you've never met me before, but you know so much about all the golf clubs. I'm sure you already have an idea of what you're gonna be playing and then to be a little bit more open minded. I bet it's important to go in there just because you might throw a four iron in you weren't gonna play before.
Yeah. Yeah, And that's really where it comes down to those transition clubs. So four iron do I need to go to you know, you know, a different foreign solution, maybe a different one for different conditions, different time of year. Brad Mollard got me into playing the Blueprint Tea and the pitching Wedge. Absolutely love. That's one of my favorite clubs. Yeah. So you know, different players with different skills, they can switch Blueprints in different parts of the bag. I can
play the Blueprint te pitching pitching wedge. Jacob Clark got me in a great mix. I played the Wide Soul or w fifty six degree. You talked me into this.
I mean, I do the same thing now, Yeah, And I would urge people if you know, you know, like like it's great for bunker play. I think that was one of the reasons you talked me into it was long bunker shots. Have you got debunkers at your club and stuff like that. The White Soul fifty six has been a big, big win in my bag.
Yeah, so that was Jacob Clark's kind of cheat code from the tour is to really create a bigger differentiation in your sand wedge and your LOBWTCH because I think the default is, oh, I'll play the s grind in my sandwich, I'll play that in my lob wedg. There's a lot of benefit to having that wider soul in
your sandwich. I'm a little steeper, you get a little steep from time to time, and then playing a totally different green side optimized lab wedge, so I play our you know, our t grind traditionally in the in the law bunch well.
And what I've noticed with the two with the two different options in the fifty six and the sixty is around the greens as well, depending on where you're playing in the country. I mean, some of the times it's important to go with that wide soul fifty six with a shot you might hit sixty with just because you've got a little bit more club to work with there. Yeah.
G Shaw Golf said, why does Ping have different lie angles lie angle increments between clubs that the other manufacturers and why does this make the delta larger within a set.
Ooh, that's a great question. So this is for the golf techies out there. So if you go on our website and you look at the length of iron irons, then our liingel the the we change the liingel at three quarters of a degree more upright per every half inch shorter you go in the club right. So this kind of ratio is a little bit different than what we've seen some of the competitors do, where they traditionally have been at more about half degree per half inch,
So every club gets a half degree flatter. Ours get three quarters of a degree flatter as you go more longer in length. We've found that that we've come to that conclusion on our own independent research. So player testing
dynamic delivery with our motion capture system. Now we have ARCOS on course data, because that's the ultimate kind of viewpoint, is our players missing the ball right on the golf course, and we saw that players with their long irons looking at our ARCOS data do tend to still miss the right a little bit. Right handed golfers with their long irons, So we have no reason to believe in both the three D delivery and the on course data with arcost
that we should be making our long irons flatter. If anything, it would exasperate a problem that already exists. So that's a really fun one. We actually see. The perspective is we don't know why the others are at a half degree you it makes sense, yeah, But that being said, we do have a lot of golfers that in one of the benefits of our color code system, you can play different color codes in different parts of your irons.
If you go through a fitting process and if you are a golfer that might have a different kind of transition of your long irons to short irons, you can play a different color code in your short irons than your mid irons and your long irons. We kind of around here in the ping Doome we kind of call that rainbowing your set. You can play different color codes
in your set design. So we still have that ability to do it for the individual golfer, But on the macro level, we like three quarters of a degree per halfn't.
All right, Marty, very important question. I did not prep you for this best shot you hit in twenty twenty four, single best golf shot. It doesn't have to be a tournament golf shot. Do you have a golf shot that stands out in your brain that you'll take into twenty five and go I need to remember to hit that one.
Oh, okay up in Flagstaff Forest Islands. If you play Forest Islands, okay, Forest Islence.
Well, and for people that don't know Arizona, one of the best courses in Arizona, if not the best.
Golf up in the pine trees seven thousand feet. The eighteenth hole on the Canyon course, which the Cannon course is tough, is a par five is a wise cough split fairway, so you got fairway to the right. Then the holes designed a lay up like a three shot hole. Hit your t shot over to the right. If you hit it down the kind of the right side, you
got a hanging lie ball above your feet. I actually think Wiscoff got a lot of inspiration on Canyon from Augusta, Okay, because you end up with these little hanging Hey, well is the ball above my feet? I got to hit this cut shot.
You know. It's kind of like like they're intuitive right. It's like you're trying the ball once to go left and you want the ball to go right.
So I hit a t shot. I'm just playing a casual round with some friends over to the right center of the fairway. You're blocked out by the trees a little bit. So it's all day long. The plays that lay it up just just hit your eight iron over there and then hit your tournament or you lay up one hundred percent for all day long. But I got like two sixty to the hole. You know it's up at elevation, but you got to hit about a thirty
yard banana cut. Normally that would be you know, okay to do, but you got two things going against you. One the altitude. The ball doesn't curve as much up there, literally curves half as much at seven thousand feet. Two of the balls above your feet like this, I'm like, god, this is worth a shot. I opened the face on this five wood. I play a five wood up there so much. It was like a just like a goofy golf shot, like banana ball. Hit it out, went over
the water. It's all water carry over. The water curved around, landed about ten feet shore, the hole went twenty feet past, drained it for eagle, made the three made it for eagle. Love.
It's all what was yours? Well, I made a hole in one this year, but it was on a par three course, which, as you know, I think some people debate that is it a real hole in one. You know, here's here's kind of my point on it. Every every golfer in the world steps on every tee that they've ever played, and the goal is to make the shot in one. So to me, it's like, you made it in one. That's kind of a win. I actually, but it was the same trip. I was on this golf
trip I go with three buddies of mine. We try to go once a year somewhere, and I was playing this money game and I was getting crushed. I mean, we're like seven holes in. I'm playing pretty good, but every time it's either I'm the partner I'm with because you could change partners throughout the hole. It's like one of those games, kind of a wolf game, and I'm
getting murdered and I'm in the fair way. I'm this part four, and I look at my buddy and I go, well, I mean I might as well hold this out to finally get some dots because I can't get them any other way, and made it so called the hole out with the nine iron, So I think that was that was the day before the hole in one. But I still think the calling out the nine iron hole out was probably maybe my favorite moment of the year on the golf course. Yeah, I call it.
It was like molinarious open.
Yeah, that's like when he made the cut was unbelievable. You mean to make the cut with this one, I can do it. Well. It's been a fun years. Always I'm excited for twenty twenty five. New product in twenty twenty five, new podcast in twenty twenty five. We've got some awesome episodes that we're looking forward to there. And yeah, I mean we kind of go away a little bit in late December as we kind of get ready for the new year, and then back we're rocking and rolling.
But always fund the chat. Always fun to do these podcasts. What are we sixty something episodes in? It's crazy to think we were sitting very close to this position when we started this podcast and to think we're a year and a half in and we're still rocking and rolling. And to everybody that listens, we appreciate the feedback, we appreciate the questions. I know you get dms on social media.
We urge you to keep doing that. We love getting questions I know I screen grabbed some and send them to you via text and you'll reply at times, but the interactions are why we do this and we appreciate all the love and all the support, and we'll be back in twenty five with more pods. So thank you guys. Hope you had a great holidays. This is the Pingk Proving Grounds podcast.