Speaker 1: The guys from PING.
Speaker 2: They've kind of showed me how much the equipment matters.
Speaker 1: I just love that I can hit any shot I
Speaker 1: kind of want.
Speaker 3: We're gonna be able to tell some fun stories about
Speaker 3: what goes on here to help golfers play better golf.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the PING Proving Grounds podcast. I'm Shane Bacon.
Speaker 1: That's Marty Jerts and Marty. We've got a special guest.
Speaker 1: We've been having some special guests lately. This is always
Speaker 1: a bonus. Paul Wood, the VP of Engineering, is here
Speaker 1: to talk about what I would say is one of
Speaker 1: the coolest subjects we have hit on. Marty. I know
Speaker 1: this is a big thing that PING has been involved
Speaker 1: if adaptive fitting and just trying to fit every golfer
Speaker 1: in the world. And Paul, I was reading through the
Speaker 1: different types of adaptive fittings that PING offers and I
Speaker 1: can only imagine this is a list that continually gets updated.
Speaker 1: Players in wheelchairs, assist of cards, amputee stroke survivors, seniors,
Speaker 1: blind golfers, little people, and even in one case, the
Speaker 1: tallest person in Britain. Paul, I'm gonna start with you,
Speaker 1: how did you build that list? At and how often
Speaker 1: is that list updated to expand the offerings that the
Speaker 1: company has?
Speaker 2: Great question, Great question. The answer, Shane is one by one.
Speaker 2: I mean, so how this started was getting questions from
Speaker 2: our customer service team, Hey, can we help someone who's
Speaker 2: a seated golfer. We don't really have any guidelines on
Speaker 2: how to fit this guy. So that's kind of one
Speaker 2: of our resident innovation guys. They would send that call
Speaker 2: down to me and I would say, oh, I'll try
Speaker 2: and figure it out. And I'm not the designer that
Speaker 2: Mardi ever was. I'm not a particularly mechanical person, but
Speaker 2: I would go find who can help me help this
Speaker 2: person and then we would okay, great, now we know
Speaker 2: how to fit this guy. And the next one would
Speaker 2: come up, and the next one will come up, and
Speaker 2: it's just been a really fun project to try to
Speaker 2: build up and you nailed it from the start, like,
Speaker 2: how do we fit anybody on the planet if you
Speaker 2: want to play golf? We love the game. We think
Speaker 2: it's a great game and there's no reason why almost
Speaker 2: anyone can't play. And that's been the philosophy. So like
Speaker 2: one of the very very first people we fit in
Speaker 2: I think it was two thousand and six. Two thousand
Speaker 2: and seven, Marty, I think, remember this too. I get
Speaker 2: an email from our customer service team and they it's
Speaker 2: a guy called Jeff Lewis. He lives in an Arizona
Speaker 2: and I remember it distinctly because it's like a three
Speaker 2: line email. He said, Hey, I my name is Jeff.
Speaker 2: I used to play golf and then I've had this
Speaker 2: illness and I'm a quadrupe. I'm patina. I don't have
Speaker 2: any arms and I don't have any legs, and I
Speaker 2: would like to play golf again. Can you help me?
Speaker 2: And I was like, I have no idea, how are
Speaker 2: you going to grip the club? Can you come in
Speaker 2: and see us and we'll try to figure it out.
Speaker 2: And so a week later he comes in and we
Speaker 2: get a bunch of our engineers and interns and we
Speaker 2: brainstorm and we figure out how to get this guy
Speaker 2: gripping a golf club. And that's how It's been a
Speaker 2: lot of trial and error and things that have gone
Speaker 2: terribly wrong, and then things that go a bit right
Speaker 2: the next time, and Jeff's still playing now fifteen years later.
Speaker 2: He won his local competition a couple of years ago
Speaker 2: and got accused of being a sandbagger, which was the.
Speaker 1: Best thing, good thing to be accused of, Marty. Marty,
Speaker 1: you and I have talked so much on this podcast
Speaker 1: about fitting golfers to the clubs that fit who they
Speaker 1: are as a golfer. This is taking that to an
Speaker 1: amazing level. What has it been like to see adaptive
Speaker 1: fitting become a thing that Peeing not just as involved in,
Speaker 1: but kind of leads the category in for the company
Speaker 1: and for the golfers that you guys are meeting and fitting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think it's all the individual stories
Speaker 3: like Jeff that Paul talked about have made such a
Speaker 3: huge difference to us, and I love what Paul has
Speaker 3: helped lead us down this path that you know, one
Speaker 3: by one we figure out how to fit and build
Speaker 3: very unique product for a certain type of adaptive needs.
Speaker 4: And then you know, we've.
Speaker 3: Built up this fitting kit, which is tools that we
Speaker 3: have at a select number of accounts around the country
Speaker 3: so that more and more folks can get access to
Speaker 3: that because not everyone could come here and do all
Speaker 3: that hands on experience here at the proving ground. So
Speaker 3: that's been very fun, I think to learn to rethink
Speaker 3: what the fitting process looks like as well. And you know,
Speaker 3: I think Paul describes it very well that when you're
Speaker 3: fitting an adaptive golfer, you're really doing things in reverse.
