This lot consists of a set of seven different Ping Redwood City putter models.  They consist of the following: 1A No Model,1A, 2A, 3A, 4A, 5A, and 5B. Each one is in outstanding original condition. Six have their original Golf Pride Informer grips.  The 1A no model has its original leather-wrapped grip with its Torsion T grip cap.   The 2A includes its original $17.50 price sticker shaft band. The heads are all clean and show very little bag wear.  This set was focused on assembling only prime example of Karsten's work.  To that end, five of the seven putters have shafts with Karsten's hand-made double bends.

Those bends are exceedingly meaningful elements. According to John Solheim, only Karsten crafted the shaft bend on every single Redwood City putter that has one. That was a job that not only had to be done with great skill, so the club would set up to the ball exactly as Karsten specified, but also required quite a balancing act of heating the shaft enough to bend it but not too much to scar or ruin it. Of course, Karsten worked on the vast majority of the PING Redwood City putters, as the only clubmaking help Karsten had in Redwood City was from his son John, who was in 8th and 9th grade, and his son Allan, who helped primarily by making and installing the leather-wrapped grips and only until mid-1959 when he graduated from high school and left for Marine Reserve boot camp.

An examination of these clubs all lined up in a row shows the differences in the bends from one to the next. karsten would bend these shafts only after the putter had been shafted, so he could ensure that the putter would set up to the ball exactly as he desired. Because the bends were formed by hand, no two were the same. 

So, while Karsten designed and worked on every Redwood City putter that remains, the shaft bends were also hand-crafted by the greatest clubmaking genius the game has ever seen. It was Karsten whose rise in the second half of the 20th century reinvented the wheel for all other clubmakers.

For more see And The Putter Went Ping chapter 2.