Patent Application
20140057740
This application claims priority to a Taiwan Patent Application No. 101130224, filed on Aug. 21, 2012; the entirety of which is incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to a golf tee. More particularly, the disclosure invention relates to an improved golf tee having a structure that allows a user to select and adjust the golf tee to a desirable height before inserting it into the ground.
2. Description of Related Art
With golfing gradually becomes popular in recent years, playing golf is now a well-accepted sport in many countries. However, to play it well requires not just a lot of practices, but also the aid of proper facilities; especially when teeing off, at which circumstance, most golfers would require the aid of a golf tee. Specifically, by placing the ball on the golf tee to elevate its height prior to striking, this will improve the effective striking distance made by the user. Furthermore, one needs accumulated experiences for setting up the proper depth or height of the golf tee to accommodate various landscape changes in different golf courts. Therefore, golfing is not an easy sport to take on, especially for a beginner.
The known golf tees, especially those with adjustable heights, i.e., those that allow users to determine the depth of the tee needed to be inserted into the ground, are usually composed of a body, a plurality of plastic sleeves capable of stacking on to one another, and a retaining member. The height of the tee is adjusted by how many plastic sleeves are looped through the body and staked and fixed via the retaining member. By controlling the number of the plastic sleeves, the user may adjust the golf tee to a desirable height before inserting it into the ground, and with the bottom of the retaining member comes into contact with the ground it provide extra support to the golf tee. However, such known golf-tees suffer from the disadvantages of not being able to control their heights in a more precise manner, and are easily lost due to lack of storing means for the plurality of plastic sleeves.
In view of the foregoing, there exists in the related art a need for an improved golf tee, which allows the user to adjust the insertion or penetration depth of the golf tee into the ground in a more precision manner, so as to improve the stability of the golf tee, as well as the golfer's striking accuracy.
The following presents a simplified summary of the disclosure in order to provide a basic understanding to the reader. This summary is not an extensive overview of the disclosure and it does not identify key/critical elements of the present invention or delineate the scope of the present invention. Its sole purpose is to present some concepts disclosed herein in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description that is presented later.
The present disclosure relates to an improved golf tee, which has a body and a retaining member, and allows the user to adjust the insertion or penetration depth of the golf tee into the ground as well as stabilizes the golf tee after the insertion.
In view of the foregoing purposes, the golf tee of the present disclosure is characterized to include a body and a retaining member. The body is composed of a ball-supporting cup, a shank and a dentated trench. The ball-supporting cup is disposed at the upper end of the body. The shank extends downward from the bottom of the ball-supporting cup toward the lower end of the body and gradually forms a tapered end for easily penetrating or inserting the body of the golf tee into the ground. The dentated trench is disposed on the outer surface of the shank, and is composed of a longitudinal groove and a plurality of rectangular slots. The longitudinal groove is oriented to be parallel to the vertical direction of the shank, and the plurality of rectangular slots are disposed vertically along at least one side of the longitudinal groove. Furthermore, the retaining member includes an interior cavity and a tab that is extended from the inner surface of the interior cavity. The retaining member may move along the longitudinal groove on the shank by engaging the tab with any of the plurality of rectangular slots, thereby allows the user to adjust the retaining member to any desirable position on the body of the golf tee.
According to one embodiment of the present disclosure, the golf tee further comprises a level indicator disposed at the center of the ball-supporting cup.
According to one embodiment of the present disclosure, the plurality of rectangular slots are disposed vertically along one or both sides of the longitudinal groove. According to another embodiment of the present disclosure, the plurality of rectangular slots are alternatively disposed vertically along both sides of the longitudinal groove.
In on example, any two adjacent rectangular slots on the same side are spaced apart in a distance between about 0.1 to about 2 cm. Preferably, the distance is between about 0.2 to about 0.5 cm. In another example, any two adjacent rectangular slots on the same side are spaced apart equally, or the distance between any two adjacent rectangular slots is the same.
According to one embodiment of the present disclosure, the golf tee further comprises a securing nail and a connecting member. The securing nail is couple to the retaining member of the golf tee via the connecting member. The connecting member may be a piece of thread.
