The Mr. PING Logo: Who Made It and Why It Is Not the PING Man

If you've searched for the “PING man logo”, “Mr. PING logo” or even the “PING guy logo”, the little golfer you're probably looking for is Mr. PING. He's the character found across PING clothing, bags and accessories.

He isn't the PING Man. That's something completely different: a mechanical golfer used by PING to test golf clubs. Two similar names, two different stories, and enough confusion between them online to make this worth filing properly.

Who made the Mr. PING logo?

The Mr. PING figure came from John A. Solheim, son of PING founder Karsten Solheim. The story recorded around the company is wonderfully homemade. A young John modelled the golfer in clay before his father left on a two-month trip. John and his siblings later made a much larger plaster version, which was waiting for Karsten when he returned.

Karsten liked the character enough to have a professional drawing made. The odd little golfer became Mr. PING.

It fits the early PING story rather well. Karsten had started the company in his Redwood City garage in 1959 with the PING 1A putter, named after the sound it made at impact. The Anser followed in 1966. Mr. PING arrived from the same family environment, but from the next generation rather than Karsten's drawing board.

What does Mr. PING actually look like?

Once you know him, he's difficult to miss. Mr. PING has a brimmed hat, oversized nose, open mouth and a wide golfer's stance, with a PING 1A putter in his hands.

It's a strange logo by modern sportswear standards. That's part of why it works so well on older golf clothing. There are no sharp speed lines or abstract performance marks. It's simply a golfer, slightly awkward and full of personality.

PING still uses the character today, but for vintage buyers the interesting part is seeing how he turns up on older clothing alongside different versions of the PING wordmark.

Mr. PING and PING Man are not the same thing

This is where most of the confusion starts.

Mr. PING is the golfer-shaped logo created by John A. Solheim. It's the figure you see embroidered or printed on clothing, bags, headcovers and other PING equipment.

PING Man is a swing-testing robot. Karsten Solheim developed the robotic golfer for repeatable equipment testing, and PING's current research operation still uses later generations of it today.

So if you're holding a 1990s PING jumper with a little golfer embroidered below the collar, you're looking at Mr. PING. You haven't found a picture of the company's test robot.

Why do some histories get the logo wrong?

Part of the problem is obvious: “PING Man” sounds like a perfectly reasonable name for a small drawing of a man playing golf.

There's also a competing story in circulation that attributes a golfer figure to Karsten Solheim bending a piece of wire. We wouldn't use that account to identify the clothing logo. The better-supported history credits John A. Solheim with modelling Mr. PING in clay, while Karsten's PING Man belongs to the company's equipment-testing story.

The names have been blurred together often enough that searching for “PING Man logo” still tends to bring back both.

Was Mr. PING created in 1967 or 1969?

The date is less tidy than the creator.

1967 is the year most commonly given for the clay model, including more recent material connected with PING's apparel business. Our research register also records PING retellings that have used 1969.

Rather than pretend that discrepancy doesn't exist, we'd describe Mr. PING as a late-1960s design. More importantly, the date the logo was created should never be used on its own to date a piece of clothing made twenty or thirty years later.

How Mr. PING appears on vintage PING clothing

This is where having the clothing in hand becomes more useful than another company timeline.

Across PING items we've handled, Mr. PING doesn't occupy one fixed position. We've had a 1990s slate V-neck vest with the PING wordmark at the front and Mr. PING sitting on the back of the neck. Another blue V-neck vest puts the golfer on the chest, with PING stitching behind the neck.

An earlier blue and white crew-neck jumper takes it further. The PING wordmark sits on the left chest and right cuff, while Mr. PING appears at the back neck.

That variation matters. The figure can be the main event or a small secondary detail you don't notice until you turn the clothing around.

You can see more examples across our vintage PING Golf clothing, particularly the knitted and sleeveless layers we've handled over time.

Can the Mr. PING logo date vintage clothing?

Not by itself.

The logo tells you you're looking at a recognisable part of PING's visual history, but its presence doesn't give an exact year. The same character has survived across different periods and product ranges.

For dating, we look at the complete item: neck label, secondary labels, care label, country of manufacture, fabric, construction, embroidery and the version of the PING wordmark used alongside the golfer.

Placement can add another clue, but it needs a larger sample before we're comfortable turning those patterns into firm date ranges. That's something we're documenting as more PING stock passes through the shop.

What should you look for on vintage Mr. PING clothing?

Start with the embroidery itself, but don't stop there. Look at how Mr. PING is paired with the wordmark, whether he's on the chest or back neck, how the label is constructed and what the rest of the clothing tells you about its age.

Our vintage golf vests and gilets are particularly useful for seeing how golf brands treated small embroidered marks, because the clean front and V-neck leave very little visual noise around them.

For anything carrying a tournament, course or dated event mark, use that evidence as well. Our Tournament & Competition Wear archive is a good comparison because a dated crest can tell you far more about an item's moment than a company logo that remained in use for years.

And if it's the little golfer you're searching for, use the right name. Mr. PING is on the clothing. PING Man is in the lab.