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Golf club and manufacturing method thereofRelated Patent Categories: Games Using Tangible Projectile, Golf, Club Or Club Support, Head, Hollow BodyGolf club and manufacturing method thereof description/claimsThe Patent Description & Claims data below is from USPTO Patent Application 20050282658, Golf club and manufacturing method thereof. Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to a golf club and a manufacturing method thereof. In more detail, the present invention relates to a golf club in which rigidity, strength and hardness of the crown portion is enhanced to improve a repulsion effect, and to a method for manufacturing such golf club. [0003] 2. Description of the Related Art [0004] Various improvements have been made in golf clubs in order to increase a traveling distance or to achieve a stable strike. The traveling distance directly influences the score, so the traveling distance is increased if scope of a striking point on the head of a golf club is wide, or the position of the scope of the striking point is changed. The striking surface of a golf club is called "clubface", and a user usually would not try to strike a ball on any parts off the clubface no matter the condition. [0005] On the other hand, recently, golf clubs have been made to have the increased volume at their clubheads in order to increase the area of the sweet area. As a result, repulsive force of the face portion can be increased. Also, by increasing the volume of the clubhead, the center of gravity of the clubhead is raised. For this reason, the center of the sweet area is located in the upper part of the clubface. As a measure for this fact, the center of gravity of the clubhead is lowered by using a method for placing weight on the sole portion, or other methods. However, with this method the clubhead is increased in weight, thus this method is against the request of weight reduction. [0006] The striking point called "sweet area" is located adjacent to the center of gravity, and is the part with which the longest traveling distance can be obtained. For this reason, in a golf club having a conventional configuration, in order to obtain a traveling distance by maximizing the repulsive force that the head has, normally a ball has to be struck with the sweet area which is above the center of the clubface. However, sometimes a ball is struck with a part off the upper sweet area. For example, in a head (against) wind, if the ball is struck in the usual manner, the ball will fly high up in the air and fly against the wind, resulting in a failure to get the desired traveling distance, thus golfers usually strike the ball so as to produce a low ball trajectory. In this case, the striking point is shifted to a lower area of the clubface. [0007] This, however, results in a decrease of the repulsive force and the ball traveling distance becomes less than that obtained by striking on a preferred point of the sweet area. Because the center of gravity is shifted to the position located at the upper side of the club face, as mentioned above, that is, because the sweet area, which is a high-repulsion area, is in the vicinity of the center of gravity, if the striking point is off this area, repulsive force is reduced. Various methods have been suggested as a technology to improve the repulsion effect of the sweet area. [0008] For example, in an example where the crown portion is subjected to some sort of a process, there is a golf club in which a plurality of grooves are provided in the crown portion from the side portion in the toe through the side portion in the heal to raise the angle where the ball is struck and increase the traveling distance (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2003-88601), or, a golf club in which the crown portion is provided with a slit which extends along the face portion, and the slit is closed by application of a fiber reinforced plastic as a reinforcing material, to improve repulsion and increase traveling distance (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2003-210621). [0009] Further, there are known golf club, such as the one in which an opening portion is formed in the vicinity of the center of the crone portion, the opening portion is closed with a cover material made of a material that is different from that of the head main body, and a reinforcing material made of a fiber reinforced plastic is laminated on the face portion of the head main body to enhance the repulsion while maintaining decay durability (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2003-250933), and also the one in which, as an example of combining a foreign material, a fiber reinforced material is used in at least one of the neck portion (hosel portion), face portion, sole portion, crown portion and side portion, such that the mass of the fiber reinforced material becomes 4% or more of the mass of the head main body, and the rest is configured from metal, whereby the golf club has a combination of vibration damping property and hitting sound which is pleasing to the ear (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2003-199848). [0010] These conventional examples postulate that repulsion is enhanced to strike a ball far by subjecting the crown portion to some sort of a process to relatively change the strength therein compared to that in the sole portion, and intentionally bending the face portion on crown portion side. In this configuration, the sweet area tends to be shifted toward the upper portion side of the face portion, and this effect is caused when striking a ball on the upper part of the face portion. This manner of striking a ball is usually for pro golfers. However, there are not only pro golfers but also numbers of amateur golfers. Although Amateur golfers have a certain level of golfing skill, they prone to strike a ball in irregular manners. [0011] Therefore, sometimes the striking point is shifted to below the face portion. Even an abovementioned pro golfer strikes a ball on the lower part of the face portion. Specifically, striking a ball on the lower part of the face portion is performed when striking a ball to produce a low ball trajectory in a head (against) wind. For the reason of such a manner