Speaker 3: You're figuring out, Like Paul said with Jeff, how is
Speaker 3: the golfer going to grip the club? That's the first
Speaker 3: thing you do, and normally in our fitting process you
Speaker 3: get everything dialed in okay, you know, then the grip
Speaker 3: is the last thing you do, right, So it's flipping
Speaker 3: that in reverse, and that's been very healthy for us
Speaker 3: as engineers to be able to think differently. Like Paul
Speaker 3: talked about.
Speaker 1: Paul, I know this is something you're very passionate about,
Speaker 1: and I know it's been a big part of your
Speaker 1: last few years. This would be easy to just say
Speaker 1: no to. I mean, you get an email and you're
Speaker 1: thinking about the time and the effort and the building process.
Speaker 1: It'd be very easy to go. Now, unfortunately we don't
Speaker 1: offer this. How did you go about making this a
Speaker 1: priority of pain?
Speaker 2: It's been a real slow burn, you know. I mentioned
Speaker 2: I think two thousand and six, two thousand and seven
Speaker 2: doing the first couple of bits and pieces, and the
Speaker 2: way we made it work in the first few years
Speaker 2: was because it was five percent of my time. You know,
Speaker 2: it's not a huge amount of my time. But when
Speaker 2: someone when someone calls in, I could okay, yeah, I
Speaker 2: can work with you. I've got a little bit of time.
Speaker 2: We'll figure it out. And as Marty said, we created
Speaker 2: that fitting bag that covers ninety nine percent of cases.
Speaker 2: You know, someone who's needs a very long club, a
Speaker 2: very short club, or they're playing from a chair where
Speaker 2: they need a very flat club. We had those options,
Speaker 2: but it was little little bits. You know, if you
Speaker 2: just work on something just you know, a couple of
Speaker 2: hours a week over ten years, it starts that up.
Speaker 2: And we've been very lucky. We're a family company. The
Speaker 2: Solheim family have always said to me, go for it, Like,
Speaker 2: if you want to work on this and you've got
Speaker 2: as long as you're getting everything else to hunt like,
Speaker 2: you go for it. But just in the last few years,
Speaker 2: we've started to see more momentum and more people realizing, yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: I can play golf in a seated position, I can
Speaker 2: swing one handed, I can play with these exotic paddles.
Speaker 2: That helped me group a club when I didn't think
Speaker 2: I could group a club and suddenly, now the demand
Speaker 2: has grown and now we make it work. We have
Speaker 2: a full time adaptive fitter called Brian, and it's amazing.
Speaker 2: It's a full time job for someone to keep up
Speaker 2: with the demand we've created. And that was that's just
Speaker 2: great to see because I think, you know, the latest
Speaker 2: stat I saw was the sixty million people in America
Speaker 2: who live with a disability of some kind of one
Speaker 2: in five people in America. And golf is an amazing sport,
Speaker 2: you know, because you can take your time, we can
Speaker 2: adapt the clubs to you. There's a lot of things
Speaker 2: going for it in terms if you can play from
Speaker 2: a seated position like a lot of sports you just
Speaker 2: couldn't do that, So it lends itself well to we
Speaker 2: can figure this out. We just have to show people.
Speaker 2: You just have to you know, look, you can play
Speaker 2: this game with a sixty five inch driver, which is
Speaker 2: super cool to see and an amazing skill. So that's
Speaker 2: how it's been, you know a little and often, and
Speaker 2: now we have a full time fiddo.
Speaker 1: It's great, Marty. You've mentioned the fitting process, Paul said,
Speaker 1: you know, ninety nine percent of cases are kind of
Speaker 1: handled with this bag or fitting that you guys have. Now,
Speaker 1: can you walk me through what that entails, what that
Speaker 1: looks like? Because I was reading through the website, you
Speaker 1: guys have mentioned paddles and long drivers, short drivers. What
Speaker 1: does what does an adaptive fitting kit look like? On
Speaker 1: y'all side of things?
Speaker 3: I think again, maybe starting with the different grip designs
Speaker 3: first and then expanding on what exactly the bag looks like,
Speaker 3: and then maybe paul a few a few good examples
Speaker 3: of fun builds we've done with that over the years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that sounds great, so so I'm sure I'll miss
Speaker 2: a couple of things, but broadly speaking, the idea is
Speaker 2: we have a bag that's kind of an add on pack.
Speaker 2: So someone's already paid fitter and they have the basic tools,
Speaker 2: they have the kind of nine degree head, they have
Speaker 2: the standard length, you know, regular flex stiff legs, so
Speaker 2: we're trying to add in the extra things that would
Speaker 2: help and so on the grip side, you know, often
Speaker 2: oversized grips can be very helpful if someone has a
Speaker 2: weak grip or they're swing in one handed, go into
Speaker 2: something light and big can be good. We've actually used
Speaker 2: Poto groups, so we you know, in the Rules of Golf,
Speaker 2: a grip has to be symmetrical, but if you have
Speaker 2: a medical need, you can kind of go outside that
Speaker 2: a little bit. So we could put a PP sixty
Speaker 2: pot of grip on a full swing club, and we've
Speaker 2: done that many times. We have these paddles, the sort
Speaker 2: of very big paddle that can actually go right next
Speaker 2: to someone's armpit and they can use that to kind
Speaker 2: of grip the club and swing around their body, which is,
Speaker 2: you know, very bespoked, but it works for golfers who
Speaker 2: have very short limbs and maybe are struggling to grip
Speaker 2: the club. Elsewhere we have very long and very short chefs,
Speaker 2: so just expanding our normal range. You know, a normal
Speaker 2: fitting bag might have plus an inch and a half
Speaker 2: to minus an inch. We have plus twelve inches to
Speaker 2: minus fifteen inches. That kind of thing, and similar with
Speaker 2: things like li angele, where often in a fitting you're
Speaker 2: dialing in a li angele by one or two degrees.
