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.
Welcome back to the Ping Proving Grounds Podcast. If you're not watching this on YouTube, you might need to change that. We are in one of the coolest rooms in all of golf. Shane Bacon with Marty Jertsen. We were kind of going over the coolest rooms in the entire sport. You think about champions locker room. There's probably some historical room in the RNA that I don't know about. The tap room at Pebble Beach, Arnie's office, and then the vault room, the Ping Vault putter room that we're in
right now. And I mean, you want to see gold and you want to see success, this is it.
Yeah, this is an amazing place and it never gets old coming in here. And there's the story behind every single one of these putters is quite phenomenal.
Not just the story of how they did to win either the golf tournament they did the US Amateur Major, championships.
There's some clubs in here.
You see Louz Tazan's four irony hitd at the Masters, Watson the fifty two degree famously that he hooked obviously in that playoff. But you know, I mean, I mean there are stories about the technology that goes into these putters, and as we talk about proving Grounds, this is basically the success story, right, this is the end all be all from when things started to when they ended here.
Yeah, this is what all the players are out to do. They're out to win, and especially the major championships. That's quite fun to look at those. And that's what we're doing at the proving Grounds. We're working on technology, engineering, design fitting to help players get in the vault.
Yeah. I love the story of the gold putter. If you never heard it.
Carson Solheim was trying to get creative and how to send things to players that won golf tournaments that were using a ping putter, and back in the day, I mean, you get a one hundred dollars two hundred dollar check, and he said, why not send something more creative, and so he sent a gold putter and kept the gold putter, and those cold putters went from his closet to a bigger room, to a bigger room and now obviously ended this vault in a much celebrated room in golf and both in ping history.
Yeah, I think it's fun to come in here and pick out your favorite putter, your favorite experience things made, the.
Weirdest putter, the weirdest putter that's in looks. Yeah, there's some.
There's some prototypes in here, for sure. We would just take a look at some big aluminum putters and prototypes. And you know, Lee Westwood is a fun one because he has I think over fifty putters and seventeen different models. So you know, it was fun to come in here with him. One time he got all his putters out and you can see how much he's switch putters over there.
Yeah, you're telling me a story about not just him pulling the putters out and looking at him, but actually asking for a cast of one of the gold putters that he could go back and use again.
Yeah, we we used we used a putter because he was in the lab, he was working on his putting technique and his hands got kind of low and where he was gripping it, it got too much in the fingers. He was getting a little too risty. He was like, oh, I remember, you know, I want to get more set up like I did back in you know, the early two thousands. So we went into the vault. We grabbed a couple of his putters that he won with and they're built to the exact same loft and lie with
the exact same grip that he used. And sure enough, he got more comfortable, stood a little taller change where his grip was, and we ended up building a putter for him that year that was based off when he won with, based on what he won, So we used it.
Yeah, history, history plays Before we kind of get into the crux of the conversation today. I wanted to bring up a very golfy thing to you. We were just talking about this a moment ago. It's about practice rounds. Now you play a lot of tournament golf. Yeah, you play a lot of tournament golf in Arizona. Are you pro practice around or anti practice?
If I've played the course, and I know the course and Arizona courses, I've played them all, as you've played a lot of them. To Shane, I skip, I skip them. I'd rather go do some block practice and work in my home course as long as I know the course right. If it's a new place I don't know it, then you need to go do your homework.
See I'm I'm the opposite of that. I just don't do practice rounds anymore at all. It just costs me, you know what, I'm two strokes behind the field to start. It's like the Tour Championship.
I tell you what Google Earth can do you a lot of good when it comes to a practice round.
So as we're looking at as I said, the success stories, I mean, these are putters that won golf tournaments and this is from concept to players to winning to now you're forever in the history books in one of the more cool rooms in all of golf. How does a product go from I have an idea to this room.
Yeah, it's a great question. I mean that whole product development process is pretty fun, Shane. And you know it starts with an idea. That idea can come from anywhere. It could come from you saw something in another industry, it could come from you know, kind of an inspiration you have on your own individual level, an idea from another sport. I think whenever I think about innovations and how product comes to be. I think the turbulators is
a really fun good example. Right, we saw in another sport on a helmet these little ridges on the edge that gave a little advantage aerodynamic advantage, and that kind of sparked an idea, Hey, maybe we can apply that principle to golf clubs. But from that seeing that idea to bringing it to market is quite a complex process.
Right.
