Excuse Me Fellow Golfer at the Range, May I Borrow Your Scanner so I can Determine My Club’s Face Angle, Loft, and Lie?
Is this Jetsons-esque golf invention a birdie or a bogey?
Last week Callaway Golf was awarded USPN 8,801,537 titled “Adjustable Golf Club Shaft and Hosel Assembly,” which describes the invention as:
An adjustable golf club including a shaft and hosel assembly allows for dependent and independent adjustment of a golf club’s face angle, loft angle, and lie angle. The adjustable shaft and hosel assembly comprises a shaft sleeve, a hosel portion, and at least one tubular adjustment piece having non-parallel upper and lower surfaces, wherein the shaft sleeve, hosel, and tubular adjustment piece each include markings that combine to form a code that correlates to a unique angular setting and is readable by an electronic device. The adjustable golf club may also comprise an audible feedback system including an indexing ring that interacts with indexing features in the tubular adjustment piece.
Yes, the mentioned “electronic device” is a scanner or mobile phone!
The patent goes on to explain:
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to wood golf club heads that have angular adjustable shaft and hosel assemblies. In particular, the present invention relates to an adjustable hosel system having a feedback mechanism that indicates to a user that an adjustment is occurring without hindering the adjustment itself. The present invention also relates to an adjustable hosel system having machine-readable markings that allow a golfer to use an electronic device to interpret loft and lie settings, thus simplifying the adjustment experience.
One aspect of the present invention is an adjustable golf club comprising a shaft sleeve with a shaft-receiving bore and an external surface having a first reference marking, a first tubular adjustment piece comprising an external surface having a first positional marking extending at least part way around the circumference of the first tubular adjustment piece, and non-parallel upper and lower surfaces, the first tubular adjustment piece encircling at least a portion of the shaft sleeve, a second tubular adjustment piece comprising an external surface having a second positional marking extending at least part way around the circumference of the second tubular adjustment piece, and non-parallel upper and lower surfaces, the second tubular adjustment piece encircling at least a portion of the shaft sleeve, and a golf club head comprising a hosel, the hosel comprising a hosel bore and an external surface having a second reference marking, at least part of the hosel bore having a diameter sized to receive at least a part of the shaft sleeve, wherein when at least part of the shaft sleeve is disposed within the hosel bore, rotating at least one of the first and second tubular adjustment pieces around the shaft sleeve changes an angle of the shaft sleeve with respect to the hosel, creating a plurality of different angular settings, wherein the first reference marking and the second reference marking create a readable reference frame, and wherein each angular setting correlates to a unique readable code formed by the first reference marking, first positional marking, second positional marking, and second reference marking when viewed within the reference frame.
In one embodiment, rotating the first tubular adjustment piece around the shaft sleeve may change a first distance between the first reference marking and the first positional marking within the reference frame and a second distance between the first positional marking and the second positional marking within the reference frame, rotating the second tubular adjustment piece around the shaft sleeve may change the second distance and a third distance between the second positional marking and the second reference marking within the reference frame, and each unique readable code may have a different combination of first, second, and third distances. In some embodiments, the readable code may be readable by an electronic device, such as a scanner or a mobile phone with a scanner application, which may be configured to analyze the readable code, associate the readable code with its correlated angular setting, and display the loft and lie angle of the golf club head. In some embodiments, the first positional marking may be a line that extends around the entire circumference of the first tubular adjustment piece, and the second positional marking may also be a line that extends around the entire circumference of the second tubular adjustment piece. In a further embodiment, the adjustable golf club may comprise a fastener to removably fix the shaft sleeve within the hosel, and tightening the fastener may prevent the first and second tubular adjustment pieces from moving around the shaft sleeve.
In a further embodiment, the adjustable golf club may comprise a second indexing ring having a ring portion and a tang portion. In this embodiment, each tubular adjustment piece may comprise an indexing feature, the first indexing ring may be disposed proximate the first tubular adjustment piece, the second indexing ring may be disposed proximate the second tubular adjustment piece, and rotating each of the first and second tubular adjustment pieces may create a sound audible to the human ear as the tang portion of each of the indexing rings interacts with the indexing feature of the most proximate tubular adjustment piece. Each of the first and second indexing rings may be permanently and non-rotatably affixed to the shaft sleeve, and may further be composed of a lightweight material selected from the group consisting of composite, plastic, and aluminum alloy.
Very Jetsons-esque! I am torn, one minute I feel it is an interesting idea, the next minute I am convinced it is gimmicky. Regardless, I am pretty certain that we won’t see one of these scanners in the hitting bays at Dick’s Sporting Goods.
Dave Dawsey – The Golf Patent Attorney
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