U.S. patent number 3,759,527 [Application Number 05/135,236] was granted by the patent office on 1973-09-18 for golf club.
Invention is credited to William Herbert Witherspoon.
United States Patent |
3,759,527 |
Witherspoon |
September 18, 1973 |
GOLF CLUB
Abstract
The invention involves a substitute club head in the approximate
form of an annulus or a sphere or section of a sphere having an
endless succession of striking faces all around the club head. The
shaft is positioned through the top surface of the club head and is
received within a sleeve being coaxial and in alignment with the
radius of the sphere. The sleeve cooperates with a weight means in
a weight receptacle which is secured within said receptacle within
the club head and wherein the weight means and weight securement
means are coaxial and aligned with the shaft and shaft receiving
sleeve.
Inventors: |
Witherspoon; William Herbert
(Greenbelt, MD) |
Family
ID: |
22467170 |
Appl.
No.: |
05/135,236 |
Filed: |
April 19, 1971 |
Current U.S.
Class: |
473/306; 473/338;
473/330 |
Current CPC
Class: |
A63B
53/02 (20130101); A63B 60/00 (20151001); A63B
69/3632 (20130101); A63B 53/0466 (20130101); A63B
53/04 (20130101); A63B 53/08 (20130101); A63B
15/00 (20130101); A63B 2053/0491 (20130101); A63B
53/0437 (20200801); A63B 53/0433 (20200801) |
Current International
Class: |
A63B
53/00 (20060101); A63B 53/04 (20060101); A63B
53/02 (20060101); A63B 53/08 (20060101); A63B
69/36 (20060101); A63B 15/00 (20060101); A63b
053/02 (); A63b 053/04 () |
Field of
Search: |
;273/67C,77R,8C,83,167A-167K,167R,168,175,193R,193A,194R,80.1-80.8 |
References Cited
[Referenced By]
U.S. Patent Documents
Foreign Patent Documents
Other References
"Popular Mechanics;" Vol. 128, No. 3; September 1967; page
83..
|
Primary Examiner: Pinkham; Richard C.
Assistant Examiner: Apley; Richard J.
Claims
I claim:
1. A golf club comprising:
a. a shaft;
b. a club head having at least a hemispherical upper surface, and
having an opening through the radius thereof and having a bottom
sole surface;
c. a shaft receiving sleeve positioned through the top surface of
said club head and terminating a predetermined distance within said
club head and having external threads for mating engagement with
internal threads of said club head, and wherein means secure said
shaft within said shaft receiving sleeve;
d. said shaft and said shaft receiving sleeve being coaxial and in
alignment with the radius of said club head, wherein said radius is
at right angles to the horizontal plane passing through the great
circle of said club head;
e. a weighting receptacle removably fitted through said bottom
surface of said club head;
f. weight means located within said weighting receptacle; and
g. weight securement means securing said weight means within said
weighting receptacle and enclosing said weighting receptacle within
said club head, and wherein said weighting receptacle, said weight
means and said weight securement means are coaxial and aligned with
said shaft and shaft receiving sleeve.
2. A golf club as claimed in claim 1 wherein the bottom sole
surface is hemispherical forming the club head into a sphere.
Description
The present invention relates to Golf Club and has the following
objects and purposes.
The modern concept of swinging a golf club dictates that the
wrist-cock, once established in the swing, must be maintained for
as long a time as possible before releasing that wrist-cock at
impact through the ball.
There is a tendency of many golfers to release the wrist-cock much
too early in the down swing, and lose vital club head speed at
impact with the ball. I have found that this action, hitting from
the top of the back swing, indulged in by many golfers, occurs from
an image formed in the mind of the golfer at the address position
with the ball, before initiating his swing. He realizes that the
club head has a nearly flat striking surface with which to strike
the ball, and he feels that, before he can hit the ball in the
proper line of flight, he must make an attempt to square or
realign, in the down swing, that nearly flat striking surface to
the ball before impact. Even knowing his objective throughout the
swing, namely to retain the wrist-cock for as long a time as
possible before impact, and let the centrifugal force of the club
head release the wrist at the proper moment with the club face at
the proper alignment, there is a reflex which takes over and slows
his hand speed, and causes a manipulation of his wrists and hands
too early, with a fear that the club face will not be aligned in
time to hit the ball. This action reduces the vital club head
speed.
