Golf club shaft

Abstract

A golf club shaft having adjustability features, made as a composite device whose shaft members are connected by their adjacent faces having a tapered nature by which a wedging action is achieved by their assembly. The adjustability is particularly advantageous in the market situation by which the golf clubs are conventionally sold by the manufacturer for intended modification or custom-fitting by the person or business which tailors the club's shaft to the precise needs of the golfing customer. The easy assembly achieves a firm and positive holding together the shaft members, achieving desired variations in the club characteristics of length, weight and swing-effect, etc.

Description

I. FIELD OF THE INVENTION

[0001] The present invention relates to golf equipment.

[0002] More particularly, the invention relates to the shaft of a golf club, its concepts of construction and procedure.

II. PROBLEMS INHERENT AS TO THE PROVISIONS OF A GOLF CLUB SHAFT

[0003] Several inherent particulars relating to golf club shafts provide problems which must be solved to make any particular overall construction of a golf club shaft desirable.

[0004] For example, it must be satisfactory as to length in the manufacturing procedure, both as to its length when sold to a club maker and as to the procedure of custom-making by the golf club seller, for golf clubs are conventionally sold by the manufacturer for intended modification or custom-fitting by the person or business which tailors the club's shaft to the precise needs of the golfing customer.

[0005] Other characteristics of the golf club shaft must also be taken into consideration as to both a satisfactory shaft in both sales situations, i.e., the shaft as originally manufactured, and as to the shaft which is custom-made or fitted to the particular golfer as the ultimate user.

[0006] It seems to be well known that the best golf club for a particular user depends on several factors, e.g., length, adaptability to carry a desired “grip” body, overall weight of the club, adaptability to receive a hosel or other connection member of the shaft to the club's head member, flexure details as to both the shaft as considered to be beam and the shaft as considered from its characteristics of torsion, a desirable “feel” of the overall golf club to a particular user and other factors of subjective desire to the user, must be quite accurate and very precise in construction for achieving accuracy of effect, a high degree of accuracy to consistently and confidently achieve the intended purpose as to the shaft's carry of the handle, handle grip body, and head member, adaptability to utilize differing materials and/or combination of differing materials, etc.

[0007] The club shaft must desirably have enough reasonableness of looks and feel as to give the user maximum confidence, even though this factor is so subjective to the particular user as to make it a matter of some uncertainty as to any of the several particulars of club design.

[0008] Moreover, the matter of confidence in use seems to be such a fanciful and illusive factor that even skilled golfers disagree with others, and even disagree with their own selves, from time to time, as to the help which individual characteristics of the club shaft actually are and contribute to the overall achievement.

[0009] As a practical matter, the club shaft design has to be in realization of the fact that, for confidence or whatever other attribute the club shaft itself seems to convey, the characteristics which are both visible and “feelable” to the user must be such as to impress the user as a potential purchaser and contribute to the user's subsequent use of the shaft in the actualities of practice and of the challenge of the golf play itself.

III. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0010] In the preferred form of this invention, its concepts may logically be considered to partake of concepts to both the device and procedure for making the device.

[0011] That is, as considering as to both aspects, the invention may be summarized to be a club shaft comprised of shafts which are assembled coaxially into a composite assembly with the shafts being formed of a related size and nature, adjustably related, so that a very rigid and long-lasting holding is maintained in the adjusted position of the two shafts by the achievement of a wedging action.

[0012] The holding effect permits the use of a non-special bonding substance, and permits adjustability by club professionals by cutting off a portion of the inner shaft component and/or varying its position, and to satisfactorily bend the club shaft to the accommodation of variations or irregularities in the club head or hosel, and provides the user the options of variations in overall club length, variations in overall weight distribution, variations in “flex (flexure) point”, and one or more other characteristics referred to as “kick point”, “balance point”, toward the goal of accuracy in use of an associated ball of ball-flight characteristics such as “launch angle”, “ball spin rate”, etc.

[0013] Other features and details are set forth herein.

IV. PRIOR ART CAPABILITY AND MOTIVATIONS, AS HELPING TO SHOW PATENTABILITY HERE

[0014] In hindsight consideration of the present invention to determine its inventive and novel nature, it is not only conceded but emphasized that the prior art had details usable in this invention, but only if the prior art had had the guidance of the present concepts of the present invention, details of both capability and motivation.

