THE KING OF CLUBS

PING might be the only company in golf with an official historian, but inside Rob Griffin’s library, there’s a whole lot more than history in the making

- JAMES COLGAN

IF THE WALLS of Rob Griffin’s office could talk, they’d whisper. Much of PING’s sprawling Phoenix, Ariz., headquarters is a snapshot of quintessential Corporate America: stock furniture, orderly cubicles, sharp fluorescent lighting. But step through the doorway into Griffin’s office and you’ll start to feel the ground pulse beneath you. There’s something about this office something not fully physical but tangible nonetheless that sets it apart from all the others like it.

Griffin knows this feeling well. As PING’s historian, it is his life’s work.

BEFORE HE WAS DOCUMENTING PING’s history, Rob Griffin was capturing it.

PING first hired him in 1986 to be the company’s staff photographer. At the time, Griffin thought that meant traveling the world on PING’s dime to shoot photos of professional golfers. But he soon learned his work would take on a very different shot shape.

“This is a family company, and, even though I was hired to be a staff photographer, I realized quickly I was really more like the town photographer,” he says with a laugh. “I shot golf tournaments and products. But I also shot all kinds of meetings and birthday parties. I even shot some weddings.”

For that, Griffin could thank his bosses, PING founders Karsten and Louise Solheim. The Solheims were notoriously stubborn people—the street outside the company headquarters is named “Karsten’s Way,” an apparent nod to the founder’s hardheadedness—but no cause made the family more headstrong than their business. PING employees were treated like family and were expected to return the favor.