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Angled golf putter head having teeth

Angled golf putter head having teeth description/claims

The present application is a continuation-in-part of parent application Ser. No. 11/674,249, filed Feb. 13, 2007. The parent application is herein incorporated by reference.

The present invention is directed to an angled golf putter head that has teeth on its face in order to present an optimum rotation to the golf ball when striking it.

Various putter designs have been put forward with the aim of improving putting accuracy. All of these designs are variants off of the most fundamental design that is illustrated in FIG. 1A. In this design, a flat and vertical face 20 of the putter head 10 strikes a golf ball 50 at a contact point 24 and exerts a force F directed towards the center of the ball. The impact results in an applied force F on the center of mass (COM) of the ball 50, but it exerts no torque about the COM. The ball 50 therefore acquires an initial horizontal linear speed v0 (slide) but zero initial angular speed ω0 (spin). The ball 50 therefore starts its motion with a pure forward slide. This sliding motion is undesirable because it causes the ball to skip and become deflected by irregularities in the green.

As FIG. 1B illustrates, this sliding is immediately opposed by a sliding friction force f pointing backwards at the (bottom) point of contact between the ball 50 and the grass. After a time t, this force causes the linear speed of the ball 50 to decrease from its initial value v0 to a smaller value v(t)=v. Also, the friction force f exerts a torque τ=rf (where r is the radius of the ball 50) about the COM, which causes the angular speed to increase from its initial value ω0=0 to a larger value ω(t)=ω.

After the impact, the linear speed v continues to decrease and the angular speed ω continues to increase until v=rω, at which point pure rolling sets in and the point of contact between the ball and the green is instantaneously at rest. When v=rω, the forward linear motion of the contact point is exactly canceled by the backward rotational motion. From this time on, the friction force becomes almost zero (the rolling friction force is miniscule) and so the ball 50 continues to roll. During the rolling phase of the motion, the ball's 50 trajectory is smooth and regular because the green exerts almost no frictional force on the ball 50.

It is obviously highly desirable to eliminate the initial sliding phase of the ball's 50 motion, which can last for several feet. To see how to accomplish this, consider (referring to FIG. 2B) a horizontal impact force F exerted on a ball 50 at a distance h above the center of the ball. This force imparts an initial horizontal linear speed v0 to the ball 50, and the torque τ=rf arising from the force F imparts an initial angular speed ω0 to the ball 50.

At all times t during the impact, the linear speed v(t) and angular speed ω(t) satisfy

mdv(t)/dt=F(t)

Idw(t)/dt=hF(t),

where I=2mr2/5 is the moment of inertia of the ball (this assuming a constant ball density). Therefore, independently of the values of F(t), the speeds v0 and ω0 are related by or

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