Speaker 2: In an adaptive thing, you might be dialing in the
Speaker 2: li angele plus eight degrees or minus eight degrees. So
Speaker 2: a lot of that, you know, and going very light,
Speaker 2: a lot of lightweight stuff. So we'll do things like
Speaker 2: we'll take ahead and we'll take the back weight out completely.
Speaker 2: You know, it's not optimizing the head for moment of inertia,
Speaker 2: but it's sure optimizing the clubhead if you're swinging one handred.
Speaker 2: So that's a flavor of what's in the bag.
Speaker 1: And some cool stories that you've had in terms of
Speaker 1: fitting over the years for certain people with needs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let me I'll give you a couple of examples.
Speaker 2: I've got too many to mention. But Andreas Brandenburger's a player,
Speaker 2: came to us with a condition called folk amelia that
Speaker 2: he was born with where his arms are not fully formed,
Speaker 2: and so he has shorter arms that end before the
Speaker 2: elbow and a couple of fingers on each arm, and
Speaker 2: so that for him he needed something very very long
Speaker 2: and some way to grip the club. And he was
Speaker 2: actually the inventor of the paddel I mentioned. I'm not
Speaker 2: the mechanical guy. He basically did the hard work of
Speaker 2: imagining what that would need to look like for him
Speaker 2: to swing, and we helped him realize that. And his
Speaker 2: set his job is sixty six inches long with this
Speaker 2: huge panel all the way down to his potter. I
Speaker 2: think he is fifty eight inches long and it's amazing.
Speaker 2: The thing that sticks with me that he said was
Speaker 2: it's one of the few things in his life that
Speaker 2: adapted to him. He spent his whole life adapting to
Speaker 2: the world. You know, the world was not built with
Speaker 2: him in mind in terms of how ergonomics are. This
Speaker 2: is one of the few things that was adapted to him,
Speaker 2: which is what we're trying to do in custom fitting
Speaker 2: for everyone, right We're trying to fit the golf club
Speaker 2: to you, not fit you to the golf club. So
Speaker 2: he's just a great example of that. We've had some
Speaker 2: real fun with, say partially cited golfers, where we've people
Speaker 2: who can just about see a line of a club,
Speaker 2: but not enough to be able to see is that
Speaker 2: a seven iron or an eight iron. So we've taken
Speaker 2: clubs and like painted the whole head a particular color,
Speaker 2: and I think they look amazing. The set of g
Speaker 2: irons where the seven iron is bright blue, the eight
Speaker 2: iron is green, the nine iron is yellow. Simple stuff
Speaker 2: didn't change the performance, but now for a mostly blind golfer,
Speaker 2: they can look in the bag and see exactly what
Speaker 2: they've got. We've done and we did a set recently
Speaker 2: for a shorter statue golfer. I think he's between four
Speaker 2: and five feet tall, and everything in his bag is
Speaker 2: between five and ten inches short of our standard. It's
Speaker 2: not that difficult to build. You just have to really
Speaker 2: know what you're doing in terms of how do you
Speaker 2: build up the grip. You know a lot of wraps
Speaker 2: of wraps of tape under the grip and being careful
Speaker 2: with weight and things like that, and that's where we
Speaker 2: can leverage our engineering knowledge. It's fun for us because
Speaker 2: it's a great engineering challenge as well as being just
Speaker 2: a really fun thing to help people play the best.
Speaker 1: Paul, I can only assume that this has to be
Speaker 1: the most rewarding part of your job and your time
Speaker 1: at paying getting to see people that come to you
Speaker 1: and say things like, you know, you guys have adapted
Speaker 1: golf clubs to me. You know, as you were speaking
Speaker 1: of you know somebody that's had to live a life
Speaker 1: of always having to adapt themselves elsewhere. How has that
Speaker 1: been like for you personally and for your team to
Speaker 1: get to see people come to you and go, I
Speaker 1: want to play golf, even though I don't look or
Speaker 1: or feel like you know, a golfer that comes to
Speaker 1: paying every day. What's that been like?
Speaker 2: It's amazing And if you talk to any of our
Speaker 2: club fitters. Part of why it is such a rewarding
Speaker 2: job as people come in the door hitting it okay
Speaker 2: and they leave hitting it better and whatever that means.
Speaker 2: If you're a talk player, hitting it better might be
Speaker 2: zero point one strokes, game better, right. If you're an
Speaker 2: average gopher, it might be game twenty yards on your drive.
