Golf Club



Background

A golf club is used to strike the ball in the game of golf. It has a long shaft with a grip on one end and a weighted head on the other end. The head is affixed sideways at a sharp angle to the shaft, and the striking face of the head is inclined to give the ball a certain amount of upward trajectory. The rules of golf allow a player to carry up to 14 different clubs, and each one is designed for a specific situation during the game.

History

The origins of golf are shrouded in history and probably evolved from other games in which a small object was struck with a stick. The Romans had a game called Paganica, which involved hitting a stone with a stick. The French had a similar game called chole, while the English had cambuca, which used a ball made of wood. Possibly the strongest claim to golf comes from the Dutch, who were known to play a game called kolfas early as 1296. In its original form, kolfwas played on any available terrain including churchyards, highways, and frozen lakes. The object was to hit a succession of targets by striking the ball with a long-handled wooden club. To allow a clear shot, the ball was slightly elevated on a pile of sand called a tuitje, from which we get the modern term tee.

The Dutch claim to the origin of the game is hotly disputed by the Scots who point out that they had been playing golf for as long or longer than the Dutch. Whatever the origin, there is no dispute that it was the Scots who popularized the game. It became so popular that in 1467 the Scottish Parliament passed an act banning golf because it was taking time from archery practice necessary for national defense. The ban was widely ignored. Ironically, the first manufactured golf club was made by a Scottish bow maker named William Mayne, who was appointed Clubmaker to the court of King James in 1603.

Early golf clubs were made entirely of wood. Not only was this material easy to shape, but it was also soft enough not to damage the stuffed leather golf balls that were used until the mid-1800s. With the introduction of the hard rubber gutta-percha golf ball in 1848, golfers no longer had to worry about damaging the ball and began using clubs with iron heads. Because iron heads could be formed with sharply inclined striking faces without losing their strength, iron-headed clubs, called irons, were most often used for making shorter, high-trajectory shots, while wooden-headed clubs, called woods, were used for making longer, low-trajectory shots.

Until the early 1900s, all golf clubs had wooden shafts whether they had iron heads or wooden heads. The first steel-shafted golf clubs were made in the United States in the 1920s. It was about this time that some club makers started using the current numbering system to identify different clubs, rather than the old colorful names. The woods were numbered one through five, and the irons were numbered two through nine. The higher the number, the more inclined the surface of the striking face. The putter rounded out the set of clubs and retained its name instead of being assigned a number. The sand wedge was developed in 1931 to help golfers blast their way out of traps. In time, the sand wedge was joined by several other specialty golf clubs.

In the early 1970s, manufacturers introduced golf clubs with shafts made from fiber-reinforced composite materials originally developed for military and aerospace applications. These shafts were much lighter than steel, but they were expensive and some golfers felt the new shafts flexed to much. Later, when ultrahigh-strength fibers were developed to control the flex, composite shafts gained more acceptance.

The first metal-headed drivers were developed in 1979. In 1989, they were followed by the first oversize metal-headed drivers. The oversize heads were cast with a hollow center and filled with foam, which made them the same weight as smaller wood heads. When combined with a longer, light-weight composite shaft, the oversize metal woods achieved a greater head velocity at impact and drove the ball further. The over-size club heads also had larger striking faces, which made them more forgiving if the ball was struck off-center.

Today, the design and manufacture of golf clubs is both an art and a science. Some club makers use the very latest computeraided design and automated manufacturing techniques to build hundreds of thousands of clubs a year, while others rely on experience and hand-crafting skills to build only a few dozen custom-made clubs a year.

Raw Materials

Golf clubs are manufactured from a wide variety of materials, including metals, plastics, ceramics, composites, wood, and others. Different materials are chosen for different parts of the club based on their mechanical properties, such as strength, elasticity, formability, impact resistance, friction, damping, density, and others.

Club heads for drivers and other woods may be made from stainless steel, titanium, or graphite fiber-reinforced epoxy. Face inserts may be made from zirconia ceramic or a titanium metal matrix ceramic composite. Oversize metal woods are usually filled with synthetic polymer foam. Traditionalists can even buy woods that are made of real wood. Persimmon, laminated maple, and a host of exotic woods are used. Wood club heads are usually soaked in preserving oil or coated with a synthetic finish like polyurethane to protect them from moisture.

