Photos of Ping's Gold Putter Vault By Brian Weis

The Gold Putter Vault Story, Gold Putter Vault Slide Show

Photos of Ping's Gold Putter Vault

A Rare Look Inside Ping's Gold Putter Vault

By Brian Weis

Deep inside Ping Headquarters is the legendary Gold Putter Vault. The vault is not open to the public nor do the visitors of the Ping Factory Tour get a peak at one of the greatest (and most expensive) private golf memorabilia collections in the world.

What is the Gold Putter Vault?
When a golfer wins a prestigious event (PGA, USGA, European, etc) playing Pings, a replica club is gold plated with the winner's name, tournament won and date.

During a recent visit to Ping, Pete Samuels, Director of Communications, allowed me to spend a few minutes in the remarkable room.

When he opened the room, I was blinded by the glare of the more than 2500 golden putters and wedges.

The Gold Putter Vault Story

In the 1970's, Karsten Solheim was looking for a unique way to thank and reward the professional for using a PING putter en route to victory. He decided to commemorate each victory by creating two gold-plated replicas of the winning putter. One he gave to the champion. The other he kept at the company's Phoenix, Arizona headquarters. Both were engraved with the professional's name and the name of the tournament he or she won.

He didn't know it at the time, but he was in the process of creating golf's version of Fort Knox. As more professional continued to win with PING putters, his collection quickly grew, requiring several moves into increasingly larger rooms.

There are now more than 2,500 putters in what is referred to as "The Gold Putter Vault". The oldest belongs to John Barnum, who won the 1962 Cajun Classic with a model 69. The collection includes putters from 47 major championships, including all four majors in 1988. The PING Anser occupies the most space in the vault, with more than 500 wins to its credit. You'll even find a few gold-plated wedges in the collection, including a replica of the Eye2 sand wedge used to win the 1986 PGA Championship with a dramatic hole-out from the green-side bunker.

New putters are added to the collection almost weekly. So the next time you see a PING putter in the hands of a champion on TV, know that the PING Gold Putter Vault will be making room for a new addition.

Article Tags: The Gold Putter Vault Story, Gold Putter Vault Slide Show

Revised: 12/16/2010 - Article Viewed 33,781 Times

About: Brian Weis

Brian Weis is the mastermind behind GolfTrips.com, a vast network of golf travel and directory sites covering everything from the rolling fairways of Wisconsin to the sunbaked desert layouts of Arizona. If there’s a golf destination worth visiting, chances are, Brian has written about it, played it, or at the very least, found a way to justify a "business trip" there.

As a card-carrying member of the Golf Writers Association of America (GWAA), International Network of Golf (ING), Golf Travel Writers of America (GTWA), International Golf Travel Writers Association (IGTWA), and The Society of Hickory Golfers (SoHG), Brian has the credentials to prove that talking about golf is his full-time job. In 2016, his peers even handed him The Shaheen Cup, a prestigious award in golf travel writing—essentially the Masters green jacket for guys who don’t hit the range but still know where the best 19th holes are.

Brian’s love for golf goes way back. As a kid, he competed in junior and high school golf, only to realize that his dreams of a college golf scholarship had about the same odds as a 30-handicap making a hole-in-one. Instead, he took the more practical route—working on the West Bend Country Club grounds crew to fund his University of Wisconsin education. Little did he know that mowing greens and fixing divots would one day lead to a career writing about the best courses on the planet.

In 2004, Brian turned his golf passion into a business, launching GolfWisconsin.com. Three years later, he expanded his vision, and GolfTrips.com was born—a one-stop shop for golf travel junkies looking for their next tee time. Today, his empire spans all 50 states, and 20+ international destinations.

On the course, Brian is a weekend warrior who oscillates between a 5 and 9 handicap, depending on how much he's been traveling (or how generous he’s feeling with his scorecard). His signature move" A high, soft fade that his playing partners affectionately (or not-so-affectionately) call "The Weis Slice." But when he catches one clean, his 300+ yard drives remind everyone that while he may write about golf for a living, he can still send a ball into the next zip code with the best of them.

Whether he’s hunting down the best public courses, digging up hidden gems, or simply outdriving his buddies, Brian Weis is living proof that golf is more than a game—it’s a way of life.