Customized Equipment – Syndication Server

Ping PLD Milled Anser, Anser 2D, Oslo 3, DS72 and Ally Blue 4

Ping is expanding its PLD Milled putter family with new blades and mallets with customization options.

Gear: Ping PLD Milled Anser, Anser 2D, Oslo 3, DS72 and Ally Blue 4
Price: $485 each
Specs: Milled 303 stainless steel
Available: February 13

Who It’s For: Golfers who want tour-inspired looks and elite levels of feel and precision in their putter.

The Skinny: Using feedback from tour pros, Ping is expanding its PLD Milled putter family with new blades and mallets while also expanding the personalization and customization options.

The Deep Dive: Two years ago, Ping launched a three-level putter program that brought tour-level clubs to the masses and allowed consumers to customize their new Ping putters like never before. The four PLD putters were straight-from-the-bag of players like Viktor Hovland, but now Ping is releasing a line extension that includes five new PLD putters, the Milled Anser, Anser 2D, Oslo 3, DS72 and Ally Blue 4.

Like the first PLD putters (PLD stands for Putting Lab Design in homage to the company’s putter testing facility inside its Phoenix, Arizona, headquarters), the new Anser, Anser 2D, DS72 and Oslo 3 are each milled from a solid block of 303 stainless steel in a process that takes about four hours to complete. They come standard with a gunmetal finish and a deep-milling pattern in the hitting area that creates the sound and feel that tour players prefer.

The Ping PLD Anser 2024 is the latest version of the most-copied putter in golf. (Ping)

Anser – This classic heel-toe weighted blade comes at a standard weight of 350 grams with 3 degrees of loft.
Anser 2D – This is the Tony Finau putter, a wider version of the original Anser. At 365 grams, its added weight and size make it more stable.
DS72 – The Viktor Hovland putter, this compact mallet is suited for golfers with a straight putting stroke. The gap in the back flange can help players align the face more easily.
Oslo 3 – This semi-circular mallet is a favorite of Tyrrell Hatton and has a higher moment of inertia to increase stability.

The fifth putter, the high-MOI Ally Blue 4, is a mallet with an aluminum body, stainless steel soleplate and aluminum hosel. Its size, shape and weight distribution help it resist twisting on off-center hits and keep mis-hit putts rolling on your intended target line.

In addition to announcing the release of the five new PLD putters, Ping is allowing golfers to personalize their putters more deeply by utilizing an online tool on ping.com called PLD Milled Plus.

Customized Ping PLD Milled putters for 2024. (Ping)

Instead of going with the standard features that come on the PLD putters, PLD Milled Plus lets golfers select their own alignment aids, paint fill, custom graphics and paint-filled grips. For instance, if you want a single dot added to the topline of your DS72, filled in red, no problem. If you want two alignment lines added to your Anser, one in purple and the other in golf, you got it. Laser etching also always allows golfers to add stars and stripes or Mr. Ping logos.

Once golfers are done designing their putter online, they can take their unique design specifications to an authorized where the custom order is placed before Ping’s custom shop builds the club.

Below are several close-up looks at the 2024 Ping PLD putters and some customized putters created in the Ping PLD Milled Plus program

Ping’s PLD Custom program provides custom fitting, tour-level personalization and a premium price

Players can customize every detail in a new Ping putter-fitting program, but such tour-level personalization comes at a price.

Two years ago at the 2020 Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill, a week before the world changed and the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in the United States, I snapped a photograph of Viktor Hovland’s putter. In fact, I photographed all his clubs while he worked with one of Ping’s PGA Tour reps on the range, but that putter is unique because, unlike nearly all Ping clubs, it was covered in rust.

Over time and with exposure to air and water, Hovland’s DS 72 putter slowly developed a patina of brown pocked with orange, and gearheads on social media loved it.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CL4uC5ygcx8/

I reposted that image after Hovland won last fall, and once again equipment lovers responded. But the emails and comments overwhelmingly mentioned the same request: “Hey Ping, make this available to the rest of us!”

Ping just released the four-model PLD Milled series of putters, and one of the clubs now available is Hovland’s DS 72 mallet. Still, suppose you want to go the full Hovie. In that case, the company’s new Ping PLD Custom program will let you recreate the putter of your dreams, whether that’s Hovland’s DS 72, a customized Anser or one of several other models available with a level of personalization that Ping has never before offered the public.

It’s a new ultra-premium service, and it comes with likewise ultra-premium price of $1,290. But paying that price means you won’t hear this, “Sorry, we can’t do that.”