[0015] That is, it is emphasized that the prior art had or knew several particulars which individually and accumulatively help to show the non-obviousness of this combination inventionn. E.g.,

[0016] a. The prior art has had several decades of invention and development of club shafts, and the countless attempts and improvement have been made; and a showing of the energetic developing activity through the years is shown merely by the many shafts advertised commercially, most claiming a specitic one or more improvements, such as to a material from which a shaft is made, consistency of shaft nature along various portions of the shaft, attempts to utilize flexure characteristic (both as a beam and as to torsion nature) of various portions of the shaft, etc.;

[0017] b. Such a huge number of variations of these club shaft devices help to show that the novelty here is to be considered as inventive, for they show that this may be considered as quite a “crowded art”; and especially is this consideration logical when it is noted that club shafts are such “simple” things from the standpoint of their simplicity of construction;

[0018] c. More particularly, club shafts may be considered simply as simple tools having no moving parts and all portions extending in a straight line, and yet through the years the inventive minds have sought to create the ideal club shaft by developments relating to the most minute construction features of club shafts, and each of the many club shaft features mentioned herein;

[0019] d. All of the various attempts and changes illustrate not only the attempts but the unique problems of club shaft design; and all of the efforts to make the “ideal” club shaft are realistically encumbered by the fact that no one seems to know for sure what is the critical factor or factors involved;

[0020] e. The increasing growth of golf as a pastime has shown that there are an increasing number of persons and manufacturers who would be supposed to be quite willing to deal in club shaft improvements;

[0021] f. The relative simplicity of club shafts, as an item of construction, has surely given manufacturers ample incentive to have made modifications for commercial competitiveness in a competitive industry with huge sales prospects reasonably expectable;

[0022] g. The prior art has always had sufficient skill to make many types of club shafts, more than ample skill to have-achieved the present invention, but only if the concepts and their combinations had been conceived;

[0023] h. Substantially all of the operational characteristics and advantages of details of the present invention, when considered separately from one another and when considered separately from the present invention's details and accomplishment of the details, are within the skill of persons of various arts, but only when considered away from the integrated and novel combination of concepts which by their cooperative combination achieves this advantageous invention;

[0024] i. The details of the present invention, when considered solely from the standpoint of construction, are relatively simple, and the matter of simplicity of construction has long been recognized as indicative of inventive creativity;

[0025] j. The prior art has shown that it is willing to use and undertake developments of various factors of club shaft design;

[0026] k, Similarly, and a long-recognized indication of inventiveness of a novel combination, is the realistic principle that a person of ordinary skill in the art, as illustrated with respect to the claimed combination as differing in the stated respects from the prior art both as to construction and concept, is that the person of ordinary skill in the art is presumed to be one who thinks along the line of conventional wisdom in the art and is not one who undertakes to innovate;

[0027] l. The prior art has long had mechanisms and production equipment of various kinds which could produce all of the particulars of the present invention;

[0028] m. With increasing intensity of golf as a universal pastime, and with the likelihood that huge sales and profits may be expected by the advertising of club-sets as containing clubs whose shafts will help the user's scoring ability;

[0029] n. The cost of manufacture of a club shaft is sufficiently low as to be within the marketability or supposed-marketability in this aggressive industry;

[0030] o. It is generally believed that many or most golfers are persons of pride or hopeful pride in their golfing skills, and the matter of an improved club shaft would be particularly an incentive to purchase; and

[0031] p. Accordingly, although the prior art has had capability and motivation, amply sufficient to presumably give incentive to the development of specialized club shafts according to the present invention, the fact remains that the present invention awaited the creativity and inventive discovery of the present inventor. In spite of ample motivation and capability shown by the illustrations herein, the prior art did not suggest this invention.

V. SUMMARY OF PRIOR ART'S LACK OF SHOWING OR SUGGESTING THE INVENTIVE CONCEPTS

[0032] And the existence of such prior art knowledge and related articles embodying such various features is not only conceded, it is emphasized; for as to the novelty here of the combination and of the invention as considered as a whole, a contrast to the prior art helps also to remind both the great variety of the various prior art articles and the needed attempts of improvement, and of the advantages and the inventive significance of the present concepts. Thus, as shown herein as a contrast to all the prior art, the inventive significance of the present concepts as a combination is emphasized and the nature of the concepts and their results can perhaps be easier understood.

[0033] Although varieties of prior art are conceded, and ample motivation is shown and full capability in the prior art is conceded, no prior art shows or suggests details of the overall combination of the present invention, as is the proper and accepted way of considering the inventiveness nature of the concepts.

[0034] That is, although the prior art may show an approach to the overall invention, it is determinatively significant that none of the prior art shows the novel and advantageous concepts in combination, which provides the merits of this invention, even though certain details are shown separately from this accomplishment as a combination.

