IRON GOLF CLUB WITH BADGE
A golf club head with a multi-level badge is disclosed herein. More specifically, the golf club head in accordance with the present invention is an iron type golf club head with a multi-level badge that on one level contacts a rear surface of the striking face of the golf club head, and a second level of the multi-level badge contacts a rear surface of a cavity created by the chassis of the golf club head.
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The present invention relates generally to an iron golf club with a badge. More specifically, the present invention discloses an iron type golf club head with a badge located near a rear portion of the iron type golf club head providing support to the golf club head. The rear badge of this iron type golf club head may generally have multi-level badges creating multiple different depths, allowing the insert to contact not only the rear outer surface of the golf club head, but also contact the rear of the striking. This multi-level badge not only provides an improvement in the overall aesthetics of the golf club head, it also improves the damping properties of the iron type golf club head.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONThe game of golf often involves the usage of a vast variety of different equipment. Generally speaking, a golfer may have several different types of clubs differing in three major categories; woods, irons, and a putter. Although different golfers may differ on what their favorite type of golf club in the bag may be, most all of them will say that their iron type golf clubs play a crucial part in their golf game.
Within the iron type category, the types of golf clubs are generally separated into two major categories, a muscle back type iron and a cavity back type iron. A muscle back type iron may generally be defined as a golf club formed from a unitary piece of metal that has a portion of increased thickness called a “muscle portion”. Muscle back type irons have been existence since the early days of golf, and U.S. Pat. No. 2,007,377 to Link is an illustration of an early design of a muscle back iron. A cavity back iron, on the other hand, may generally refer to a golf club that creates an opening near the back portion of the golf club head. Although cavity type irons may generally have an open cavity that is exposed like shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,826,172 to Antonious, the cavity back iron may also include a closed opening construction that creates an enclosed volume as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,766,092 to Mimeur et al.
Although muscle back irons still remain the gold standard as the go to equipment for the better golfer, the invention of cavity back irons provides significant performance advantages compared to the traditional muscle back irons. First and foremost, by removing weight from the back portion of the golf club, cavity back irons may generally be able to increase the moment of inertia of the golf club head by placing weight near the perimeter extremities of the golf club head. In addition to increasing the moment of inertia, cavity back irons can further improve the performance of the iron type golf club head by increasing the distance of the iron type golf club head. In general, golf clubs can achieve more distance by increasing the coefficient of restitution of the striking face, which cavity back irons can achieve by thinning out the striking face.
Due to the fact that cavity back irons require an opening in the rear portion of the golf club head that can be cosmetically unappealing, golf club designers have attempted to remedy that deficiency by adding a badge to fill the cavity of the opening. U.S. Pat. No. 8,920,261 to Taylor et al. provides one illustration of an attempt at a badge that helps achieve that goal.
Focusing our discussion further on the cavity back irons, as discussed above that in order to improve the performance of these types of irons, golf club designers often try to create an extremely thin face to allow for more deflection of the face during impact with a golf ball. The increased deflection of the face during impact with a golf ball will generally allow the golf ball to travel further than a thicker face counterpart, thereby increasing the performance of the cavity back iron type golf club. U.S. Pat. No. 7,008,331 to Chen illustrates one of the earlier examples of experimenting with a thin face iron to increase the performance of an iron type golf club head.
Recognizing that thinner materials are generally less durable than thicker materials, golf club designers have attempted to counteract the durability issues associated with the thinning of the striking face portion. U.S. Pat. No. 8,961,336 to Parsons et al. provides one example of a way to address this issue by filling the internal cavity of an enclosed volume iron golf club head with a polymer to provide some structural support for the thinned face.
Despite all the attempts to improve upon the performance of an iron type golf club head, none of the designs in the current industry is capable of providing an aesthetically appealing way to address the increasing need of strength and toughness for the striking face as it gets thinner and thinner to improve the performance in a cavity type iron; especially in a cavity type iron that may or may not have a hollow cavity allowing for a filler.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONOne aspect of the present invention is a golf club head comprising of a striking face portion located at a frontal portion of the golf club head; a chassis, connected to an aft portion of the striking face portion, creating a rear cavity having an opening, wherein the opening provides access to a rear surface of the striking face portion, and a multi-level badge further comprising a first level and a second level, attached to said the cavity. The rear cavity of the chassis further comprises at least one support tab around a perimeter of the rear cavity, and wherein the first level of the multi-level badge substantially contacts the rear surface of the striking face portion, and the second level substantially contacts a rear surface of the support tab.
In another aspect of the present invention, an iron type golf club head comprising of a striking face portion located at a frontal portion of the iron golf club head; a chassis, connected to an aft portion of the striking face portion, creating a rear cavity having an opening, wherein the opening provides access to a rear surface of the striking face portion, and a multi-level badge further comprising a first level and a second level, attached to the rear cavity, wherein the first level of the multi-level badge substantially contacts the rear surface of the striking face portion, and the second level substantially contacts a rear surface of the cavity, and wherein the multi-level badge only experiences compressive force upon impact with a golf ball.
These and other features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become better understood with reference to the following drawings, description and claims.
The foregoing and other features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following description of the invention as illustrated in the accompanying drawings. The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated herein and form a part of the specification, further serve to explain the principles of the invention and to enable a person skilled in the pertinent art to make and use the invention.
The following detailed description describes the best currently contemplated modes of carrying out the invention. The description is not to be taken in a limiting sense, but is made merely for the purpose of illustrating the general principles of the invention, since the scope of the invention is best defined by the appended claims.
Various inventive features are described below and each can be used independently of one another or in combination with other features. However, any single inventive feature may not address any or all of the problems discussed above or may only address one of the problems discussed above. Further, one or more of the problems discussed above may not be fully addressed by any of the features described below.
