Tag: Ping Putters

Gear: Ping 2021 putters
Price: $270-$380 each
Specs: Stainless steel, aluminum and tungsten heads with dual-durometer polymer insert

In recent years Ping has become known for making some of the most stable and forgiving drivers in golf, but the company was founded on putters. Karsten Solheim’s designs, dating back to 1959, have always tried to help players obtain more consistency on the greens and enhance their sense of touch. Now, with the release of the 2021 family of putters, Ping continues those efforts with multi-material constructions and a new face insert.

There are nine 2021 putters, ranging from three versions of the iconic Anser to mid-sized mallets to larger mallets. All of them have a few things in common.

Each putter has a new Pebax elastomer insert that has two levels of firmness. Pebax is a polymer that Ping has used in select putters before, such as the Sigma 2 family. It is light, feels soft at impact and does an excellent job of returning energy to the ball. In the 2021 putters, Ping used two Pebax layers, with the outermost layer being soft for better performance on short putts and the back layer being firmer for a more solid feel on long putts. This soft insert complements the Heppler putters that Ping released last season, which have a smooth stainless steel face designed to feel firm and crisp.

The materials used to make each putter vary based on the head’s size, but all of them were made to deliver more stability and forgiveness.

The Anser, Anser 2 and Anser 4 are smaller blades made from stainless steel with tungsten weights in the heel and toe to increase the moment of inertia without making the heads larger. They are the most forgiving Anser putters Ping has ever made.

The Kushin 4, GS 72 and Tyne 4 are midsize mallets with a steel weight in the heel and tungsten in the toe to move the center of gravity into the ideal spot. The Fetch and Oslo H mallets have stainless steel bodies with aluminum soleplates. The use of aluminum shifts more of the overall weight to the perimeter, making the mallets more stable without becoming overly large.

The new CA 70, which is slightly larger, has an aluminum body and a heavier, stainless steel soleplate to drop the center of gravity, while the Harwood, which has an aluminum body and 93-gram tungsten weights in each corner of the head, has the highest moment of inertia of any putter in the lineup.

Each 2021 putter has a dark PVD finish, white alignment features and comes standard with a black-chrome shaft. They also come standard with 3 degrees of loft except the armlock version of the Harwood, which has 6 degrees, and the lofts can be adjusted by a custom fitter.

Gear: Ping Heppler putters
Price: $245-$270 each
Specs: Mallets with cast-aluminum and stainless steel heads; blade-style putters in all steel. Adjustable-length shafts.
Available: Jan. 20

While there has been a significant trend over the past few years to softer-feeling golf balls, many players prefer a firm, solid-feeling putter. To them, a crisp strike feels better and allows them to develop a better sense of touch. With the new Heppler family of putters, which contains nine head shapes, Ping is using a new manufacturing technique to deliver a firmer feel and more forgiveness at the same time.

Ping has designed grooved faces in all of its recent putters, such as the Sigma 2, Vault 2.0 and Sigma G families, and some putters also have backings and inserts to soften feel. The Heppler blades, mid-mallets and high-MOI mallet putters – named for Rick Heppler, an employee who joined the company in 1966 as it started and was with Ping for nearly 50 years – are different.

The putters have a smooth face that produces crisp contact and were designed using a multimaterial construction that is new for Ping.

Seven of the nine Heppler putters can be classified as either mid-size mallets or high-MOI mallets, and each has a chassis dye cast from ADC12 aluminum. Ping said the material is 10 percent softer than the 6061 aluminum used in other putters. The pressure-casting process allowed Ping to get more details into the heads during the casting process instead of machining and milling after the heads are created.

Other areas of the heads are made from cast stainless steel, a material that is much heavier than aluminum. In the mallets, the steel was given a copper tone that contrasts with the black-finished aluminum.

The combination of aluminum and steel allowed Ping to concentrate weight more precisely for increased perimeter weighting and forgiveness without making the heads significantly larger.

For example, the Heppler Tyne 3 putter is the higher-MOI version of the Tyne that Ping has produced, even though it is not bigger than previous models and does not have a ball-speed-normalizing face insert.

The Tomcat 14 putter has the highest moment of inertia in the Heppler lineup, with half its weight coming from aluminum and half coming from steel. The rails are a ball’s width apart and covered in white dots that were inspired by the lights that flank an aircraft runway.

The remaining two of the nine putters in the Keppler family are blades and made using only steel. The Anser 2, which is ideally balanced for golfers who have a slightly arced putting stroke, is the latest edition of the classic putter that put Ping on the map, while the ZB3 is for players with a strong arc. The copper-colored topline helps the blades match the rest of the family and acts as an alignment aid.

Each Heppler putter comes standard with a black chrome shaft that is adjustable. Using a tool that inserts into the grip, the putters can be made as short as 32 inches or as long as 36 inches, making it easier for players and fitters to create a Heppler putter that is the ideal length for any player.