Patent Application
20080182680
This invention relates to golf clubs with club face inserts.
Golf club heads with inserts are an old field of invention, some club inventions dating to the 1880's and earlier. The recent golf club head designs using inserts in the club's striking face have attempted to accomplish two separate goals: change the location of the center of mass or center of inertia of the club head and change the rebound characteristics of the club face when the ball strikes the club.
Golf clubs were historically categorized as either woods or irons depending on the composition of the materials used to form the heads. Although the categories of woods and irons have continued, the materials have changed drastically. An active field for players have driven the technology of fabricating golf clubs heads a far way from the original designs
The invention consists of a golf club of the “iron’ type, with a flat striking surface set an an angle to the hozel of the club shaft with an insert in the striking surface, or “face” of the club. This invention can be applied to irons of any type, from wedges through the long irons.
The inset is the same shape as the scored portion of the face of the club. The scoring lines, which are horizontal, will be contained entirely within the insert surface. The surface of the insert and the surface of the remaining club face will form a continuous, flat, striking surface.
The use of inserts in the striking face of the club is related to improving the longevity of the club and changing the location of the club's sweet spot. In addition, inserts can give an adjustable center of gravity and can aid in selectively weighting the perimeter of the golf club head so that the largest possible “sweet spot” can be achieved, to provide an increase in the inertial moment of the golf club head during the swing, and/or to provide a feel of a solid impact and control when the club is swung and strikes the ball and to provide the most desirable sonic characteristic when the golf club hits the ball.
This invention uses a carburized tungsten alloy metal insert to increase the longevity of the club face and add additional weight to the center of the club face. The carburized tungsten alloy is harder than the steel usually present in cast head clubs and the insert will provide improved rebound characteristics when struck by a golf ball.
In
The insert 101 is placed fixedly in the insert cut-out 104, which is an insert-shaped recess in the golf club head 103. The mechanisms for securing the insert 101 in the cut-out 104 include gluing, welding, and brazing. In the preferred embodiment, the insert 101 is brazed into the cut-out 104.
The insert 101 has a plurality of scoring lines in its upper surface 102 that correspond to the grooves cut into a single-metal cast golf club head. The scoring lines are only present on the insert upper surface 102.
While the present invention has been described above and a preferred embodiment of the invention has been identified, changes and substitutions of equivalent features can be made without departing from this invention. Those skilled in the art of golf club design will recognize that many variations of this described embodiment of the invention can be resorted to without leaving the boundaries of this specification and associated claims below.