[0035] And the prior art's lack of an invention of a combination device achieving the combination of confident feel and accuracy in use, and other advantages of the present invention, which are goals only approached by the prior art, must be recognized as showing a long-felt need fulfilled.

[0036] Accordingly, the various concepts and components are conceded and emphasized to have been widely known in the prior art as to various devices; nevertheless, the prior art not having had the particular combination of concepts and details as here presented and shown in novel combination different from the prior art and its suggestions, even only a fair amount of realistic humility to avoid consideration of this invention improperly by hindsight, requires the concepts and achievements here to be realistically viewed as a novel combination, inventive in nature. And especially is this a realistic consideration when viewed from the position of a person of ordinary skill in this art at the time of this invention, and without trying to reconstruct this invention from the prior art without use of hindsight toward particulars not suggested by the prior art.

VI. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0037] The above description of the novel and advantageous invention is of somewhat introductory and generalized form. More particular details, concepts and features are set forth in the following and more detailed description of the preferred embodiments, taken in conjunction with the accompanying Drawings which are of somewhat schematic and diagrammatic nature for showing the inventive concepts.

[0038] In the Drawings:

[0039] FIG. 1 is a longitudinal cross-sectional view of the assembly of the inner shaft and outer shaft according to the inventive concepts; and

[0040] FIG. 2 is a transverse cross-sectional view of the assembly shown in FIG. 1, but on much larger scale, generally shown as taken by Section-line 2-2 of FIG. 1.

VII. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

[0041] As shown in the Drawings, the present invention advances the state of the art of the production of golf club shafts, even though much of this novel golf club shaft uses prior art; and prior art concepts are shown as integrated with the novel details and features. Thus this detailed description includes a description of prior art details and features as background for an understanding of the novel concepts which comprise the invention herein.

[0042] The overall invention, as is shown in the Drawings, provides for a golf club shaft a composite of an inner shaft 10 and an outer shaft 12, and they are coordinated in a novel nature of details as herein set forth, to provide a base component for a golf club shaft when the two shafts 10 and 12 are assembled and comprise shaft-stiffening components which are adjustable.

[0043] Of course, the adjustability would not ordinarily be used by the ultimate golf-playing customer, but rather by a golf shop owner or other technician who adjusts the adjustable details as they have come from the manufacturer.

[0044] Turning now to the construction concepts of the present invention, a detail feature which is probably first-noticed is that the inner shaft 10 has a taper at both of its ends; that is, the inner shaft 10 has at one end 14 a taper 16, and has at its other end 18 an enlarged portion 20. The enlarged portion 20 has at its outer end 22 a taper 24; and the two tapers 16/24 provide ease of insertion of the inner shaft 10 into the outer shaft 12 optionally at either end. This optionality may be particularly desirable to minimize inventory needs; for stiffness of the overall club shaft in an important characteristic, and the location of the inner shaft 10 with respect to the outer shaft 12 is a main factor of adjustability of the overall club stiffness.

[0045] The enlarged portion 20 of the inner shaft 10 provides a blocking abutment limiting the depth to which the inner shaft 10 may be positioned when the inner shaft 10 is assembled coaxially into the outer shaft 12.

[0046] The blocking by the outer shaft 12 against the insertion of the inner shaft end 27 into and through the end 26 of the outer shaft 12, or by engagement of the enlarged portion 20 of the inner shaft 10 against the walls 28 of the outer shaft 12, and the relative adjustability of position of those components provides a tight gripping of the shafts 10/12. That is the adjacent walls of the inner shaft 10 and the outer shaft 12 are provided to be of a wedge nature which also provides an axial tightening of the shafts 10/12 when assembled and holding them against relative movement both axially and torsionally, the arrangement thus providing substantial holding of the assembled shafts.

[0047] An important other factor of the taper 24 is that it relieves what otherwise would be a sharpness of the shaft end 22, which would have the effect of shortening the life of the assembly by breakage of the associated portion of the outer shaft 12.

[0048] The blocking abutment also provides a centering effect of the relative colinearity of the inner shaft 10 and outer shaft 12 when they are assembled.

[0049] The outer shaft 12's first portion 26 and second portion 28 are shown as integral portions of the outer shaft 12. The first portion 26 of the outer shaft 12 is a relatively small inside diameter such that the inner shaft 10 will slide within the outer shaft 12 when the inner shaft 10 is coaxially assembled into the outer shaft 12.

[0050] The outer shaft 12 has a second portion 28 with an inside diameter such that it slidably receives the enlarged portion 20 of the inner shaft 10 when the two shafts 10/12 are assembled in a colinear arrangement.

