Karsten Solheim
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Karsten Solheim (September 15, 1911 – February 16, 2000) was a Norwegian-born 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, the premier international team competition in women's golf.
Solheim was born in Austrheim north of Bergen, Norway. His father was a shoemaker, and the family emigrated to Seattle in the United States when Solheim was young. He 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 principles 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 skeptical 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 his 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. He died in Phoenix, Arizona.
Solheim was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2001.
