Games using tangible projectile – Golf – Club or club support
Reexamination Certificate
1999-06-24
2002-03-12
Chapman, Jeanette (Department: 3711)
Games using tangible projectile
Golf
Club or club support
C473S282000, C473S342000, C473S345000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06354961
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The primary objective of the present invention is to design golf clubs for a variety of golfers that optimizes the distance the golfer impels the golf ball. To do this from a physics standpoint, it is necessary to obtain a maximum deflection of the ball striking face, or something approaching that maximum, during the collision with the ball while at the same time maintaining the other parameters of the golf club head within acceptable limits.
This spring-like effect of the ball striking face, which is necessary to achieve maximum distance, has been widely misunderstood in the golf industry, even by many golf club designers. Many golf club designers believe that any deflection of the golf club face during impact with its resulting spring-like effect on the golf ball is a design in violation of the Rules of the USGA. This is a myth because virtually all of the thin walled hollow metal wood clubs have significant face deflection during impact and in fact impart a spring-like effect to the ball as it exits the face. This deflection can be as high as in the range of 0.100 to 0.200 inches. And the USGA has approved such clubs although prior to 1999, it did no ball speed or rebound testing on golf clubs. The USGA has now adopted, although in a state of transition, a ball impact club head test in which the rebound speed of the golf ball is measured and compared against the inbound speed of the golf club impacting the club head sample in a stationary position. If the rebound speed of the ball exceeds a certain percentage of the inbound speed, the club will fail the test and the USGA will notify the submitter that the club head has failed the ball speed test and will not be approved by the USGA.
While it is the primary object of the present invention to maximize the face deflection, without causing face failure, and thus maximize face wall energy imparted to the ball, this does not necessarily mean that club heads made in accordance with the present invention will fail the USGA testing, and club heads designed in accordance with the present invention should be submitted to the USGA for such testing and this application makes no representation as to whether such clubs will or will not pass the USGA testing, particularly bearing in mind that the testing procedures and parameters are presently in a state of flux.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,461,481, issued to Sunyong P. Kim, entitled “Golf Club of the Driver Type”, an internal rod is mounted within the club head extending rearwardly behind the front face and carries a slidable weight
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that slides back and forth on the rod and impacts the face during ball collision to assist in imparting additional energy to the ball
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. This design is in contravention of the Rules of the USGA because it contains moving parts. It should be noted with respect to the Kim patent, that the present invention contemplates moving parts solely in the sense that the club face deflects and that the USGA has recognized that the club face deflects and that the USGA has recognized that club face deflection by itself does not constitute a moving part nor is it in contravention of past or present USGA Rules.
In my U.S. Pat. No. 5,873,791, entitled “Oversize Metal Wood with Power Tube”, issued Feb. 23, 1999, and in my following Continuation-In-Part application, U.S. Pat. No. 5,888,148, entitled “Golf Club Head with Power Shaft and Method of Making”, issued Mar. 30, 1999, I describe club head designs in which a power piston is provided to increase the modulus of elasticity of the face wall of the club head throughout the swing speeds in each of the swing speed ranges. The object of the present invention, which is to maximize face deflection, is to reduce the modulus of elasticity in each of the swing speed ranges to achieve maximum face deflection in each of the ranges without causing face failure.
Investment casting techniques innovated in the late 1960s have revolutionized the design, construction and performance of golf club heads up to the present time. Initially only novelty putters and irons were investment cast, and it was only until the early years of the 1980s that investment cast metal woods achieved any degree of commercial success. The initial iron club heads that were investment cast in the very late 1960s and early 1970s innovated the cavity backed club heads made possible by investment casting which enabled the molder and tool designer to form rather severe surface changes in the tooling that were not possible in prior manufacturing techniques for irons which were predominantly at that time forgings. The forging technology was expensive because of the repetition of forging impacts and the necessity for progressive tooling that rendered the forging process considerably more expensive than the investment casting process and that distinction is true today although there have been recent techniques in forging technology to increase the severity of surface contours albeit them at considerable expense.
The investment casting process, sometimes known as the lost wax process, permits the casting of complex shapes found beneficial in golf club technology, because the ceramic material of the mold is formed by dipping a wax master impression repeatedly into a ceramic slurry with drying periods in-between and with a silica coating that permits undercutting and abrupt surface changes almost without limitation since the wax is melted from the interior of the ceramic mold after complete hardening.
This process was adopted in the 1980s to manufacture “wooden” club heads and was found particularly successful because the construction of these heads requires interior undercuts and thin walls because of their stainless steel construction. The metal wood club head, in order to conform to commonly acceptable club head weights on the order of 195 to 210 gms. when constructed of stainless steel, must have extremely thin wall thicknesses on the order of 0.020 to 0.070 inches on the perimeter walls to a maximum of 0.125 inches on the forward wall which is the ball striking surface. This ball striking surface, even utilizing a high strength stainless steel such as 17-4, without reinforcement, must have a thickness of at least 0.125 inches to maintain its structural integrity for the high club head speed player of today who not uncommonly has speeds in the range of 100 to 150 feet per second at ball impact.
Faced with this dilemma of manufacturing a club head of adequate strength while limiting the weight of the club head in a driving metal wood in the range of 195 to 210 gms., designers have found it difficult to increase the perimeter weighting effect of the club head.
In an iron club, perimeter weighting is an easier task because for a given swing weight, iron club heads can be considerably heavier than metal woods because the iron shafts are shorter. So attempts to increase perimeter weighting over the past decade have been more successful in irons than “wooden” club heads. Since the innovation of investment casting in iron technology in the late 1960s, this technique has been utilized to increase the perimeter weighting of the club head or more particularly a redistribution of the weight of the head itself away from the hitting area to the perimeter around the hitting area, usually by providing a perimeter wall extending rearwardly from the face that results in a rear cavity behind the ball striking area. Such a club head configuration has been found over the last two plus decades to enable the average golfer, as well as the professional, to realize a more forgiving hitting area and by that we mean that somewhat off-center hits from the geometric center of the face of the club results in shots substantially the same as those hits on the center of the club. Today it is not uncommon to find a majority of professional golfers playing in any tournament with investment cast perimeter weighted irons confirming the validity of this perimeter weighting technology.
Metal woods by definition are perimeter weighted because in order to achieve the weight limitation of
Allen, Esq. Dillis V.
Chapman Jeanette
Vardon Golf Company, Inc.
Varma Sneh
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