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US 2006/0068937 A1Published application
Elastic golf club head
AssigneeOrigin Company, Limited
InventorsFrank Werner, Richard Greig
Life of this patent
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AssigneeOrigin Company, Limited
InventorsFrank Werner, Richard Greig
Estimating the term…
A golf club head, more specifically a driver head, that has deformation for center hits that is typical of current spring-effect drivers having a slightly springy face, but atypical in that it has substantially more deformation for off-center hits as compared to current designs. This is achieved by providing a shell structure aft of the face that has ample strength but also can deform in the fore-aft direction for off-center hits sufficiently to provide good spring effect for such hits, comparable to hits at the center. Current designs also change slope of the face surface for off-center hits, causing unwanted scatter of the launch angle and/or direction. That effect may also be reduced by appropriate design of the novel design. These features are accomplished by a novel spring design in the shell. The novel design can also be applied to other hollow wood-type heads. It can be provided with a coat or cover to close openings in the shell structure wherein such coat makes little change in stiffness or mass of the shell.
A shell structure for a golf club head of the metal wood type, said shell structure connecting a face plate to a rear plate spaced in a front to rear direction, and providing a spring effect section, said spring effect section being formed of bars at acute angles to said face plate, said bars being in two groups such that bars of each group are approximately parallel to other bars in the respective group and such that the bars of one such group intersect bars of the other group, said bars being joined where they intersect and joined at front ends to said face plate and at rear ends to said rear plate via rigid structures of selected dimensions in the front to rear direction, such selected dimensions being zero or greater, to form diamond-shaped openings.
A golf club head of the metal wood type having a face plate with a ball striking surface, and a rear plate defining a rear portion of the golf club head, and a spring shell formed around an open center and being joined to a peripheral portion of the face plate, and to the rear plate, and forming the support for the face plate relative to the rear plate, said spring shell comprising a plurality of diamond-shaped spring cells each made of four bars, said four bars being joined at each corner so as to form the diamond shape having one apex toward said face plate and the opposite apex toward said rear plate, and additional similar spring cells made of four-bar shapes such that a continuous arrangement of bars forms a curved sheet having diamond-shaped openings, each of said openings being bounded by four bars, all bars being joined together at corners, said curved sheet being in the form of a cylinder, said cylinder having a cross sectional shape as viewed parallel to a fore-aft direction from said face plate to said rear plate, which shape may be chosen of a group that includes circular, elliptical, and other closed curves, and curves that approximate the shape of a periphery of said face plate, a fore-aft length of an assembly of said cylindrical shapes corresponding to the fore-aft dimension between said face plate and said rear plate, and with said diamond-shaped cells having apexes nearest said face plate joined to said face plate, cells and with apexes nearest said rear plate joined to said rear plate, said bars being made of spring material.
A spring shell for a golf club head of the metal wood type extending between a face plate and a rear plate, said spring shell comprising a plurality of resilient bars that extend at diagonals in a first direction at acute angles relative to a plane of the face plate, and have ends joined to the face plate and rear plate, respectively, a plurality of second bars substantially identical to the first bars spaced apart and positioned at acute angles to the said face plate, and intersecting the first bars, the second bars having ends joined to the face plate and rear plate respectively, said first and second bars being joined together at junctions where they intersect to form generally diamond shaped spring cells between the face plate and rear plate.
The shell structure for a golf club head of the metal wood type connecting a face plate to a rear plate spaced in front to rear direction, and providing a spring effect section composed of a single group of bars joined to the face plate and rear plate which experience primarily bending stresses during impact of a ball on the face plate, wherein such bars are nominally parallel to each other, are at acute angles to the face plate, are joined only at one of their ends to the face place via a first rigid structure and at their opposite ends to the rear plate via a second rigid structure, the bars forming generally parallelogram shapes as viewed when said shell projected to be nominally flat.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.