Everyone seems to know that the Ryder Cup is named for — altogether now — the British seed merchant Samuel Ryder, who donated the trophy. But how many people know that the Solheim Cup is named for a transplanted Norwegian named Karsten Solheim, who started making a pinging putter in a garage in Phoenix that eventually became an innovative club-manufacturing empire known throughout golfdom as Ping, a division of Karsten Manufacturing?
It’s all true!
“We gave them three options for the name of the event,” John Solheim, one of Karsten’s sons, now in his early 80s, said the other day. His them was the organizing bodies that put on the Solheim Cup, the LPGA and the LET, the Ladies’ European Tour. “Solheim Cup, Karsten Cup or Ping Cup. I’m glad they went with Solheim.”
This year’s event is the 20th edition, and it’s being played on a remote inland course in a forest, best reached by foot or bike or horse: Bernardus Golf in the Netherlands, near . . . pretty much nothing. It is an hour and 40 minutes by car from the Amsterdam Hilton, where John and Yoko had their interesting 1969 bed-in for peace. Bernardus, a newish course designed by the American Kyle Phillips, gets high marks for being interesting, too. That’s what John Solheim says. He’s there this week. He’s never missed a Solheim Cup, going back to the first one in 1990, held at Lake Nona Golf & Country Club, not far from Disney World in Orlando.
You might think that Mr. Solheim, already in the Netherlands, might want to make a side trip to Bergen, Norway, and to his father’s boyhood home there. Could do, but not that easily. You could fly from Amsterdam to Bergen but then your adventure would only be starting. Solheim has done it before, when the Solheim Cup was in Sweden. Solheim discovered that his father’s childhood home is not in Bergen, a rainy maritime burgh that is Norway’s second-biggest city, after Oslo. The home is on an island in the vicinity that, as he recalls it, required a boat to reach. The homes on this island, as they are throughout Norway, were colorful and sensible and tidy. There were also about a dozen family members living in the home, in Karsten’s childhood. Karsten’s father was a shoemaker. Karsten became one, too. He had good hands, not so much for playing the game that became central to his life, but for making its implements.
His son, John, was asked the other day if his father had conflicting rooting interests in the Solheim Cup, as he was a European by birth and upbringing but came of age, in every sense, as an American.
“The thing he rooted for was a close match,” Solheim said. “Anytime it was close, it was good for the event, good for interest in it and ratings.” The U.S. has won the Cup 11 times, the Europeans have won it seven times and in 2023 the event ended in a tie. (This week’s edition, through two sessions, is tied 4-4.) Karsten Solheim died in 2000 at age 88, so he didn’t catch that one, at least not from ground level. But John is sure his father would have loved it.
Ping, the company, and the Solheim family have always loved women’s golf, and always felt that it was woefully underappreciated. “My father was astonished by their shot-making, how straight they could hit it,” Solheim said. Part of the draw for him was his engineering mind — he saw golf as a problem that could be conquered with superior engineering. Also, his wife, Louise, enjoyed watching the women’s game. The company has sponsored dozens of LPGA events over the years, typically paying all the bills to broadcast these events, then having to sell the advertising spots for them in an effort to break even. “We didn’t,” John Solheim said. “But it was still worth it.” To this day, the business is family-owned and operated. John’s son, also named John, runs it today.
It was neat, at a press conference the other day, to hear Anna Nordqvist, this year’s European captain, mention Karsten and Louise Solheim by name. The Swedish golfer, only 39 and set to retire from competitive play, was on Europe’s Junior Solheim Cup team in 2005, later played on nine Solheim Cup teams, and now she’s running a show she knows well. She went out of her way to mention the founders.
“I don’t think we need to hype up the rivalry of the Solheim Cup, but there has always been drama and controversies, because that’s the nature of Solheim Cup golf,” a reporter asked the captain. (The question and response are lightly edited here.) “Have you spoken with your team about how to approach something a bit heated or controversial?”
No mention of the Solheims there, right?
Her answer, speaking to include her American counterpart, Angela Stanford:
“Early on in our captaincies, I think we both knew there were going to be some moments out there with a lot of emotion, a lot of adrenaline running, a lot of things going on. But at the end of the week what Karsten and Louise Solheim ultimately created is a stage for women’s golf to thrive. And coming Sunday, women’s golf is going to win this week.”
That is precisely the spirit Karsten and Louise were looking for.
“If he could see this event today, they’d be amazed,” John Solheim said of his father. At least John was there, for the 20th time. He was amazed. He has seen where his father came from, and where his ingenuity took him. He has seen the event his father created, and what it turned into. It’s called the Solheim Cup. Good name.
Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com
