Solheim Cup founder - Karsten Solheim

The line we often hear from those who have done well in sports is they want to give something back to the game. This has never been better exemplified than by Karsten Solheim, founder of the equipment manufacturer called by his first name but perhaps best known colloquially as Ping.

Actually, Solheim gave more back to golf than most.

There is, of course, the Solheim Cup being played this month between the best women golfers representing the United States and Europe. It is the women's equivalent of the Ryder Cup, and has become a permanent fixture in the game, as well it should.

Solheim established the competition, which inaugurated in 1990. He helped conceive the idea, put up the money to get it off the ground and donated the trophy. He said at the time that it was his way to show his appreciation for all that he got out of golf, which was considerable. He became a very rich man making and selling Ping clubs.

But Solheim didn't just make golf clubs -- and gain wealth, thereby.

In doing so, he turned the golf equipment industry on its ear, effectively revolutionizing it. His first effort was a putter, which was and remains a very good one and a huge success. That got him off the ground, and he expanded on the concept behind the putter to break new ground.

Not long after the introduction of the Ping putter, Solheim brought out a new iron with a design and method of manufacturing that took the golf world into a new dimension.

Solheim produced the first cavity-backed iron, which was based on the concept of perimeter weighting. It was long thought that the mass of weight on an iron (and putter) should be directly behind the sweet spot. It seemed to make sense, but like so much in golf, what appears logical isn't necessarily so.

It was shown in The Search for the Perfect Swing -- published in 1968 and still the most comprehensive study ever made of the swing and equipment -- that if a ball is hit in the center of the clubface, it has the entire weight of the clubhead behind the shot. Thus, maximum distance will be achieved.

On the other hand, if you strike the ball outside dead center -- toward either the toe or heel -- the clubhead is turned and the shot is misdirected. Worse yet, distance is lost. This principle applied to his putter, but in not nearly as dramatic a way as with Solheim's next product.

Solheim was not much of a golfer himself, having taken the game up late in his life. He recognized from personal experience that most golfers of his ilk, which is to say some 98 percent of those who played, hit many if not all their shots off the sweet spot. And so he reconfigured his irons. He took the weight from behind the center of the head and redistributed it to the toe and heel. Now, hackers could catch the ball off-center and still get decent direction and distance. Voila. The Average-Golfer-Friendly Iron.

On top of all that, Solheim produced his irons by what is called the lost-wax process. Simply put, the steel is poured into molds and, when hardened, pops out of the womb (so to speak) needing nothing more than to be fitted with a shaft. No grinding is necessary to smooth out rough spots, no polishing required.

With many steps in the manufacturing process eliminated, the clubs could be multi-mass produced and easily replaced in case of loss or breakage.

The Ping iron was a boon to the common golfer for its playability -- the game was no less easy, but the failures were more easily accepted. You could miss-hit the ball and get more for your effort than with the small-headed, unforgiving forged irons.

What's more, Ping irons were readily available at a good price. In only three years, Solheim captured some 40 percent of the world's market in irons. And, within that same time frame, every golf equipment manufacturer in the world began producing cavity-backed irons by the lost-wax process.

The clubs were at first identified as being only for average golfers -- hackers, if you please -- and most of the game's best players, especially the touring pros, would not play a cavity-backed club. But in the end, many of those also gave in to the performance characteristics, as well. Solheim didn't only build clubs of a different design, they were also well made.

Solheim's backing of the eponymous competition for the best women professionals in the game was perhaps, in part, simply because any similar men's event was taken up by the Ryder Cup. On the other hand, his Ping irons were from the start and continue to be especially popular among women golfers. It is only speculation, but the guess here is that the clubs have cut the average women's handicap by a shot or two over the years. And even if not, they have, as noted above, made the misses more acceptable.

A quiet, religious man, Karsten Solheim had a steely resolve when he ran into problems with the USGA regarding some features of his clubs.

The most celebrated affair was the one about square grooves. The shape of the groove itself was not an issue. However, the first versions had a sharp edge and were cutting or skinning the covers of golf balls. So Solheim ground the edges of the grooves to make them less abrasive. In doing so, the USGA determined that the grooves were now too close together and thus illegal because they presumably put too much spin on the ball. Solheim said that by his way of measuring the space between grooves, the distance between was still with USGA guidelines. The USGA rejected his claim, and a lawsuit developed.

Solheim didn't want to win money from the USGA in the suit; he was interested in only protecting the legality of the millions of clubs he had already sold. Eventually, the USGA grandfathered all Ping irons with grooves, by its reckoning, too close together.

Solheim was relieved, he changed his production methods to conform to the USGA's guidelines, and the issue was resolved. It might be noted here that the difference between the USGA's specifications and those of Solheim was the width of a human hair.

It is also interesting to note that Samuel Ryder, who put up the cup that the men professionals play for, was at best a casual golfer who sold some grass seed to golf courses as part of his overall business. Solheim had much more to offer, and his legacy lives on with his company (now in the hands of his sons), as well as his significant contribution to women's golf.