With Lee Westwood sitting atop the world golf rankings, Louis Oosthuizen winning The Open Championship, four solo second-place finishes at The Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and The Open Championship plus 12 worldwide wins for the new S56 iron — an iron that was only launched in July — 2010 has certainly been a momentous year on tour for PING.
This week will see 10 of the 13 PING European Staff Players tee it up in with the rest of the top-60 players in The Race to Dubai at Jumeirah Golf Estates, the climax of the 2010 season. That elite group comprises World number 1, Westwood, Open Champion, Oosthuizen, plus Gary Boyd, Alejandro Cañizares, Rhys Davies, Gregory Havret, Miguel Angel Jiménez, Gareth Maybin, John Parry and Danny Willett.
“To have the world’s number 1 golfer, a Major Champion and significant contenders in all the other Majors makes it a history-making year for our company,” said an extremely proud PING Chairman and CEO, John Solheim.
“The achievements of Lee and Louis are very gratifying for us and we couldn’t be happier for them both. It is a tremendous milestone for us as a company, engineering the best equipment for the best players in the world, to have the PING name associated with another Major Champion and the number 1 golfer in the world.”
Both The Open and PGA Championship were won with PING® putters to give the company 52 Major putter wins in its history.
In addition to Westwood’s and Oosthuizen’s stunning years, PING’s European Tour staff continued to perform at the highest level with multiple wins this season, including three by Jiménez. Oosthuizen broke through for his first European Tour victory at the Open de Andalucia de Golf before his dominating performance at St. Andrews. Rookies, Davies and Parry, won the Trophee Hassan II and the Vivendi Cup respectively. Westwood and Jiménez also helped Europe to victory in the Ryder Cup.
The year has also seen the continued rise of Hunter Mahan and Bubba Watson on the PGA Tour. Mahan, with two victories, including one at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, moved up to 17th place in the official world rankings. The long-hitting Watson earned his first career victory at the Travelers Championship in June and sits at 26th in the world rankings. Both also earned spots on the United States Ryder Cup team.
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