Bizarre Golf Club Patent of the Week – Does Your Club Need More Lube?

You may recall a prior post regarding a “golf ball lubricant” that looked a lot like a tube of ChapStick. The idea was to rub it on the club face to temporarily make the face of your club slippery so that it did not impart as much spin on the golf ball. Well, this week’s bizarre golf club patent details a similar idea developed in the late 1990’s in which the face is impregnated with a lubricant. The patent is USPN 6,402,636 titled “Golf Club for Minimizing Spin of Golf Ball,” which describes the invention as:

A golf club, such as a driver, includes a head designed for reducing spin imparted to a golf ball struck by the club head. The club head has a face portion for contacting a golf ball that is formed of a relatively hard material having a generally slippery characteristic. The golf ball slips on the face portion when a plane of the face portion at a point of contact between the ball and face portion is not generally normal to a direction of travel of the club head. The slippery characteristic may be obtained by forming the face of the club head from a sintered material impregnated with a lubricant such as PTFE. The club head may also include a plastic insert with a self-lubricating filler.

The patent goes on to explain:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The majority of commercially available golf balls are advertised as having high spin rates since such spin rates are desirable for the better golfer. A high spin rate in a golf ball indicates that the ball rotates very rapidly about its axis when struck by the skilled player. The advantage of the high spin rate is that the ball can be made to produce a reverse or back spin so that the ball stops very quickly when hit into a green on an approach shot.

While high spin rates are desirable for the professional or better golfer, most amateur golfers are not capable of hitting a ball in a manner to produce controlled spin on the ball. More importantly, most amateur golfers have a swing which is either an inside- out or outside-in swing that produces side spin on the ball. Side spin causes the ball to move laterally off a desired target line, i.e., in either a hook or slice direction. For such amateur golfers, it is desirable to eliminate or at least substantially reduce spin of the ball so that the ball travels in essentially a straight line from the club face without the detrimental side spin. Further, eliminating most of the ball spin will cause the ball to travel a further distance in a desired direction.

Notwithstanding the marketing effort used to promote high spin golf balls, such spin is actually imparted to the ball by friction between the ball and club face when the ball is struck with the club such that the path of travel of the club face at the moment of impact is not normal to a plane of the club face at the impact point. In other words, the club face strikes the ball with a glancing or sliding blow. When the golfer is trying to impart a back spin to the ball, such as with a wedge, so as to stop the ball from rolling forward or to make the ball back-up, this spin characteristic or function is important. However, the average amateur golfer does not have the skill required to impart a controlled spin to a golf ball. Rather, the average amateur tends to strike the ball with an outside to inside swing which imparts a side spin to the ball causing the ball to curve away from the intended line of flight. Accordingly, for the average amateur golfer, it is desirable to minimize any spin imparted to a golf ball when struck by a golf club.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention addresses the above stated and other disadvantages associated with striking a golf ball with a glancing or sliding blow from a golf club by providing a golf club which is specially adapted with a ball striking face portion which slips against the ball surface so as to minimize spin imparted to the ball. In an illustrative embodiment, the invention is shown in a conventional style golf driving club having an insert in its ball striking face wherein the insert is impregnated with a lubricating material so as to create a slippery surface. The lubricating material may be a dry lubricant, such as Teflon® (PTFE) or molybdenum disulfide, or a fluid lubricant such as a petroleum or synthetic product. Alternately, the insert could have a surface finish of a conventional, hardened PTFE material such as is used on cookware, for example, a Silverstone® finish. The insert may be formed of a thermoplastic material or a sintered metal. It is also contemplated that the club head could be a cast metal head of the type presently used for golf clubs and that the insert could be cast in situ as an entire face of the head or a portion thereof.

In one form, the insert or club face is formed with a substantially smooth, flat surface free of grooves and indentations. However, it may be desirable for some players to include horizontally oriented grooves to enable imparting of back spin to the ball to better control the distance that the ball travels. For other players, it is believed that smooth ball striking face will not only improve direction of ball flight but will also allow the ball to travel further in the air and roll further after hitting the ground. The travel and roll distance is believed to be improved by the reduced spin rate.

I have to admit, it would be interesting to see real test data illustrating whether either of these approaches significantly reduces spin. If it worked I suspect there would be a lot more members of the ChapStick Fan Club (yes, there really is a fan club…. check out the link).

Dave Dawsey  – Keeping an Eye on Low Spin Golf Inventions

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