of using a golf club, what is desired is a golf club which has a capability for achieving a long ball traveling distance when striking a ball on any point in the face portion, and in which repulsive force equal to that in the conventional sweet area can be obtained as described above even if the sweet area of this golf club is shifted to below the face portion. [0012] Although various methods for solving above problems have been proposed, no technologies have yet been established. The same applicant proposes, as a method for solving the problems, a golf club which has an improved sole portion, and in which striking a ball on a lower part of the sweet area does not result in decrease of a ball traveling distance. This technology is configured by transforming a part of the sole portion. [0013] The above describes a technology for improving a repulsion effect. There is also proposed a technology for reducing a coefficient of rebound, in consideration of the restriction of the limit of the golf rules (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2004-49734). [0014] As above, the golf club is designed in various ways to increase a ball traveling distance, but one is not necessarily satisfied with such a golf club under the present circumstances. Especially when expanding the sweet area, or when lowering the sweet area, there is still room for improvement. Although there are some conditions in restriction in manufacturing a golf club, further development of a gold club for increasing a ball traveling distance by one normal strike is desired even in the range of these restriction conditions. [0015] Transforming the crown portion in various ways, transforming the sole portion on the other hand, or other modifications have been tried in the past as described above, and although some effects can be observed in improvement of repulsion in an upper part of the face portion, the effect has not yet been exerted in a lower part of the face portion. These conventional methods still have drawbacks in the reliability, and drawback of even reducing the rigidity by contrast, so not everything was necessarily satisfying. Moreover, the golf industry is a world where tradition is valued originally. [0016] Changing the shape, weight and the like of the clubhead significantly from those of the conventional golf clubs will not only break the rhythm when striking a ball because the swing or the like has to be changed, but also causes an adverse effect. Furthermore, even if an innovative golf club is developed, it takes a long period of time to become popular in the field. Therefore, in a currently popular golf club, significantly changing the shape thereof brings about various obstacles, thus it is ideal to develop a golf club which can satisfy golfers by improving the function without significantly changing the current shape, or without changing the shape at all if possible. [0017] Next, various configurations of a golf club in which the material of the head is changed. As an example of a configuration which is applied to the current golf club, there are known configurations such as one in which different types of metals are applied to the crown portion, hosel portion and the like respectively, and one in which different types of metals as reinforcing materials are bonded together by welding. There is no ideal form of golf club as described above under the present circumstances. Therefore, it is desired to develop a golf club in which the repulsion area is enlarged, shifted or the like without changing the shape thereof significantly from that of the conventional golf club, to stably increase a ball traveling distance even when a ball is struck on any point in the face portion. The same applicant performs various tests in order to solve these problems, to improve the golf club. [0018] As a result, in a golf club in which the crown portion tends to be made weaker than the sold portion in terms of the rigidity and the like, generally a high-repulsion area is shifted toward the crown portion in the face portion. If the striking point is limited to the crown portion side as above, a difficult swing is required for a golfer because the sweet area is narrowed down and whereby the range of the striking point is too narrow to increase a traveling distance. The present invention changes the notion of the conventional golf club, and is designed such that the crown portion is improved in its rigidity, strength, and hardness, and the position of the sweet area is adjusted to the sole portion side to intentionally shift the position. [0019] Moreover, as described above, there is proposed a technology for controlling a repulsion effect, which may be inconsistent with the above description and different from the object of the present invention. For example, there is a technology for subjecting the clubhead of an existing golf club to a heat treatment for age hardening the clubhead. This technology is applied to the face portion, such that the face portion is hardened by age hardening, and the coefficient of rebound is reduced intentionally. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION [0020] The present invention is contrived based on the above-described background art, and achieves the following objects. [0021] An object of the present invention is to provide a golf club in which rigidity, strength or hardness of the crown portion is enhanced more than the rigidity, strength or hardness of the sole portion to improve the repulsion effect, and a method for manufacturing such golf club. [0022] Another object of the present invention is to provide a golf club which is configured such that a traveling distance can be increased without changing the basic form at all, and a method for manufacturing such golf club. Continue reading about Golf club and manufacturing method thereof... Full patent description for Golf club and manufacturing method thereof Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims Click on the above for other options relating to this Golf club and manufacturing method thereof patent application. ###  How KEYWORD MONITOR works... a FREE service from FreshPatents1. Sign up (takes 30 seconds). 2. Fill in the keywords to be monitored. 3. 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