These Irons Look Like Something Phil Would Love

No one would dispute that Phil can pimp a product, and the iron design found in a Callaway patent that issued today is just odd enough that he would probably love to tell the world about it. Check out this iron design.

The drawings come from a patent that issued today as USPN 8,668,599 titled “Golf Club Iron with High Density Leading Edge.”

In what seems to be a recent trend with Callaway, the associated application was filed with a nonpublication request meaning that Callaway wanted to keep this under wraps (away from the eyes of competitors or pesky golf blogs). The patent describes the invention as:

A golf club iron having a head center of gravity that is low and forward enough to provide a better swing, good striking and swinging feel, and improved ball flight is disclosed. The iron has a recess in a leading edge region and a high density insert disposed within the recess to achieve the desired center of gravity location.

It goes on to explain:

Technical innovation in the size, structure, configuration, material, construction, and performance of golf clubs has resulted in a variety of new products. Most irons are constructed in such a way that the head is made from a single type of parent material, such as steel. Some irons have discrete weighting elements incorporated into their structure, but these weights typically are incorporated into sole or perimeter regions located away from the face. As such, most irons currently available on the market do not have a center of gravity (CG) that is located low or forward enough in the head for the head to achieve optimum performance.
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The irons of the present invention have high density leading edges and thus extremely low, forward centers of gravity and moderate loft/de-loft moments of inertia (Iyy). The graph 100 in FIG. 5 shows the center of gravity locations, mapped according to height and depth of the iron head frames, of 6-irons of the present invention and 6-irons currently available on the market. The circled region 110 in the graph indicates the center of gravity locations of irons designed according to the present invention, while the small circles represent Callaway irons and the small dashes represent non-Callaway irons. Center of gravity locations are generally obtainable by referring to the leading edge weights of the irons.

At this point can anyone pull off a low & forward CG location story without it appearing as a “me too” play?

Place your bets – will we ever see it in a commercial product? I wouldn’t be surprised if we did.

Dave Dawsey – The Golf Invention Lawyer

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