According to various embodiments of this invention, the ball-supporting cup or the shank may be made from plastics, metals, synthetic materials (e.g., a synthetic rubber), or natural materials (e.g., wood or bamboo).
Many of the attendant features and advantages of the present disclosure will becomes better understood with reference to the following detailed description considered in connection with the accompanying drawings.
The present description will be better understood from the following detailed description read in light of the accompanying drawings, where:
In accordance with common practice, the various described features/elements are not drawn to scale but instead are drawn to best illustrate specific features/elements relevant to the present invention. Also, like reference numerals and designations in the various drawings are used to indicate like elements/parts.
The detailed description provided below in connection with the appended drawings is intended as a description of the present examples and is not intended to represent the only forms in which the present example may be constructed or utilized. The description sets forth the functions of the example and the sequence of steps for constructing and operating the example. However, the same or equivalent functions and sequences may be accomplished by different examples.
The singular forms “a”, “and”, and “the” are used herein to include plural referents unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. The plural forms “a plurality of” and “the plurality of” are used herein to include two or more referents unless the context clearly dictates otherwise.
The objective of this invention is to provide a golf tee that allows the user to adjust the insertion or penetration depth of the golf tee into the ground in a more precise manner, hence allows the user, particularly an inexperience user, may easily strike a desirable curve ball with the aid of the golf tee set at a desirable height. In view of the foregoing objective, the present disclosure therefore provides an improved golf tee that allows the user to select and adjust the golf tee to a desirable height before inserting it into the ground in a more accurate or precise manner. Furthermore, for the purpose of allowing a curve ball being struck more easily, the golf tee of the present disclosure further comprises a level indicator, which assists the user to adjust the inclination of the golf tee so as to control the striking angle of the golf ball when the user is making a swing. Furthermore, a securing nail is attached to the golf tee via a connecting member for further securing the golf tee into the ground to prevent the golf tee from being lost when strikes are made during golfing; which in turn may further reduce the cost for a new placing tee.
According to various embodiments of this invention, the body 110 may be made from plastics, metals, synthetic materials (e.g., a synthetic rubber), or natural materials (e.g., wood or bamboo). The body 110 of the golf tee 100 of this invention may be made from any suitable material via any known or equivalent method. For example, the body 110 of the golf tee 100 may be inject-molded from plastics or rubber. Alternatively, the body 110 may be pressed-molded or cut-molded from any metals or natural materials. In optional embodiments, the ball-supporting cup 120 and the shank 130 may be respectively made from different materials. For instance, the ball-supporting cup 120 may be made from the synthetic rubber for prolonging its tolerance to strikes and/or life span; whereas the shank 130 may be made from plastics.
The retaining member 140 may move along the longitudinal groove 152 of the dentated trench 150 and engage itself with the dentated trench 150 on various positions or heights along the shank 130 by locking itself on any of the plurality rectangular slots 154, thereby allows a user to select and adjust the golf tee 100 to a desirable height before subjecting it for penetrating into the ground. The retaining member 140 may be made from plastics, metals, synthetic materials (e.g., a synthetic rubber) or natural materials (e.g., wood or bamboo). However, the body 110 and the retaining member 140 can be made from the same or different materials. In one embodiment, the body 110 and the retaining member 140 are both made from plastics. In another embodiment, the body 110 is made from plastics and the retaining member 140 is made from rubber.
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As described above, the body 110 and the retaining member 140 can be made from the same or different materials, and the retaining member 140 can be made from plastics, metals, synthetic or natural materials (i.e., wood or bamboo).
In addition, according to another preferable embodiment, the retaining member 140 may have several protrusions and/or screw threads (not shown) disposed thereon its lower surface so as to improve frictions between the retaining member 140 and the ground, and for supporting the golf tee 100 when being inserted into the ground.
It will be understood that the above description of embodiments is given by way of example only and that various modifications may be made by those with ordinary skills in the art. The above specification, examples, and data provide a complete description of the structure and use of exemplary embodiments of the invention. Although various embodiments of the invention have been described above with a certain degree of particularity, or with reference to one or more individual embodiments, those with ordinary skill in the art could make numerous alterations to the disclosed embodiments without departing from the spirit or scope of this invention.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 101130224 | Aug 2012 | TW | national |