Speaker 2: If you're an adaptive gover, you might be starting off
Speaker 2: with I can't make contact with a golf ball and
Speaker 2: you leave hitting it one hundred and fifty yards. It's amazing,
Speaker 2: you know. And I remember distinctly. We work with a
Speaker 2: lot of military organizations and there's one in the UK
Speaker 2: called Battleback, and we were sponsoring Battleback and they're people
Speaker 2: who have been injured in service. So they're active service people.
Speaker 2: They've got injured, they might have lost some limbs, but
Speaker 2: these are big, strong, athletic people who are now not
Speaker 2: able to do what they want to do and they're
Speaker 2: not able to play sport the way they used to.
Speaker 2: And so I showed up at a fitting day for
Speaker 2: this with our director of marketing and he shares with
Speaker 2: me or I've never done a club fitting ever. I said,
Speaker 2: don't worry, it'll be fine. Just stick with me. And
Speaker 2: we've got a couple of guys who are both double
Speaker 2: leg amputees and they cannot make contact with the ball.
Speaker 2: You know, they're in their twenties, they're fit, they're strong,
Speaker 2: and they're frustrating because they don't know what it's like
Speaker 2: to try to play sport on prosthetic legs. And so
Speaker 2: we helped figure out, okay, what's the disconnect here, and
Speaker 2: in their case, it was this feeling that I'm going
Speaker 2: to fall forward. If you're on prosthetic legs, you kind
Speaker 2: of need to be stable. You don't want to feel
Speaker 2: like you're going to fall over. So all we did
Speaker 2: was lengthen the clubs, which normally you know as a
Speaker 2: risky thing to do in a club fitting, to go
Speaker 2: very long in your ions. We put these guys in
Speaker 2: two inch long irons, and suddenly they could swing around
Speaker 2: their prosthetic legs instead of feeling like they were going
Speaker 2: to fall forward, and then nailing shots down in the
Speaker 2: ferry and they're having long drive competitions with each other
Speaker 2: and suddenly the competitive spirit is flowing and they're just like,
Speaker 2: this is what we want to do. I want to
Speaker 2: kick his can, I say ass on a podcast. I
Speaker 2: want to kick his ass on the court. And that's
Speaker 2: all it was, right. They wanted that competitive and it's
Speaker 2: so cool to see he went from hitting it zero
Speaker 2: yards to two hundred yards and all I did was
Speaker 2: put a slightly longer golf club in his hands, you know.
Speaker 2: So for me, it's great to share that with the
Speaker 2: rest of the team.
Speaker 3: Well, how much of in your experiences have been you know,
Speaker 3: catering the equipment versus with this example, you're helping figure
Speaker 3: out the technique. How much is helping them figure out
Speaker 3: what exact technique could they use? And is that something
Speaker 3: thing you know that Brian and our team have actively
Speaker 3: done helped trying to figure out you know, if we
Speaker 3: transpose it to a regular club fitting world, it's that
Speaker 3: marriage of fitting and teaching, right, but maybe there's a
Speaker 3: little bit more priority on the teaching side, or so
Speaker 3: here's some ideas to try.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think you know, the essence of a
Speaker 2: good club that is, in my opinion, is the big
Speaker 2: part of it is asking good questions. Right, is the
Speaker 2: person in front of me, what are they trying to
Speaker 2: do what's their pain point, why are they what's stopping
Speaker 2: them playing a better golf. This is kind of the
Speaker 2: same thing on steroids of Okay, what do we need
Speaker 2: to do for you to be comfortable hitting the golf
Speaker 2: you mentioned kind of doing the fitting backwards and doing
Speaker 2: some of the things that are normally at the end
Speaker 2: of the fitting, like grip of length, doing them first.
Speaker 2: It's because it's like, how do we get you swinging comfortably?
Speaker 2: And once you're swinging comfortably, then we can dial in
Speaker 2: other things. So yeah, I'd say it's maybe a bit
Speaker 2: less technique and more like ergonomics is not quite the
Speaker 2: right word, but you know what I mean. It's it's
Speaker 2: asking the questions of what's stopping you being at a
Speaker 2: swing freely. But it comes back to and it's just
Speaker 2: the same for you and me and our daily life here,
Speaker 2: my Marty, that asking good questions is eighty percent of
Speaker 2: the job.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Seane.
Speaker 3: One thing that came to mind when Paul was talking
Speaker 3: about Andreas and working really working on innovating with him
Speaker 3: on the paddle design was the use and value of
Speaker 3: three D printing. I mean, this is really the ultimate
Speaker 3: example of being able to leverage three D printed parts
Speaker 3: because with Andreas, I remember we catted up in a
Speaker 3: three we did a three D design of the paddle.
