Ping 2021 Putters Unveiled

The Ping 2021 putters unveiled today comprise 12 models offering a soft, responsive feel and tour inspired looks at address

Ping 2021 Putters Unveiled

Ping has unveiled a brand new putter range designed to offer improved predictability and a soft, responsive feel. It comprises 12 models across blades, mid-mallets and mallets that also benefit from new levels of forgiveness thanks to use of at least three materials in each head.

To balance feel, roll and ball speed, Ping has introduced a new dual-durometer Pebax face insert. The front layer is softer for precision on shorter putts while the back layer is firmer to provide good speed and distance control.

The face also has shallow, uniform grooves said to provide more consistent distance control across the face and sit in between a solid flat face (seen on the Heppler range) and TR grooves (seen on Sigma 2 putters) in terms of ball speed from centred hits.

RELATED: Ping 2021 Anser 4 Putter Review

All the 2021 putters have different materials of varying densities (steel, tungsten and aluminium) depending on the model, including high density heel and toe weights, to increase forgiveness.

One of the new standout models visually is the Harwood (above), a six-piece design fully machined from 6061 aluminium with 93g of tungsten, positioned across all four corners, providing the highest MOI in the line.

The new Fetch (below) has a fresh look from the top with better alignment aids while maintaining the fetch-ability feature underneath.

Three proprietary Ping grip designs allow golfers to dial in their optimal fit and feel - the pistol shaped PP58-MID, the midsize PP60 wrap style and a straight taper PP58-S midsize grip. 

The putters come with a dark, stealth PVD finish on the heads and black chrome, fixed length shafts as standard but adjustable length grips are available for a £40 upcharge.

The 2021 Ping putters - Anser, Anser 2, Anser 4, Kushin 4, DS 72, CA 70, Tyne 4, Fetch,  Tyne C, Oslo H, Harwood and Harwood Armlock - go on sale April 15th with an RRP of £250 (Harwoods £375).

Q&A with Dr. Paul Wood, VP Engineering Ping Inc.

Explain the thinking behind the new face design/groove pattern? The face design on these putters utilizes our familiar pebax material for the inserts. This provides a soft sound and feel for the player with a predictable ball speed response.

The shallow groove was developed by work with players on the PGA tour. Some of our players were looking for a face pattern that gave a response a little softer than a flat face but a little firmer than our TR groove.

Putter performance is a delicate balance of physics and psychology – tuning both the ball speed response and the sound and feel response of the putter to match the players’ expectations and instincts creates a positive feedback loop that helps the player execute their skills better.

Stating it as simply as I can, when the player hits a putt and looks up and sees the ball exactly where he or she is expecting it to be, it helps the player’s judgement on the next putt. When there is a mismatch between the expectations and reality, it makes it more of a manual adjustment for the player and makes it more difficult to judge the next putt. The same applies to the sound and feel of the putter.

Why have you decided to not have adjustable length grips as standard? This was a difficult decision. The adjustable length feature works and delivers something very important – the ability to set the length of the putter to anything from 32” to 36”. This can have a big impact on performance. That said, we want to get that technology in the hands of the people who will use it.

What we’ve found is that in some types of environment the adjustable shaft is very popular while in other environments having fixed length putters at specific length options seems to work better. The adjustable shaft does also have a softer feel to it that isn’t favoured by all players.

We made the decision to make the fixed shaft the standard option and to have the adjustable length shaft available for any stores and/or golfers who want to take advantage of it. In this fashion, we are aiming to get the adjustable length technology to the people who will use it, but not put technology into putters where it won’t be used.