The Problem With Your Drives Is Your Lack of Soul (or Sole); Perhaps Acushnet’s Interchangeable Sole Driver Design Is The Solution

Acushnet had two interesting patent applications publish addressing another yet another degree of adjustability; namely, the ability to switch out a driver’s sole plate to change the club head’s characteristics. The applications published as US Pub. No. 20090221380 and 20090221381 titled “Golf Club Having Removable Sole Weight Using Custom and Interchangeable Panels” and describe the invention as:

A golf club head is presented comprising a sole including a removable panel secured to the sole via a non-threaded attachment assembly. Further, the removable panel may have a large surface area relative to its thickness, resulting in a chip-like or wafer-like weight member. This design allows the mass of the removable panel to be spread substantially along the surface of the sole as opposed to in the interior of the club head. The golf club head may comprise more than one removable panel. A removable panel of the present invention may generally comprise one or more discrete areas of higher basis weight or higher density. Even further, the removable panel may generally be releasably attached via a quick disconnect mechanism that allows easy interchangeability.

Check out these designs:

I wonder if this design will ever make it to the market.

Dave Dawsey  – Monitoring Golf Patent Applications