“The squarer-toe Anser 2 variant; plumber-neck blade with toe hang for an arc stroke. A perennial across Ping's Scottsdale, Karsten, and Vault lines.”
The Anser 2 is the squarer-shouldered sibling of Karsten Solheim's 1966 Anser and, in many collectors' eyes, the more influential of the two shapes. Where the original Anser has softer, rounder contours, the Anser 2 squares the heel and toe into a blockier, more angular blade with more heel-toe mass — the profile a huge share of tour blades descend from (the shape echoed by Scotty Cameron's Newport 2). It shares the Anser's DNA: heel-toe perimeter weighting, a rear cavity and the offset plumber's-neck hosel. Like the original, it lives on through reissues — the Karsten Series, the milled Redwood era, and today's PLD Milled Anser 2, which Ping calls a wider profile with more heel-toe mass than the standard Anser. The 2003, $199 listing here reflects one of those reissues, not the 1960s original.
As a member of the Anser family — the winningest and most-copied putter lineage in golf, credited across Golf Digest, MyGolfSpy and Ping's own heritage with inventing heel-toe perimeter weighting — the Anser 2's squared shape is one of the most widely imitated silhouettes in putting, echoed by countless tour blades. Its icon status rides on the same independently documented legacy as the original Anser, with the specific distinction of being the more angular, tour-favored profile.
A heel-shafted, toe-hang blade for players with an arcing stroke who prefer the squared, more angular Anser 2 look and want classic feel and feedback with a touch more stability than the rounded Anser. Best for better players and traditionalists on moderate-paced greens. Straight-stroke putters or those chasing maximum mis-hit forgiveness should choose a face-balanced mallet instead.
The Anser 2's squared silhouette became a tour-department staple and, after the 1984 patent expiry, one of the most copied blade shapes in the game — the lineage behind many 'Newport 2'-style blades across brands. These reissues (Karsten Series, Redwood, PLD Milled Anser 2) are premium modern executions of that 1960s geometry competing against Scotty Cameron and Bettinardi milled blades, not the center-weighted putters the original once dethroned.
For a putter, forgiveness is off-center stability (MOI). The Anser 2's blockier shape carries slightly more heel-toe mass than the standard Anser — Ping's own PLD notes describe the Anser 2 as a wider profile with more heel-toe mass — so it is marginally more stable on mis-hits, earning it a 6 versus the Anser's 5. It remains a compact steel blade, though: forgiving for a blade and revolutionary in 1966, but well short of a modern high-MOI mallet.
Calibrated across the whole catalog — a tour blade scores low here on purpose; it means control, not ease.
Like the Anser, value is entirely era- and stamping-dependent across 60 years of models. Vintage 1960s-80s Anser 2 originals (early Scottsdale/85068 stampings, BeCu or manganese-bronze finishes) are collector pieces ranging from ~$100 into the several hundreds for desirable examples; modern milled reissues (Redwood, PLD Milled Anser 2) trade used around ~$150-$350 against $250-$400+ retail; ordinary investment-cast Karsten Series Anser 2s run ~$40-$100. The specific vintage and finish, not the name, set the price.
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