You kind of have this what we call a phase one, which is making one prototype test the concept. So the very first version of turbulators was just welding on little ridges to the end, taking it out on track man and in a launchmar did it speed up the driver? Not yes or no. It didn't look good. It was ugly. It was a crude prototype. But from there it's like, hey, yeah, it looks like there's something to it. Let's go a
little deeper, let's do some wind tunnel testing. And then once you get there, that's not the end of it, because then you have to figure out how to ramp it up into production. You have to figure out how do you manufacture it? So that's its own level of R and D. Right, A lot of times you can have an idea a technology. It's kind of quote unquote easy to design, but the manufacturing is the hardest part. So each one of those steps along the way is quite rigorous.
I mean, are you you see a helmet? Because I think the turbulators is a great starting point here, because you know, you're thinking about a driver that had always been flat on top, the crown had been flat, and all of a sudden, you've got these bumps on top. You know, you have to explain that story to people for them to kind of buy in. I mean, you know, people don't like change, and they don't like anything that looks a little bit different. So are you drawing this out?
I mean, how are you putting a prototype together that has these little ridges on top of a driver?
Yeah, there's a couple ways. I think we're doing more and more virtually now. But at that point in time, we literally just welded little titanium strips on there, right, So we want to make a physical prototype. But now we're fortunately we're doing a lot more virtually. So we can go to the computer. We go into our CAD system, which is computer and a design three D system, and we can just draw little ridges on there and we
actually can now are so advanced. We have a software called computational fluid dynamics.
It doesn't come like computer when I see CFD software, but this is like a virtual wind tunnel, right, so, and then we can throw air at it and see what's going on words it's separating.
We can do a lot of virtual experiments. What that does. It allows us to make turbulators of different heights, different angles, different numbers of them, and we can run a lot of virtual experiments quickly. Then we validate it with a physical time.
How long is that process? I mean you're starting from I saw a helmet with bumps on top too. I now have what was the first one?
The G thirty G thirty driver?
I mean there was. It was a good three years, okay, right, if each each step along the way is pretty rigorous. And if we made a mistake on the turbulators and designed them, you know, fifty thousands of an inch too short or too big, you can go from helping the aerodynamics to hurting it. That's how precise you need it. You need to be with you know, with a design like that.
So over three years, are you talking one hundred two hundred three hundred different prototypes that you maybe have messed with, even if it's on the computer, to get to the one that you know will work.
For what you're trying to accomplish.
Yeah, the computer simulations you can do a very high number of iterations. You want to be a little more cautious on that making physical protepes because it takes all you know, there's a lot of time and expense going into it, so we try to narrow it down in simulations. Then we went, for example, we made we toured our machine shop right where we can we have a lot of C and C milling machines. We made a solid aluminum driver that had a bunch of inserts in it
with turbulators of all different shapes and sizes. We took it to the wind tunnel and in a very controlled experiment and we popped in all these different variations of turbulators and we got and then we took data on it, and that that gave us the rules that we can play by, right, and then we need to make them look good too.
That was my next question is just aesthetically because again, I mean, as we joked a moment ago, there are some different looking putters in here. I mean there's some putters that you would never in theory think would be efficient or would work well. And then there's obviously plenty of traditional looking putters in the vault as well. When you go, you know, kind of on the extreme, how
much does the aesthetics play in into it? Because you still got to you guys all got people interested in buying the product.
Yeah, absolutely, you want to make it inspirational. So a lot of times that is our challenge is is uh, it's it's that marriage of art and science, right, And that's what beautiful golf clubs that work good are right is you don't have to sacrifice one for the other. You could stand at the intersection of both of those things.
What concept that is now a product? Was the hardest to get pushed through that you were working on or that you worked in and around?
Oh, that's a good question. I think each of the technologies has had different levels of challenges. Some of them have you know, kind of USG conformance challenges that you're you're kind of working on. Some of them have manufacturing challenge, some of them have durability challenges. I mean even I think back to even just putting a matte the matte black finish on our driver, right, we kind of that's when you saw cars on the road. That is cool. Matt finished, Hey, I want to do that on a driver.
Wh that came from?
It?
Is it driving my vehicle?
That's where it came from. And I got kind of a fun story on that. I was playing in the PGA Championship. I was playing in a practice round and we hadn't launched it yet. This was Atlanta Athletic Club, I think twenty eleven PGA Championship, and I was playing a practice round with Miguel Jmenez and we had shown him I think our I twenty driver or some is a prototype at that time, and he was like, Hey, that's going to be good. When you're about to tee off.
