The order of the majors has changed since Jeff Sluman won the PGA Championship, but during the 1988 season, it was Sluman who assumed the closer role in Ping’s historic “Grand Slam of Golf.”
Without his three-shot win at Oak Tree Golf Club in Edmond, Oklahoma — it has since been renamed Oak Tree National — Ping doesn’t create an advertisement celebrating four major wins for its putters during the golf season.
To commemorate Sluman’s victory with a Pal 2, Ping will release 88 precision-milled versions on Tuesday, through pingpld.com, which are made from 303 stainless steel in a “natural finish.” Each putter is serialized for authenticity and comes with a custom headcover that’s unique to the PGA Championship.
The Ping Slam PLD Limited line got off to a special start last month when former Masters champion Sandy Lyle used a special Pal — the same putter he used to win the 1988 Masters — to make the final putt of his last Masters. The moment came on the heels of Ping selling out of Lyle’s Masters-winning PLD Limited Pal in a matter of minutes.
“The buildup and attention the ‘Ping Slam’ PLD Limited Pal model received during last month’s Masters was fun to see,” said Ping executive chairman John A. Solheim. “We even gave one to Sandy Lyle at Augusta and he used it to sink his final putt of his last Masters. It was Sandy’s win with the original PING Pal putter at the 1988 Masters that put us on the path to this amazing accomplishment. That brought back some very social memories for me, and we were very honored by his gesture on his last hole.”
When it comes to Ping’s Pal 2, Nick Faldo put the putter on the map with a win at the 1987 Open Championship. Sluman won the PGA a year later, followed by John Daly at the 1991 PGA Championship. The putter, cast from stainless steel, was a popular model on Tour during its heyday and featured a “Zing-style hosel” with a white sightline along the trailing edge.
“The Ping Slam celebration is a great way to pay tribute to Karsten’s success and all he brought to putter designs while celebrating with our loyal Ping fans,” Solheim said. “When it happened 35 years ago, it was very special, and we celebrated by running one of our iconic yellow ads under the headline: Ping Putters Used To Win The Grand Slam Of Golf. What made it even more rewarding was that four different models of putters were used in the victories.”
Ping’s PLD Limited Pal 2 drops on Tuesday at 2 p.m. ET and retails for $990 (limit one per customer).
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