Web Quotableonline.com Frasescelebres.org Greatbookscollection.org

Karsten Solheim (September 15, 1911 in Bergen,
Norway — February 16, 2000 in Phoenix,
Arizona) was a Norwegian-born United
States|American golf club designer and businessman
who founded Karsten Manufacturing, a leading golf
club maker better known by its brand name of PING,
and the Solheim Cup.

Solheim's father was a shoemaker, and the family
emigrated to Seattle in the United States when
Solheim was young. Solheim became an engineer and
took up golf at the age of 42 when his colleagues
at General Electric invited him to make up a
foursome. He found that his main problem was
putting, so he designed himself a revolutionary
putter. Instead of attaching the shaft at the heel
of the blade, he attached it in the center. He
applied scientific priniciples to golf club
design, which had previously been based largely on
trial and error, transferring much of the weight
of the club head to the perimeter. 

Solheim took to manufacturing golf clubs in his
garage and he touted them to sceptical
professionals at tournaments. Acceptance came when
Julius Boros won the PGA Tour's Phoenix Open using
Solheim's Anser putter. In 1967 Solheim resigned
from General Electric to establish Karsten
Manufacturing, makers of the PING brand of clubs.
In 1969 he introduced irons based on the same
principle of perimeter weighting, and these were
quickly successful. The other golf equipment
manufacturers soon followed Solheim's innovations.

Solheim became a benefactor of golf. He donated
millions of dollars to the Karsten Golf Course at
Arizona State University and Karsten Creek Golf
Course at Oklahoma State University, and sponsored
LPGA tournaments in Oregon, Arizona and
Massachusetts. He was the driving force behind the
creation of the Solheim Cup, the biennial
tournament between teams of women professionals
from Europe and the United States, which was
modelled on the men's Ryder Cup and was first
played in 1990. Later that decade he developed
Parkinson's Disease and in 1995 he handed over his
company to his son John.

Solheim was inducted into the World Golf Hall of
Fame in 2001.

==External links==
*http://www.pinggolf.com/innovation_karsten_tribut
e.html Karsten Solheim page on Ping's official
site

lived|b=1911|d=2000|key=Solheim, Karsten