Speaker 3: Then I remember looking at our three D printer and
Speaker 3: seeing all these designs pop out that they could snap
Speaker 3: together and the rip fastens in there. So that was
Speaker 3: a lot of fun. Paul, what are some other, like,
Speaker 3: you know, fun designs we've done, or attachment methods or
Speaker 3: things that have been a little more outside the box.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great question. I think that the paddle is
Speaker 2: a great example of you know, you're making it one
Speaker 2: of one prototype and now we found that actually the
Speaker 2: paddle works for a few more players, andres is coming
Speaker 2: in next month or in a couple of months to
Speaker 2: try to redesign it. It takes a weight out and optimize it,
Speaker 2: which is cool to be at the optimization side. I
Speaker 2: think some of the attachments of like how do you
Speaker 2: if you're building a very long club right now, one
Speaker 2: of the things we're working on is how do you
Speaker 2: It's very hard to transport a sixty six inch long club,
Speaker 2: so how do we disassemble that club? You know in
Speaker 2: a way that it still feels solid when you put
Speaker 2: it together? So working on some screw attachments, like a
Speaker 2: pool queue to take a club apart and be able
Speaker 2: to transport it. We've done some stuff, working initially with
Speaker 2: Jeff who was the dupline pt. I mentioned finding a
Speaker 2: way to actually get a club to screw directly into
Speaker 2: his prosthetic, but then have a quick release mechanism. So
Speaker 2: we made this spring. I think you probably remember it
Speaker 2: was an intern that worked on that. It's a great
Speaker 2: little project for a summer intern. It's a spring mechanism
Speaker 2: and once the club is in, the spring holds it
Speaker 2: solid and he can swing. But to take that club
Speaker 2: out you just have to push it twisted and it
Speaker 2: comes out and you put a different club in it.
Speaker 2: We've used that for a couple of other players in
Speaker 2: different ways, and then we're thinking about, well could that
Speaker 2: inspire some things, you know, regular product line, and you know,
Speaker 2: I think some of the stuff on our justable length
Speaker 2: potters have kind of taken a bit of inspiration from
Speaker 2: some of the adaptive So I think there's a good
Speaker 2: chance in futures and more of these adaptive things will
Speaker 2: end up in regular clubs.
Speaker 1: Marty, you mentioned three D printing. Yeah, I was I
Speaker 1: was just going to ask you, I just am so
Speaker 1: interested in the three D printing process in terms of
Speaker 1: golf clubs. How has three D printing changed your world
Speaker 1: over the last decade or so, just in terms of
Speaker 1: seeing a product in hand and actually being able to
Speaker 1: use what you guys are kind of thinking up in
Speaker 1: your brain or maybe even on a computer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Paul and I have a lot of experience with
Speaker 3: three D printing, and you know, believe it or not,
Speaker 3: we had a three D printer app being when I
Speaker 3: started so way twenty years ago.
Speaker 4: Wow. Yeah, So it's kind of like the news.
Speaker 3: It feels like three D printings was ben hot, you know, five, six, seven,
Speaker 3: eight years ago? Was it kind of came on the
Speaker 3: scene at least newsworthy. But we've had three D printers
Speaker 3: here for over twenty years and Ping's always been on
Speaker 3: the cutting edge of kind of investing in that latest
Speaker 3: and greatest technology. Super valuable and powerful in a lot
Speaker 3: of different ways. Shane, When you were at the proving
Speaker 3: ground and we went in toured our manufacturing area, you
Speaker 3: see a lot of little, one off, little components and
Speaker 3: pieces that are made through the three D printing process.
Speaker 3: From a manufacturing standpoint, we're talking about making bespoke one
Speaker 3: off components that are actually used in products. Here for
Speaker 3: the adaptive program when it comes to mainline product development,
Speaker 3: it's really helpful to go from I see something on
Speaker 3: the computer, I can I can hit print on the printer,
Speaker 3: go to lunch, come back half a day later, maybe
Speaker 3: four hours go by, and you have that actual three
Speaker 3: D part to look at. Maybe you reshape the driver,
Speaker 3: maybe you reshape the irons a little bit. You want
Speaker 3: to work on the little nuances of how they look
Speaker 3: and transition. And basically, when you're in the core cycle
Speaker 3: of designing product, you could look at two iterations in
Speaker 3: one day. You can print one out overnight when you
Speaker 3: go home and and and go home for the night
Speaker 3: and see it first thing in the morning. You can
Speaker 3: make a tweak to it, print another one, see another
Speaker 3: copy in the afternoon. It's really helped accelerate that process. Now,
Speaker 3: fast forward to today's age. You can three D print
Speaker 3: out of a lot of different materials. So you know,
Speaker 3: now we're in the age of you know, metal three
Speaker 3: D printing with a lot of different material properties, and
Speaker 3: that's open up the door even even even more, you know,
Speaker 3: kind of another.
Speaker 4: Degree of freedom. So to speak.
Speaker 3: So we've got long history with it, We've been able
Speaker 3: to use in a lot of different ways. I think that,
Speaker 3: you know, one of the main things is just to
Speaker 3: be able to do those one off things very very
Speaker 3: quickly and accelerate that design, that iteration process.
Speaker 1: I just find it so interesting that this has, you know,
Speaker 1: the evolution of just simply designing the golf clubs has
Speaker 1: gone through this many steps. I mean, you talk about,
Speaker 1: you know, twenty years ago having this at your disposal,
Speaker 1: but now being able to do it in so many
Speaker 1: different ways as quickly as you can. You think about
Speaker 1: what it's going to look like ten years from now,
Speaker 1: where you're going to hit print and it's going to
Speaker 1: be out in you know, thirty seconds. I mean, it
Speaker 1: can only it's only going to get quicker, Paul, for
Speaker 1: you guys in this space and adapt of I mean,
Speaker 1: I can only imagine that the three D printing. When
Speaker 1: you have a customer come your way that is in
Speaker 1: need of something you guys haven't attacked yet, having that
Speaker 1: as an option makes your job all the easier.