One of the problems you're faced with is is the crowd starts to get quiet, and the marshals raise the quiet sign, and sometimes you can see it in the reflection of your driver. So I'm literally playing with him a month later and I'm in a practice round with him and we're about to tee off, and I remember it got really quiet. There's a handful of people around, and then the Marshall goes like this and write them my glossy g G G twenty driver. At the time, I was.
Like, that's it.
That's the pain point we're solving with the map. Finish here, like he told me it was gonna happen.
You know, it doesn't feel like to me that peeing is necessarily on a timeline in terms of new clubs. So what does a new club have to show to you guys and to players and to your professionals to get pushed through and then to be introduced to the public.
Yeah, it's a great question. So yeah, we, as you know, Shane, we set pretty aggressive goals for ourselves that every time we come out with the product, it has to be meaningfully better than its predecess And.
Is that quantified in terms of numbers being meaningful because you know, I mean meaningful. I guess to any golfer could be picking up two or three yards.
Yeah, right, what's the definition of that? So we'll set design goals. Hey, you know, G four to thirty driver. We want to have x percent x you know, miles an hour higher ball speed. We want to improve the spin consistency a certain amount, or it could be an acoustics thing. You know, we need to get a perception rating that our players love the sound of our driver substantially better than it's processor, right, and that could be a goal for us from an acoustics standpoint.
Yeah, make it sound better, make it look better, and obviously make it perform better. I've always been interested in testing, and by testing, I mean using the players that you might have on staff. How much in terms of testing something new, especially something big that you know is are going to really blow up the industry, how much do you lean on professional golfers and people on your staff to test it out, try it out and get feedback from them.
Yeah, quite a bit, especially as we're getting right down to the finish line of the product, right, and we want to make sure it is going to be meaningfully better for them, right, So we bring them in before we launch the product. You know, quite often we're doing it literally here at the proving grounds. It's kind of living up to its name there to stress tests that make sure it's solving the right problems for them. We've done our due diligence in the design process. We have
a lot of good, good player employees here. But ultimately, I mean especially if it's a you know, blade iron or blueprint iron, something like that. We get the tour players directly involved in the in the final development of it.
I mean, something like the blueprint iron. We partnered right up with the tour players doing during the entire design process to make sure we're optimizing the size, the blade length, the look every you know, the turf interaction, the acoustics, everything of that nature.
And you're taking the information so like a Tony Finow says, you know, the top line could be adjusted here or there. How much of that feedback are you actually taking in and changing the equipment.
Yeah, for an eye, for an iron that's specifically designed for the best players in the world. A ton. I mean we're we're driving the designs directly off of them. I mean, I even remember we did the Eye I ten iron. We work with christ de Marco a lot on that iron, right, We shape things and shape the top rail, and he was one of the main main drivers on everything that came to be so our better player irons we use them. A ton.
What's the biggest misconception that the general public has about golf equipment? You know, maybe maybe they think one thing and you guys know the opposite.
Yeah, I think I think it kind of goes back to I think that the general public things that we're making trade offs that are kind of zero sum, like, oh, you know, I'm gonna play a more workable iron, therefore it's gonna be less forgiving. I'm gonna play a lower spinning driver, therefore it's not gonna go straight.
Right.
I think that's the biggest thing is that you can get two positive things at the same time. We've proved that, right, we have an LST driver. It's low spin and it goes straight and it has high forgiveness, so we can you can you can have two good things happen at the same time.
I know everybody's different and every player is different, but when you introduce new equipment to your professional golfers, how many questions are they asking about it? Are there some players that ask nothing? And is there some players that ask everything?
Oh?
Man, that's a great one, Shane, because they're all over the place. Okay, you have field players that don't want to know the physics. They're all about the field.
So I mean they're professional golfers now that if you send them a new driver, they're like cool.
Sweet, thanks, We know you guys rocked it.
Yeah, I mean nowadays almost everyone's using a launch monitor. But even then, I mean some people are still going by the feel and the flight a little bit, you know, and then you'll have others they get they want to know exactly what you change, why you change it, the details of the specs, and they get very mechanical. So there is a broad spectrum. I'm actually surprised that there's that big of a spectrum out there on tour.
Which player have you worked with you mentioned Krista Marco. Which player have you worked with over your years of doing this that kind of understood the most about the equipment they were playing?