At the heart of the PLD Custom program is custom fitting, done either in-person with a Ping master fitter or virtually using Ping’s proprietary iPing app.

Pros such as Hovland, Cameron Champ and Bubba Watson use the iPing app – which involves attaching an iPod using a plastic cradle to your putter, then hitting three series of five putts – when they have their putting stroke analyzed at the Ping Putt Lab inside the company’s headquarters in Phoenix.

In your virtual fitting, studying your stroke on 15 10-foot putts, the iPing app calculates things such as consistency of face closure, your tempo, the amount of shaft lean you average at impact, the average lie angle and your average impact angle. That data, to a master fitter, is like gold and allows your fitter to make a recommendation about the type of putter that could benefit you most in a pre-arranged videoconference. For example, if you tend to strike the ball with the shaft leaning forward, the fitter will recommend more loft than standard. If your tempo is slow and you putt on fast greens, he or she might recommend a heavy head.

After you and the fitter decide the type of putter you need, the sky is the limit. You get to pick the head shape from blades such as the Anser, Anser 2 and Kushin to mallets such as the Prime Tyne, DS 72 and Oslo. You get to chose the material from which your putter head will be made, either stainless steel or carbon steel, as well as the amount of face milling, the finish, the alignment features, the grip, custom stamping and paintfill colors. You even get to decide the shaft. In other words, you get as much customization as tour pros enjoy.

All of the putters sold in the Ping PLD Custom program will be milled, built and assembled by Ping’s Wrx team in Phoenix, the same people who build putters for tour players. Ping exects to be able to deliver PLD Custom putters about three weeks after customers place their orders.

As you might expect, this level of fitting, service and customization carries a premium price tag. To book a PLD Custom fitting with a master fitter or a virtual fitting, golfers are required to pay a $200 non-refundable charge. That amount is applied toward the purchase of the putter, which will carry a price tag of $1,290. It’s a big number, to be sure, but Ping aims to make this a tour-level, top-of-the-line experience. Nothing is off the table.

The four new Ping PLD Milled putters that are arriving in stores will make a lot of golfers happy, but for those who can afford it and who have always dreamed of having a customized, tour-level putter in their bag, the PLD Custom program now makes it possible.

Ping PLD Milled Anser: $449.99 at PGA Tour Superstore / $447 at GlobalGolf
Ping PLD Milled Anser II: $449.99 at PGA Tour Superstore / $447 at GlobalGolf
Ping PLD Milled DS72: $449.99 at PGA Tour Superstore / $447 at GlobalGolf
Ping PLD Milled Tyne Prime 4: $449.99 at PGA Tour Superstore / $447 at GlobalGolf

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TaylorMade launches MyMG2 custom wedge program

Pros love adding initials, funny sayings and icons to wedges. TaylorMade is letting recreational golfers get in on the personalized fun.

Elite golfers are finicky about the way their clubs look and perform. Club makers don’t even bother taking new gear to pros if they think the pros will not like how it looks in the address position.

However, many pros are open to tricking out their gear and showing some style if it stays hidden when they stand over the ball, making the back of wedges a prime canvas for initials, stamps, logos and splashes of color.

With the launch of the new MyMG2 program, TaylorMade offers recreational golfers a chance to personalize their Milled Grind 2 wedges, too.

TaylorMade MyMG2 wedges — The MyMG2 program allows golfers to add text, icons and colors to their clubs. (TaylorMade)

Golfers who visit TaylorMade’s website can build a wedge by going through a series of pulldown menus and making selections. After picking the club’s loft (48-60 degrees) and finish (chrome, black, raw or cobalt nickel), the personalization ramps up.

Players can add initials, text or logos, then choose how those characters and icons appear in the open area on the back of the clubhead. Then they get to pick the paint fill colors for the Milled Grind logo, the TaylorMade logo, the loft and bounce numbers, their personalized text and even the three rings on the hosel. Finally, players select their desired shaft, grip and club length.

Each personalized club costs $225 and features the same technologies and design elements found in the standard Milled Grind 2 wedges. After the 8620 carbon steel heads are cast, a CNC milling machine passes a tiny, high-speed spinning tool over the sole and leading edge. This process helps TaylorMade control the shaping of the wedge more precisely. At the same time, a thermoplastic polyurethane insert in the back of each head absorbs excessive vibrations to enhance feel.

While the standard MG2 wedge has chrome plating over most of the body, the grooved hitting area is left raw and will rust after being exposed to air and moisture. The MyMG2 wedges will do the same thing. The Raw finished wedges will rust everywhere because they have no chrome plating on the heads.