Speaker 2: It's a great tool to have in the two bocks.
Speaker 2: Like Martie said, it's it's speed, it's if you're making
Speaker 2: one or ten of something, it's an amazing way to
Speaker 2: do it. The dimensional accuracy has got so much better,
Speaker 2: you know. And we have a whole machine shop here too,
Speaker 2: and can turn around prototypes cutting metal really quickly. So
Speaker 2: the more options you have, the more the more the
Speaker 2: team can be creative.
Speaker 3: Marty, you got anything I think we've I've seen in
Speaker 3: the last couple of years, a lot of investment from
Speaker 3: different organizations. Can you give a little bit of insight
Speaker 3: into some of the big adaptive tournaments that are taking
Speaker 3: place different organizations. That's kind of fueled the popularity we've seen,
Speaker 3: you know, I think pretty explosive growth in the participation
Speaker 3: even lately in some of the big events that that
Speaker 3: you and Brian have been attending.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been great. There's been there's been tournaments around
Speaker 2: for a long time, and I remember going to a
Speaker 2: tournament in Europe in twenty ten. There was a big
Speaker 2: sort of cross disability tournament. There's the British Open at
Speaker 2: the time, the British Disabled Open, I think it was
Speaker 2: the name. But just in the last two years, like
Speaker 2: you said that, we sponsored a tournament called the US
Speaker 2: Disabled Golf Championship which has really grown was this year
Speaker 2: is sponsored by the PGA of America and they hosted
Speaker 2: it over in Ports of Lucy and there were about
Speaker 2: one hundred competitors and some really good players and really
Speaker 2: good mix. That's been going through few years. The USGA's
Speaker 2: got involved. They have the Adaptive Open now and I
Speaker 2: think at least a few people who are watching or
Speaker 2: listening to this podcast probably saw there were some highlights
Speaker 2: on the Golf Channel, which was great to see on
Speaker 2: TV some of these really good players. And then on
Speaker 2: the European Tour or the DP World Tour, they've had
Speaker 2: a couple of events. They've got a little mini tour
Speaker 2: where they play alongside the DP World Tour main event,
Speaker 2: and they'll have like twelve to twenty Adaptive athletes who
Speaker 2: are playing their competition on the same course at the
Speaker 2: same time, and it just gives visibility to the events.
Speaker 2: And some of these athletes are so good. I mean,
Speaker 2: we're our first Adaptive brand Ambassador staff player Kwan Pastigo,
Speaker 2: who's a young Spanish guy. He's scratch player. You know,
Speaker 2: he's won a couple of those events they're on, you know,
Speaker 2: TV Quoite a bit in Europe and he does the
Speaker 2: whole thing swinging on one leg and it's amazing to
Speaker 2: watch together three hundred yard drives on one leg. I'm
Speaker 2: quite jealous, to be honest. I think it's grown along.
Speaker 1: Yeah, paul I. I had Alex FORI on the Get
Speaker 1: a Grip podcast a few weeks ago, Recappy and the
Speaker 1: US Adaptive Open and listening to the conversation, and the
Speaker 1: one thing that Alex was really pushing. And I think
Speaker 1: the hope for so many people in this space, or
Speaker 1: that they're interested in this space, is getting these tournaments
Speaker 1: full time on television, you know, getting a chance to
Speaker 1: be able to watch the US Adaptive Open. I know
Speaker 1: it's in its second iteration this year, and there were
Speaker 1: highlights on the Golf Channel, But I think the hope
Speaker 1: for golf fans out there is this eventually will be
Speaker 1: on television where you could watch, you know, the last
Speaker 1: couple of rounds on TV.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I mean there's a very common phrase, right, you
Speaker 2: can see it, you compete it. So having representation on
Speaker 2: the top of the game, having the best players in
Speaker 2: the world in these events beyond TV is a big
Speaker 2: deal because if you see someone like you who's breaking
Speaker 2: part you think, well, then I could get out and play.
Speaker 2: And Steve, who's one of the Steve winter As a
Speaker 2: wheelchair golfer, Who's the first guy I talked to on
Speaker 2: this whole project back in two thousand and six. He said,
Speaker 2: when it boils down with it, all I want is
Speaker 2: to be out to suffer golf the same way you
Speaker 2: suffer golf. I want to be just as annoyed missing
Speaker 2: a three book on as you. Is that so much
Speaker 2: to ask?
Speaker 1: I love that we're all just golfers at heart, right,
Speaker 1: I mean everybody, no matter what walk of life you're in.
Speaker 1: You want to get frustrated, You want to hit the
Speaker 1: shot every now and again that brings you back.
Speaker 2: That's it, Paul.
Speaker 1: If someone's listening to this podcast and they're interested in
Speaker 1: getting involved in golf, or maybe there's someone that has
Speaker 1: a physical disability that they've never really thought that there
Speaker 1: were golf clubs made for them, how can they go
Speaker 1: about getting fit or learning about the fitting process with
Speaker 1: people at ping.
