“And the Putter Went PING”

“And the Putter Went PING” June 24, 2017

PINGBOOKIt’s not every day I receive a beautiful, eight-pound book in the mail, especially when I didn’t order it and didn’t even know about it. But such was the case yesterday when I discovered at my front door a packaged book entitled And the Putter Went . . . PING.

I’ve got some pretty big books in my library, a collection that now numbers about 2,500 volumes. But this one will definitely be the biggest. (I don’t know how I will shelve it.)

And the Putter Went . . . PING is a history of PING golf clubs and a tribute to their founder and owner–Karsten Solheim and his wife Louise. They were close friends of mine. The book is written and compiled by Jeffery B. Ellis. It was published this year by Zephyr Productions Inc. of Oak Harbor, Washington, where Ellis lives.

This book appears to have been commissioned by PING, more probably Karsten Manufacturing Corporation (KMC). It consists of about 2/3s color photos and 1/3 text. It sure is a great coffee table book. Displayed in a golfer’s living room, it will garner admiring comments by visitors to your home. Just it’s size alone–12.5″ long, 9+” wide, and 2″ thick–will get noticed.

KarstenSolheim1Karsten Solheim (1911-2000) and his PING golf clubs are a most intriguing success story in the American business world. One of the fascinating elements of this story is that Karsten was an engineer who worked for the Ratheon Corporation and then for several years with General Electric before resigning with GE, starting his Karsten Manufacturing Corporation and building a factory all in the same year–1967 at age 55. To read my two posts about it that include some of my experiences with Karsten and Louise Solheim, click Part 1 and Part 2.

Karsten was a brilliant man. Many have said he surely was a genius. I’m only going to tell one story here about Karsten Solheim. It is because of what our nation is experiencing politically right now. That is, the Russians supposedly comprised our U.S. electoral process last year. Now, special counsel Robert Mueller has been appointed to investigate it and possible collusion between Russian government operatives and member’s of President Donald Trump’s political campaign last year, and perhaps more.

This situation is week-by-week increasingly being compared to the Watergate scandal that occurred in our nation’s capital during 1972 to 1974. It began with a stupid operation in which a team of Republicans broke into the headquarter offices of the Democratic Party at a large, sophisticated office building in Washington, D.C. known as The Watergate. Due to President Richard Nixon lying about it–with tape recordings of him in the Oval Office as evidence–the U.S. Congress began impeachment proceedings and President Nixon soon resigned in disgrace.

For a long time during this ordeal, President Nixon would occasionally go on television and say that he knew nothing of the plan to break-in, which was correct. But then he also said that he was not involved in obstructing justice about it or covering up after it. That proved to be a lie perpetuated for quite some time until he was exposed when the tapes were discovered, which almost no one knew about except Nixon.

KarstenSolheim2During that lengthy time that President Nixon would constantly claim innocence, Karsten Solheim and I sometimes talked about it. Karsten kept saying for many months that Nixon was lying about it.

Now, I liked to talk politics occasionally. But I didn’t know anyone who thought Nixon was lying about this Watergate scandal in those early months. Maybe my exposure to Democrats was too stunted. There must have been some who thought so.

LouiseSolheimIt surprised me that Karsten would say that. I didn’t know him to be a particularly political person. Nor do I recall if he identified himself as Republican or Democrat. He and Louise were public about their Christian profession but not any political affiliation.

I did know Karsten Solheim to be a man who didn’t say things without thinking them through. He was a wise fellow, nearly a generation my superior, whom I respected a lot.

So, it turned out that my friend Karsten Solheim was right about President Nixon lying. After that, I often wondered how Karsten was able to perceive that. I think it shows that he was perceptive man about not only making golf clubs that improved golf so much that they totally revolutionized the design and manufacture of golf clubs, but also that Karsten Solheim was perceptive about human character.

I wonder what Karsten Solheim would say about President Donald Trump.


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