[0051] The second portion 28 of the outer shaft 12 is provided with a taper 30 at its end adjacent the first portion 26 of the outer shaft 12, the taper 30 providing the enlargement between the outer shaft 12 at its first portion 26 and the second portion 28 of the outer shaft 12, and also providing centering effect for colinearity of the inner shaft 10 and outer shaft 12 when assembled.

[0052] The inner shaft 10 has its first portion 32 and a second portion 34, the first portion 32 of the inner shaft 10 being of a relatively small outside diameter such that the inner shaft 10 will slide within the outer shaft 12 when the inner shaft 10 is coaxially assembled into the outer shaft 12.

[0053] The enlarged portion 20 of the inner shaft 10 is provided with a taper 36 at its end which is opposite the end 18/22 of the outer shaft 12, the taper 36 providing the enlargement between the inner shaft 10's portion 27 and the second portion 28 of the outer shaft 12.

[0054] The taper 36 provides a shoulder which is the portion of the inner shaft 10 which comes into abutment with the taper portion 26 of the outer shaft 12 in a sort of wedging action which retains the assembled state of the shafts 10/12. The tightness of that wedging action holds the assembled state of the shafts 10/12 sufficiently that little or no bonding substance need be applied; and even if bonding substance is used, it need not be of any special formulation.

Claims

1. A composite golf club shaft of circular cross-section, comprising, in combination:

an inner shaft and an outer shaft,

the inner shaft having at one end a taper, and having at its other end an enlarged portion, the enlarged portion having at its outer end a taper, the two tapers providing ease of insertion of the inner shaft into the outer shaft optionally at either end.

2. A composite golf club shaft of circular cross-section, comprising, in combination:

an inner shaft and an outer shaft;

the inner shaft having at one end an enlarged portion;

the enlarged portion of the inner shaft providing a blocking abutment limiting the depth to which the inner shaft may be positioned when the inner shaft is assembled coaxially into the outer shaft, the blocking abutment also providing a centering effect of the relative colinearity of the inner shaft and outer shaft when they are assembled.

3. The invention as set forth in claim 2, in a combination in which the inner shaft has a taper on one end and a taper on the other end.

4. A composite golf club shaft of circular cross-section, comprising in combination:

an inner shaft and an outer shaft;

the outer shaft having a first portion and a second portion, the first portion of the outer shaft being of a relatively small inside diameter such that the inner shaft will slide within the outer shaft when the inner shaft is coaxially assembled into the outer shaft;

the outer shaft having a second portion-with an inside diameter such that it slidably receives the enlarged portion of the inner shaft when the two shafts are assembled in a colinear arrangement.

5. The invention as set forth in claim 4, in a combination in which the second portion of the outer shaft is provided with a taper at its end adjacent the first portion of the outer shaft, the taper providing the enlargement between the outer shaft at the first portion and the second portion of the outer shaft; and also providing a centering effect for colinearity of the inner shaft and outer shaft when assembled.

6. A composite golf club shaft of circular cross-section, comprising, in combination:

an inner shaft and an outer shaft;

the inner shaft having a first portion and a second portion, the first portion of the inner shaft being of a relatively small outside diameter such that the inner shaft will slide within the outer shaft when the inner shaft is being coaxially assembled into the outer shaft.

7. The invention as set forth in claim 6, in a combination in which the body portion of the inner shaft is provided with a taper at its end adjacent the first portion of the inner shaft, the taper providing the enlargement between the inner shaft tip portion and the body portion of the outer shaft.

8. The invention as set forth in claim 2, in combination in which the assembly of the two shafts is made more certain of long time usability by a bonding substance whether or not the bonding substance is of a specialized nature.

9. A composite golf club shaft of circular cross-section, comprising, in combination:

an inner shaft and an outer shaft,

the inner shaft being adapted to be cut at the the user's option to any selected length.

10. The invention as set forth in claim 9, in which the end of the inner shaft is of sufficient flexible nature as to be satisfactorily bendable to about 50 to accommodate variations or irregularities in what has been provided to be the reception hole in the associated club head or hosel.

11. A composite golf club shaft of circular cross-section, comprising, in combination:

an inner shaft and an outer shaft,

connection means being provided which provide for the user the options of variations in overall club length, variations in overall weight distribution, variations in “flex (flexure) point”, and one or more other characteristics referred to as “kick point”, “balance point”, toward the goal of accuracy in use of an associated ball of ball-flight characteristics such as “launch angle”, “ball spin rate”, etc.