Speaker 2: On pink dot com. On a website, there's a fitting section,
Speaker 2: and in the fitting section, there's an adaptive fitting section
Speaker 2: that has some examples of what we can do and
Speaker 2: so you know, you can send us a message through
Speaker 2: that through we'll contact form and it'll get to Brian,
Speaker 2: our adaptive fitting coordinator. With myself certainly, if anyone wants
Speaker 2: to send me a note on social media, it's it's
Speaker 2: Poor Wood seventy nine on Twitter or x or wherever
Speaker 2: we are these days. On these things, I would love
Speaker 2: to chat to people, but you know, through the website's
Speaker 2: probably the easiest. And then you know, if you're in
Speaker 2: the States, there's a whole bunch of organizations, Like I said,
Speaker 2: the US Disabled Golf Association, there's the one Armed Golf Associations,
Speaker 2: the Seated Golfers Association. So just doing a bit of
Speaker 2: a Google search, you can kind of a couple kinds
Speaker 2: of great organizations, probably locally your area.
Speaker 3: All add on there too. You could also go to
Speaker 3: our find a Fitter tool on ping dot com and
Speaker 3: filter by our accounts that have our adaptive fitting bag,
Speaker 3: so you might be able to find one of our
Speaker 3: Ping accounts very close to you, as we have a
Speaker 3: you know a good mix of those spread throughout the country.
Speaker 3: There's another option.
Speaker 2: That's a great, great point. There's about a dozen accounts
Speaker 2: that I have the equipment of that of certified as
Speaker 2: our adaptive accounts. But I would also say just go
Speaker 2: to your local account. Ye, And we have a we
Speaker 2: have a loan of bag that we can send to
Speaker 2: any of our accounts if they have an interest in
Speaker 2: doing a fitting, they don't have the right tools, we
Speaker 2: can send the tools to help any of our accounts
Speaker 2: do a fitting.
Speaker 1: Paul, what's the seventy nine on the end of your
Speaker 1: Twitter handle? Is that like your low score? Or what
Speaker 1: are we talking about here? What's what was this that?
Speaker 1: Were you the seventy ninth? Paul would like, what's what's.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sadly my birth year that kind of shows my
Speaker 2: age a little, Okay, I preferred to me my average
Speaker 2: gold school.
Speaker 1: But never mind, you know, I mean I I have
Speaker 1: I have seen people throw the fifty nine up there
Speaker 1: before when they when they've been lucky enough to break sixty.
Speaker 1: But I like the idea of seventy nine on there. Paul.
Speaker 1: It's so it's so wild to think, you know, you
Speaker 1: you talk about the first email and you know, getting
Speaker 1: a chance to chat with people that now obviously are
Speaker 1: involved in golf and now having a fitter or a
Speaker 1: person at ping that's sole job. Is this how busy
Speaker 1: is Brian? Like, how often is Brian going about fittings
Speaker 1: on a week to week basis? You know?
Speaker 2: Funnily enough, I asked him that yesterday because when we
Speaker 2: got permission to bring him down to our area, there
Speaker 2: was a bit of you know, is this going to
Speaker 2: be a full time job. We'll call it fifty to
Speaker 2: fifty you could do adaptive fitting and some other stuff.
Speaker 2: And I asked him, how busy are you? He said,
Speaker 2: it's ninety He's going to events, he's doing fittings here,
Speaker 2: he's setting up fittings that you know at our accounts.
Speaker 2: He's working on special one offs. We're supporting an amputee
Speaker 2: conference where it's actually someone outside of being who's who's
Speaker 2: invented a way to attach a golf club to to
Speaker 2: someone's prosthetic for someone who's a double arm amputee, and
Speaker 2: we're supporting that. He's doing all kinds of things. It's wonderful,
Speaker 2: it's a it's a great example of I think we're
Speaker 2: at that point where momentum is. You know, people have
Speaker 2: seen I could do this, and I want to. I
Speaker 2: want to come and get the best equipment I can.
Speaker 2: I want to get out there and beat my friends.
Speaker 2: It's great.
Speaker 1: Paul, can you tell the story about the fella from
Speaker 1: England that was seven foot eight and got fit at Pink.
Speaker 1: I love reading about that.
Speaker 2: It's really fun. So this was Britain's tallest man, and
Speaker 2: you know, so it's an adaptive fitting because he's he's
Speaker 2: literally off our chart. So I remember our team kind
Speaker 2: of said, hey, can you give him advice? You know,
Speaker 2: I wasn't able to get over there for the fitting,
Speaker 2: but they I said, well, okay, at least get his
Speaker 2: heightened wrist the floor and let's see when his hand
Speaker 2: size and you know, the basics. Let's see where we are.
Speaker 2: And he was. He was off our color code chart.
Speaker 2: He was too tall and his wrist was to floor
Speaker 2: with so we had to kind of go back and go, okay,
Speaker 2: if we were to extend the chart, what would that
Speaker 2: look like? So we made basically made a bigger version
Speaker 2: of our color coach chart to kind of go, okay,
Speaker 2: what's a decent length recommendation and color code recommendation. So
Speaker 2: we now have this expanded version of our color code
Speaker 2: chart that he inspired, and so we were able to
Speaker 2: build some clubs ahead of time. And when you go
Speaker 2: really long, you have to watch out for things getting
Speaker 2: too heavy, So we did a few things just try
Speaker 2: to lighten things up when you're when you're playing a
Speaker 2: four inch over length club, you've got to take some
Speaker 2: weight out of that head. And that was the biggest challenge.
