Extreme Engineer of the Month

Profile: Brad Schweigert, PING, Mechanical Engineer

Education: B.S. Degree in Mechanical Engineering, University of Colorado

Favorite Classes:

• Advanced materials
• Structures and mechanics classes

Best Skills: Brad makes a distinction between skills needed in school and in the workplace. In school, he says his best skills were his hard work ethic and his ability to understand complex concepts. In the business world, he draws on problem solving, strategic thinking, and the ability to get things done. He says in the business world, you don't always need to know the answer but rather how to get it.

Hobbies: Golf

Role Model: His grandfather. He reinforced the importance of school and introduced him to engineering. He told him that if he got an engineering degree he could do whatever he wanted — whether it was being a businessman, doctor, lawyer, or engineer.

Advice: Getting an engineering degree teaches you how to think and solve problems, which makes you valuable in the business world. You have to know going in that you want to get an engineering degree. If you don't start taking the required courses, you'll get behind, and it will seem out of reach. You need to be prepared to work hard because it's not easy for anyone, but it's achievable for more people than you'd think. You just have to be willing to work hard at it.

Combining Two Passions for a Hole in One!

Brad was good at math and science in high school, but his passion was golf. He would have loved to have been a professional golfer, but toward the end of his high school career he realized that wasn't going to happen. So he started exploring how he could apply the thing he was best at—math and science—to the golf industry. He decided to look into designing golf equipment. He contacted several manufacturers to learn what degree would best prepare him. He discovered that mechanical engineering was the way to go. Not only did his contacts net sound advice, they drew the attention of manufacturers Brad might like to work for. He stayed in touch with a few of them throughout college.

Staying the Course

Brad contacted PING, a leading golf club manufacturer, his sophomore year of college and stayed in touch with the director of the engineering group, Dan Kubica. He asked Dan if there was anything he could do to better prepare himself to work in the industry—such as electives or internships. Dan suggested that he get a job in a machine shop and take some courses in materials. Brad followed the advice. He took advanced courses in materials and got a summer job in a machine shop. That made a big impression on Dan.

Brad did well in school. His senior year he received numerous job offers outside of the golf industry. He was still in contact with Titleist and PING; however, PING was the first to come through with an offer. While other industry sectors—particularly petroleum and aerospace—were offering a much higher starting salary, Brad decided to go with PING. It was a tough choice at the time, but he thought that in the long run he'd be happier. He also thought that his passion for the sport and commitment to the industry would provide him a performance advantage.

Quick Rise to Lead the Design Group

Brad joined PING at a time when the company was transitioning to new design software, and he picked it up fast. His successful leadership on the development of the G2 and JAS putter families earned him an opportunity to lead an iron project early in his career that became one of the company's best selling irons in recent history—the G2 irons. He went onto lead the development of many products that helped PING achieve much of its current market success — including the G2 Driver and most of the G5 family of products — G5 irons, G5 drivers and G5 fairway woods. Last year he was promoted to a player/coach position as manager of the design group. In this position he manages a small team that does the design work, plus he still gets to do design work himself.

Brad says he's glad he stayed the course and went with the golf industry. He even suspects he ranks pretty well now financially compared to if he had taken one of the higher initial job offers. "If you're going to do something everyday for the rest of your life, you might as well pick something you enjoy and have a passion for," he says. "You'll do it a lot better than something you're not excited about—even if you have a lot of skill. Skill is only part of it. You have to have the drive to get things done."

From Irons to Drivers—Pushing the Design Envelope

The G2 Irons were the first major iron project Brad worked on. His team applied an innovative technology to the manufacturing process that helped create a geometry that significantly improved the clubhead performance. The improvements were made through using a more sophisticated mold that allowed Brad to design the head with better weight distribution. The resulting product was a great success.

After completing the G2 irons Brad started working on prototypes for a new driver design. The initial test results of the prototypes were so impressive that he was assigned to lead the development to bring it to the market as the G2 Driver. The new design was so popular it quickly rose to the coveted position of "#1 selling driver model in golf", and held onto that mark for 12 out of its 14 month lifecycle. This increased the company's driver market share more than five fold and helped reassert PING as a major player in the driver category.

Engineering Golf

Brad explained that the performance of the club head is driven by the center of gravity (CG) location and the moment of inertia of the club head. "The CG location of the club head is a very critical factor optimizing the ball flight," he says. Brad and his team are constantly trying to develop new methods and materials that allow them to further optimize center of gravity location to maximize performance. The relationship between the center of gravity and the force line of the shaft controls the dynamic effects of the club will have during the swing. He states it as, "the CG to shaft axis relationship will greatly affect both the initial launch angle and the club head rotation during the swing. The CG position also has a major influence on the spin rate that the club head will impart on the golf ball during the impact." "Generally, our goal is to design the club to help the golfer launch the ball high with less spin, which will help them increase distance," he says.

"The higher the moment of inertia, the more forgiving the club is going to be," he says. If you hit the ball slightly off center the club wants to twist, and when it twists, it looses energy and causes side spin. "Anytime you raise the moment of inertia, it becomes more resistant to twisting" he says, "so you make the club longer and straighter on off-center hits."

Engineering: Skills to Succeed in Life

Almost every product that's out there has been designed or shaped by an engineer. "It's hard to find a field you can't tie engineering to," says Brad. "There's probably some kind of engineering focus tied to anything you enjoy and can get excited about."

Brad's take on engineering: "There isn't a magical level where the smart people are so much smarter than you. The concepts are hard for everybody; even those you think are way above you. But if you work hard, you can distinguish yourself. It all comes down to hard work. If you're willing to do the work, it pays off in the end. You develop skills and a work ethic that will make you really successful in life."