The purpose of this new club head design, which is to be used for
actual point-to-point contact with a golf ball or training aid
simulating a golf ball, is to develop the proper muscular
co-ordination for a more natural wrist release and remove the fear
that the club head will not be aligned properly at impact with the
ball.
The unique club head design is in the form of an annulus or sphere
or section thereof, and has no planar surface with which to align
the ball. Without any locus of orientation on the club head with
which to be confronted, the player will be allowed to make a more
natural wrist release through the ball, and have less tendency to
manipulate the hands in an attempt to realign the club head before
impact. This action will in effect produce the desired increase in
hand speed through the impact zone.
The new club head is designed to produce a swing weight either
equal to or approximating any golfers' standard golf club swing
weight, and is designed for attachment to a standard club shaft of
standard length with grip. This assures the golfer that the club
will feel and swing in the same manner as his playing clubs.
As the club head is swung over and over again, the golfer will
develop a feel of the proper wrist release through the impact zone,
and discover that he can strike the ball in a desired direction,
perhaps to a shorter distance, but that he can in fact hit the ball
without having had to manipulate his hands in any fashion, and in
time transfer the new feel and image into his swing using his
standard golf clubs for actual play.
With the foregoing and other objects in view, the invention will be
more fully described hereinafter, and will be more particularly
pointed out in the claims appended hereto.
In the drawings, wherein like symbols refer to like or
corresponding parts throughout the several views.
FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a standard golf shaft and grip with
a club head according to the invention affixed to the regulation
shaft in place of the customary club head of conventional form,
FIG. 2 is a central sectional view of a form of golf club head
according to the invention illustrating a form of connection to the
shaft and a form of selective weight application,
FIG. 3 is a side elevational view with the shaft broken away and
illustrating a spherical form of club head with the striking
surface initially in approximate point-to-point contact with a teed
golf ball,
FIG. 3a and 3b are similar views showing progression of the
spherical club head "through the ball,"
FIG. 3c is a view similar to FIGS. 3a and 3b showing the ball in
initial flight and the golf club head following through.
FIG. 4 is a side elevational view of a modified form of a
hemispherical section club head with the golf shaft broken
away,
FIG. 5 is a perspective view illustrating a golfer with a golf club
according to the invention in the act of a normal down swing with a
standard golf ball on the tee, and
FIG. 6 is a fragmentary perspective view of the club head and ball
on an enlarged scale showing an approximate angle between projected
golf shaft center line and the plane of the teeing ground.
Referring more particularly to the drawings, 10 designates a
regulation golf club shaft and 11 a leather or other hand grip of
any accepted form. To the lower end of the shaft 10 is connected in
any suitable manner a club head 12, which is unique in that it is
in the general form of an annulus or sphere or a section
thereof.
Geometrically considered a great circle 13 of the sphere 12 divides
the sphere into two hemispheres, an upper or inner hemisphere 14
and a lower or outer hemisphere 15. In this context the word
"inner" means closer to the golfer and "outer" means further
removed from the golfer.
The lower end of the club shaft 10 is connected in any suitable
manner to the spherical club head 12 so that the axis of the shaft
10 is preferably in substantial alignment with a diameter of the
sphere which is at substantially right angles to the plane passing
through the spherical head 12 defined by the great circle or
equatorial belt 13.
Thus we have a lower or outer hemispherical section 15 constituting
a pendulous weight mass and an upper or inner hemispherical section
14 which is the striking face of the club head. This upper
hemispherical striking face 14 may be pitted, dimpled, lined or
scored with shallow grooves or other delineations 16 usual to the
striking faces of golf club heads to assist in imparting desired
spins to the driven golf balls. A "sweet spot" 16a may also be
delineated on the striking annular or hemispherical face if
desired.
As illustrated in FIG. 2 the spherical club head 12 may be cored
out along the diameter line coinciding with the axis of the golf
shaft 10 to afford adequate connection of shaft and club head 12
and accomodating changeable weight means to weight and balance the
shaft and to adjust weight and swing weight.