Speaker 2: And we built him a belly putter for him was
Speaker 2: a normal putter. So it's a forty one inch you
Speaker 2: know now would be an omelock. That was his normal
Speaker 2: length putter. It's fun project, Marty.
Speaker 1: You know, single lenked irons have become a popular thing
Speaker 1: in the sport. I mean, I think Bryson is a
Speaker 1: big part of that. And then obviously a lot of
Speaker 1: companies have kind of leaned into the idea of an
Speaker 1: entire bag being the same lengthd iron. When you have
Speaker 1: someone come through the fitting process that is extremely tall
Speaker 1: and you've kind of got to mess around with weight,
Speaker 1: I can only imagine that helps you, guys when you
Speaker 1: want to dive into something like a single length iron
Speaker 1: project or trying to fit even you know, a professional
Speaker 1: golfer for something like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you know, when single length irons kind
Speaker 3: of became a thing in the industry for the everyday golfer.
Speaker 4: Oh, this sounds like a good idea.
Speaker 3: We kind of went and I went to Paul and said, well,
Speaker 3: we've done those quite a bit for blonde golfers, because
Speaker 3: you don't want to have to adjust to where the
Speaker 3: ground is, the point is, and how that change on
Speaker 3: all your clubs. So Paul was like, well, we've actually
Speaker 3: done this quite a bit. It works really good for
Speaker 3: blind golfer. I was like, oh, yeah, that's a great point.
Speaker 3: And then, you know, Paul and I were just talking
Speaker 3: earlier today about you know, some things we've learned through
Speaker 3: adaptive that have kind of given us a little clues
Speaker 3: or hints. It's forced us to be more creative, to
Speaker 3: think differently. That has inspired some things that have made
Speaker 3: their way into our mainline product.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: I think adjustable length putters was another really good example
Speaker 3: where you know that it's mutually beneficial on the adaptive
Speaker 3: side to your everyday golfer. So this has been a
Speaker 3: very positive sum initiative for us. That's allowed us to
Speaker 3: stress our creativity and you know, help a lot of
Speaker 3: folks along the way. And also, I think your everyday
Speaker 3: golfer is benefiting from the fact that we're being challenged
Speaker 3: by this to push the envelope in different ways.
Speaker 1: Marty, I still have an adjustable putter, has to be
Speaker 1: fifteen year old Scottsdale putter that when I'm really struggling, man,
Speaker 1: I go back to it. It's in the bag in
Speaker 1: my golf closet right now. And when I'm missing everything,
Speaker 1: that's my bad boy, I go to and I mean,
Speaker 1: I still have a little tool and uh, and it
Speaker 1: occasionally gets itself back in the bag.
Speaker 4: Got a little weight in that call it right there.
Speaker 4: That's moving that thing up and down.
Speaker 3: Now, that's been super helpful on the adaptive side. We
Speaker 3: use that all the time.
Speaker 4: The ball. It's so true.
Speaker 2: That's like the perfect fitting butter, right, And we've built
Speaker 2: some with that exact thing on wedges so we can
Speaker 2: dial in wedgling foot players. It's yeah, it's super helpful
Speaker 2: for the doubted project.
Speaker 1: Well, Paul, very very interesting subject. We really appreciate the time.
Speaker 1: And you know, I mean just it's it's I'd say
Speaker 1: it's encouraging. It's exciting to hear about these stories. You know,
Speaker 1: we love throwing the turm around grow the game, and
Speaker 1: it's been you know, it's been worn out over the
Speaker 1: last few years. This is truly growing the love of
Speaker 1: the game because it's allowing people to get involved than
Speaker 1: a sport when you know sport is something they might
Speaker 1: not have believed was going to be in their cards
Speaker 1: going forward. So kudos to you and the crew. Very
Speaker 1: very cool to hear these stories. And if you could,
Speaker 1: just Marty, if you could remind people where they could
Speaker 1: go to kind of read stories or check out where
Speaker 1: they might be able to get fit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely go to Ping dot com, go up into
Speaker 3: the fitting section. You'll be able to read some really
Speaker 3: cool story. You'll be able to read all about our
Speaker 3: adaptive program, some really cool stories. And then go to
Speaker 3: that find a fit tool and filter by Adaptive fitting
Speaker 3: bag and you'll be able to find one of those
Speaker 3: accounts in your area. And or as Paul said, that
Speaker 3: loaner program is awesome. You go to any Ping account
Speaker 3: and express interest in this and we will help get
Speaker 3: that bag to the account if you can't come to
Speaker 3: us here in Phoenix and be able to provide you
Speaker 3: with with those tools. So a lot of fun, as
Speaker 3: Paul said, a lot of ways to get a hold
Speaker 3: of us and get access to this program.
Speaker 1: So cool, Marty, appreciate the time. Paul, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining us. This is the Ping Proving Grounds podcast.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm