PING Golf was awarded the Gold award for its fitting cart at the 2007 POPAI Outstanding Merchandising Achievement Awards in Las Vegas. Hundreds of display producers and suppliers entered the competition, but the PING Fitting Cart was the only display from the sporting goods industry to receive the highest honour of the Gold award.
PING pioneered custom fitting in the 1960s, and its Color Code System, which followed shortly thereafter, remains the most recognizable fitting process in the industry. The company continues to lead in this important step in the club buying process, as was documented in Golf Datatech’s 2006 Custom Golf Club Fitting: Consumer Attitudes & Experiences study. In the study, golfers acknowledged PING as the leader by a 3-to-1 margin over the rest of the industry.
PING’s current fitting cart is the third model the company has produced and the third to take home the coveted Gold award at the OMA contest. The first PING Fitting Cart was introduced in 1997 and all have been built by Trans World Marketing.
“Winning this award for the third time speaks volumes about our commitment to excellence. We are constantly striving to improve our fitting carts. With the success of our past carts, we have our work cut out for us when we replace them. This award continues to document the fact that when we come out with a new cart, it is going to be better than the one it is replacing,” said PING’s Steve Bostwick, who oversaw the development of the fitting cart.
The PING Fitting Cart was designed to equip golf retailers with the most functional cart in the industry, providing all the tools for custom fitting. The cart is also required to function both indoors and outdoors and provide security for the high end products it displays. It not only performs well, but is extremely durable. This combination helps create a very high ROI for PING accounts.
“The PING Fitting Cart is an icon of our company,” said Bostwick. “Our fitting system is our most effective marketing tool. It is deeply integrated in both our marketing and retail strategy. Our fitting carts allow us to promote our custom-fitting message as well as provide a resource to our accounts that enables them to improve the golf games of their customers.”
PING designs, manufactures and markets a complete line of golf equipment including metal woods, irons, putters, and golf bags. The family-owned company was founded in 1959 in the garage of the late Karsten Solheim, a mechanical engineer with an extensive background in the aerospace and computer industries. His frustration with his putting inspired him to design his own putter, which created a “pinging” sound when striking a golf ball.
This sound was the source of the name now synonymous with innovation, quality and service throughout the world of golf. Solheim and his company are credited with numerous innovations that became industry standards, including perimeter weighting, custom fitting and the use of investment casting in the manufacturing of golf clubs.
His insistence on adhering to strict engineering principles and tight manufacturing tolerances raised the level of product performance and quality throughout the golf club industry. Solheim is the only person to be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame as a golf club manufacturer. Today, the Phoenix-based company is under the direction of Solheim’s youngest son, John A. Solheim. PING game-improvement products can be found in more than 70 countries.
PING is a registered trademark of Karsten Manufacturing Corporation.
PING www.pinggolf.com