In this FIG. 2 the lower end of the golf shaft 10 is shown as
received into a sleeve 17 having an external spiral thread 18
taking into mating threads 19 in the club head. Lateral screws 20
may be used to bind the end of the shaft 10 into the sleeve 17. A
shank housing 21 is bound about the lower end of the shaft 10 and
projecting end of the sleeve 17.
A weight receptacle 22 is removably fitted in a recess 23 in the
opposite end of the spherical club head, the weights being in the
form of lead or other washers 24 threaded onto the externally
threaded shank 25 of a screw having a head 26 fitted tightly
against a compressible or other washer 27, such shank 25 being
threaded into the adjacent end of the sleeve 17. The number of lead
washers 24 may be substracted from or added to for the purpose of
arriving at proper or desired club weight and for swing weight, it
being understood that the washer threads will prevent the washers
24 from movement in the club head even when less than capacity of
number of washers is in place. An internally threaded small
diameter extension 28 of the weight receptacle 22 abuts the inner
end of the sleeve 17 and is adapted to receive the inner end of the
shank 25 which is threaded into the inner open threaded end of the
sleeve 17. Other arrangements of weighting the club head may be
employed.
In the modified form of the invention illustrated in FIG. 4 the
lower hemisphere of the club head is omitted as the true striking
face of the club head is confined to the upper hemisphere. Any
annular portion of a sphere in the area of the belt 13 will
suffice.
In the use of a club head, such as herein proposed, it will be
obvious that any contact of the club head with the teed ball below
the great circle or equatorial belt line 13 will only serve to
drive the ball into the ground and the novice will early learn that
initial contact with the ball must be made in the upper hemisphere
or at least not substantially below the line 13 connecting the two
hemispheres.
Also such initial contact of club head 12 with ball, for best
results, must be made in alignment with the longitudinal center
line of shaft 10 as contact to one side of this line will drive the
ball to the right and contact of the club head to the other side of
this line will result in driving the ball to the left. In FIGS. 1
and 4 the center line referred to is identified at 30, this line
being of course a curved line from the great circle 13 up to the
area of the connection between shaft 10 and club head 12.
Accordingly, there is a "sweet spot" 16a on the striking face of
the club head identified by the conjunction of the great circle 13
with the line 30 and the golfer should be instructed to use every
effort to make initial contact with the teed golf ball 31 at this
precise point or spot.
This initial contact is made on the down stroke of the club head as
shown in FIG. 3. It is essentially a point-to-point contact between
the two involved spheres, the one the club head 12, the other the
spherical golf ball 31.
The foregoing description of the mode of operation has been for
clarafication restricted to a single striking face and single
"sweet spot" 16a but it will be understood that the globular or
spherical or part-spherical or annular club head presents a great
number of such striking faces. For instance the golfer may rotate
the golf shaft 10 in his grip about the longitudinal axis of such
shaft 10 and in doing so he brings into play a succession of
striking faces all along the great circle 13 and just above such
great circle 13.
This reveals a great advantage with the use of the present
invention in that the golfer does not have to exercise any minute
care as to just how he must assume his grip in order to bring a
single striking face of the club into correct position with the
ball at impact. The spherical head will effectively strike the ball
in any angular grip position of the hands.
Then there are tall and short golfers. In addressing the teed ball
the golf shaft of a tall golfer will make a larger angle with the
plane of the teeing ground than that of a short golfer and this
variation will act to bring different series of striking surfaces
on the spherical club head into play. This condition is illustrated
in FIG. 6.
The point made here is that the use of the spherical golf head of
this invention with its many striking surfaces brought
automatically into play in the down swing will free the mentality
of the golfer of any concern as to manoeuvering a flat striking
surface offset laterally from the axis of the shaft into a correct
"squared" relation to the teed ball just at the moment of impact.
The chief reason for releasing wrist-cock too early in the swing is
thus removed. Moreover greater accuracy is instilled in the golfer
in achieving point-to-point contact of a spherical club head with
the spherical golf ball.
At all points in the down swing where the golfer can see the club
head it reveals itself as an annulus or part sphere with a striking
face or "sweet spot" in alignment with the teed ball so that the
golfer's mind is eased as to any difficulty in adjusting wrist
action to orientation to golf ball.
The club head may be made of wood, metal, plastic or other suitable
material or a combination of the same.
* * * * *