In order to provide an even clearer understanding of the relationship of the various components, a cross-sectional view of the golf club head is extremely beneficial. However, before introducing a cross-sectional view of the golf club head,
In this embodiment of the present invention, the first level 612 of the multi-level badge 604 is located at the frontal portion of the golf club head 600, and engages the rear surface of the striking face 601 to help absorb and dampen the harsh effects of the impact with a golf ball. It should be noted here that the first level 612 of the multi-level badge 604 and the rear surface of the striking face 601 may further include a thin badge of polymeric material 620 having a thickness of less than about 1.5 mm, more preferably less than about 1.25 mm, and most preferably less than about 1.0 mm. The polymeric material 620 in this embodiment of the present invention may generally have an adhesive property, creating a bond between the rear surface of the striking face 601 and the first level 612 of the multi-level badge 604. In addition to providing the adhesive properties mentioned above, the polymeric material 620 may generally provide some vibration dampening and structural integrity to the entire golf club head 600. Finally, in an alternative embodiment of the present invention, the polymeric material 620 could be a grommet type attachment mechanism that utilizes the opening 205 to help attach the multi-level badge 604 to the striking face 601. The second level 614 of the multi-level badge 604 in this embodiment here is shown as the forward facing level of the multi-level badge 604 placed at the more rearward position. The second level 614 in this embodiment may generally engage the rearward facing surface of the cavity 203 (see
The different levels of the multi-level badge 604 are so critical to the present invention it is worthwhile here to examine it in more detail here. First and foremost, it is important to recognize that the relationship created by the first level 612 and the second level 614 allows the stress of the impact forces to be dissipated in a completely unique way. More specifically, the present invention, by contacting the multi-level badge 604 at the frontal surface on both the first level 612 and the second level 614, eliminates compressive forces on the multi-level badge 604 and utilizes tension forces on the multi-level badge 604. Tension forces on the multi-level badge 604 is preferred over compressive forces in this embodiment because it distributes the impact forces without adding additional pressure to the rear of the chassis 602 of the golf club head 600.
As a corollary to the unique force distribution achieved by the multi-level badge 604,
In order to help illustrate the various dimensions discussed above, the chassis 702 and the multi-level badge 804 have been isolated their cross-sectional views shown in
In addition to illustrating the material thickness,
Other than in the operating example, or unless otherwise expressly specified, all of the numerical ranges, amounts, values and percentages such as those for amounts of materials, moment of inertias, center of gravity locations, loft, draft angles, various performance ratios, and others in the aforementioned portions of the specification may be read as if prefaced by the word “about” even though the term “about” may not expressly appear in the value, amount, or range. Accordingly, unless indicated to the contrary, the numerical parameters set forth in the above specification and attached claims are approximations that may vary depending upon the desired properties sought to be obtained by the present invention. At the very least, and not as an attempt to limit the application of the doctrine of equivalents to the scope of the claims, each numerical parameter should at least be construed in light of the number of reported significant digits and by applying ordinary rounding techniques.
Notwithstanding that the numerical ranges and parameters setting forth the broad scope of the invention are approximations, the numerical values set forth in the specific examples are reported as precisely as possible. Any numerical value, however, inherently contains certain errors necessarily resulting from the standard deviation found in their respective testing measurements. Furthermore, when numerical ranges of varying scope are set forth herein, it is contemplated that any combination of these values inclusive of the recited values may be used.
It should be understood, of course, that the foregoing relates to exemplary embodiments of the present invention and that modifications may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in the following claims.
Claims
1. A golf club head comprising:
- a striking face portion located at a frontal portion of said golf club head;
- a chassis, connected to an aft portion of said striking face portion, creating a rear cavity having an opening, wherein said opening provides access to a rear surface of said striking face portion, and
- a multi-level badge further comprising a first level and a second level, attached to said rear cavity,
- wherein said rear cavity of said chassis further comprises at least one support tab around a perimeter of said rear cavity,
- wherein said at least one support tab around a perimeter of said cavity does not touch a rear surface of said striking face portion, and
- wherein said first level of said multi-level badge substantially contacts said rear surface of said striking face portion, and said second level substantially contacts a rear surface of said support tab.
2. The golf club head of claim 1, wherein a polymeric adhesive material is sandwiched between said rear surface of said striking face portion and said first level.
3. The golf club head of claim 2, wherein a polymeric adhesive material is sandwiched between said rear surface of said support tab and said second level.
4. The golf club head of claim 1, wherein said multi-level badge only experiences compressive force upon impact with a golf ball.
5. The golf club head of claim 4, wherein said multi-level badge does not experience any tension force upon impact with a golf ball.
6. The golf club head of claim 1, wherein no part of said multi-level badge has a material thickness greater than about 0.8 mm.
7. The golf club head of claim 6, wherein said no part of said multi-level badge has a material thickness greater than about 0.9 mm.
8. The golf club head of claim 7, wherein said no part of said multi-level badge has a material thickness greater than about 1.0 mm.
9. The golf club head of claim 8, wherein said first level of said multi-level badge and said second level of said multi-level badge form an angle of between about 0 and about 20 degrees.
10. The golf club head of claim 9, wherein said first level of said multi-level badge and said second level of said multi-level badge form an angle of between about 0 and about 10 degrees.
11. The golf club head of claim 10, wherein said first level of said multi-level badge and said second level of said multi-level badge form an angle of between about 0 and about 5 degrees.
12-19. (canceled)
Type: Application
Filed: Aug 31, 2016
Publication Date: Mar 1, 2018
Applicant: Acushnet Company (Fairhaven, MA)
Inventors: Michael E. Franz (San Diego, CA), Marni Ines (San Marcos, CA)
Application Number: 15/252,674