Yeah, I think, I mean it comes to my mind like Jeff Maggert, he got really into the details there. I think Mark Wilson one that was one that got really into the details of it. Let's see Daniel Summer Hayes. I mean that guy got really into the nitty gritty and then uh, you know, non staff player for us, but Charles Howell he got he got into the physics and and down to.
Just asking questions after question after question, just really wanted to know every like micro inch of everything that was going.
On exactly crazy. Dan Daniel summer Hayes was a fun one because we've we've done some real fun micro tweaking with his equipment. He spent a lot of time in our three D motion capture system really trying to when you don't hit it far. I mean, one of the biggest challenges you have to really squeeze out maximum performance out of the rest of your game.
Have you ever not tweaked something until the player you tweaked it?
Because I used to do this. I was Caddy and you just lie about the numbers.
Oh yeah, I mean I think are our tour reps. I mean they would have some stories about that we can ask.
Yeah, it's it's a degree close.
Are fine? Which club driver? Fairway Woods, Irons, wedges, putters? Which one takes the most time to create?
I mean, the driver's the most complex because you're pushing the envelope. You're pushing the manufacturing envelope. You're pushing the envelope on you know, performance and volume and ct and and there's it's going to be the most measured as
everyone measures ball speed and forgiveness is straightness. So I think the driver, you know, and you're pushing durability limits has a last for all these young college kids that are swinging one hundred and thirty miles an hour, you know, So you're pushing on all these limits at the same time. So the drivers is by far the most complex.
Marty, as we look around. You mentioned one of the putters that you've designed goes on to win. What is it like internally when you see a club find this level of success.
Yeah, there's a lot of pride to it. And I know all of us in engineering who've worked on product designs or touched the process in any way, it take tons of pride in it because we know the players are this are livelihoods. I mean, this is what they're
working towards. And then we get they get out there and get a victory with a product that we've either personally worked on with a lot of blood, sweat and tears ourselves, or touched in any fashion through that process, we're always tuning into the tournaments and it's we celebrate where there's always a celebration after one of our tour players wins with the product that we've worked on.
Is there like a tally board somewhere where you can go all right, that's five. That's five victories with my driver with Irid.
There's some official and unofficial talent. It's taking place amongst us in engineering.
All Right, I finished the exact I'm gonna win the cup. Yeah.
I mean it's gotta be such a cool feeling. Especially, I mean you said your first club you design. I mean you go into a golf shop and you're seeing people take notice of it or pick it up or hold it in your hands. This has got to be such an elevated experience to actually see a driver with third pladers on it. Yep, you know, on the PGA Tour, on the LPGA Tour, winning golf tournaments and really hitting your drive on the seventy second hold it finds the fairway and goes three twenty five.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean.
One of the funnest ones I think I saw it back here was Lee Westwood with the fetch putter. Now, some people are kind of like laugh at the fetch putter, but we designed it because there's a lot of folks out there that have a hard time picking up their ball out of the hole. There's a real friction points. We designed that fetch putter.
He loved it.
Small face helped him concentrate, and he was leading the tournament. I think it was in Dubai or Abu Dhabi, and I actually sent him a message the night before, Hey, if things go well, don't forget about that feature of the fetch putter. He tapped in his putt on the eighteenth pole, put the fetch putter right down the hole, lifted up, raised it, and that was one of the funnest moments.
I would say that if there's been a putter designed by anybody at ping Lee, Westwood has used it and potentially won with his walls mostly over herelier you see just about ever design possible.
Marty, we're in the vault. Do you have a putter in.
The vault, Shane, Yes, I do. I have a putter that I designed. God, that's crazy one. The jas Is that the only one that's in here? Of the crazy one, yeah, I think there's two. I think I saw another one. We'll talk about a crazy putter.
I mean looking around this thing, and you talk about total different designs.
That's actually the sister of one of our employees, so Louise Freeberg. So yeah, her sister works here and and so yeah, I don't have one yet.
I know we're gonna put it that, we're gonna get there. I mean, this is, as I said, one of the coolest, craziest rooms in golf. And as someone that's been here for so long, I mean, you've got to feel you know, you've got to feel honored to just be in here and be able to see all the success that the equipment that Ping has designed over the years, says has created.
Yeah, it is quite fun to kind of look around and see the diversity of all the models and then you have you know, I have some some players like Sevy and Tom Watson, they have the same model in here, but literally, yes, exactly, and that is.
Something you see same futterer, Saint Putter's same putter. It is quite crazy. Well, I'm Shane Bacon. That is Marty Jerts and this is the Ping Proving Grounds Podcast