Club heads for irons and wedges may be made from chrome-plated steel, stainless steel, titanium, tungsten, beryllium nickel, beryllium copper, or combinations of these metals. Heads for putters may be made of all of the same materials as irons, plus softer materials like aluminum or bronze, because the velocity of impact is much slower when putting.

Club shafts may be made from chrome-plated steel, stainless steel, aluminum, carbon or graphite fiber-reinforced epoxy, boron fiber-reinforced epoxy, or titanium. Grips are usually made from molded synthetic rubber or wrapped leather.

Design

The rules of the United States Golf Association (USGA) have only a few brief paragraphs regarding the design of golf clubs. There are no restrictions on weight or materials, and only a few restrictions on dimensions. Shafts must be at least 18 in (457 mm) long. The distance from the heel to the toe of the head must be greater than the distance from the face to the back of the head. The cross-sectional dimension of the grip must not be greater than 1.75 in (45 mm) in any direction. Of all the rules, however, the most important one requires that the club ''shall not be substantially different from the traditional and customary form and make."

It is this last rule that sometimes gives club designers the fits. It means, for example, that club heads may not have features like aiming fins or holes to reduce aerodynamic drag. Shafts may not have flexible joints, and so forth. In short, anything that is not "traditional and customary" is not allowed. All new club designs must be submitted to the USGA for review and approval before they may be used in tournament play.

Within the USGA guidelines, many new features have been incorporated into golf clubs. Using computer-aided design programs and mathematical models of club and ball dynamics, designers have learned to utilize new materials, redistribute weight, and

The golf club head is molded in a process called investment casting. Once cast, the head is heat treated to harden the iron.
The golf club head is molded in a process called investment casting. Once cast, the head is heat treated to harden the iron.
alter the general shape of the club in an attempt to help both professional golfers and weekend duffers improve their games.

One common feature of modern irons is perimeter weighting, which places most of the club head weight around the edges, leaving the center with less material. This added mass reduces the amount of club twist when the ball is struck towards the edge of the club, rather than in the center. The effect is to increase the size of the effective hitting area, or the "sweet spot" as golfers call it. The hollow oversize metal heads on some drivers have the same effect.

Another design feature of some modern clubs is the offset head, where the striking face is located to the rear of the centerline of the shaft. This places the golfer's hands slightly ahead of the ball at impact, which tends to square the club face and give better direction control.

Other design features help golfers make cleaner shots from uneven terrain, get the ball up in the air from grassy lies, and correct their tendency to hit to one side or the other. As with any product, some features offer more psychological help than physical help. Despite three decades of golf club design improvements, the driving distance of the best professional golfers increased only 12 yd (11 m) between 1968 and 1995, and the average winning score fell at a rate of only one stroke every 21 years.

The Manufacturing
Process

Every golf club maker uses a slightly different manufacturing process. The largest companies use highly automated machinery, while the smallest companies use hand tools. Some parts of the manufacturing process may be unique to one company and regarded as trade secrets.

Here is a typical sequence of operations used to produce a machine-made, perimeter-weighted golf iron.

Forming the head

Forming the shaft

Assembling the club

Quality Control

Golf clubs are treated with almost as much attention to specifications as components for aircraft. In fact most golf club manufacturers emphasize their specifications as a means of differentiating their clubs from the competition. Swing weight, lie angle, shaft torque, and a host of other specifications are not only important to the club designers, but are also important to the company's customers. In addition to dimensional checks and process controls, clubs are randomly tested for a variety of specifications that affect performance.

The Future

The popularity of golf is expected to continue to grow. As the number of recreational players increases, there will be an emphasis on designing clubs that make the game more enjoyable for the average golfer. Despite objections from purists, oversize club heads and other game-improving features will continue to be offered.

Where to Learn More

Books

Plumridge, Chris. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of World Golf Exeter Books, 1988.

Zumerchick, John, editor. Encyclopedia of Sports Science. Simon & Schuster MacMillan, 1997.

Periodicals

Crecca, Donna Hood. "Fore!" Popular Science (February 1995): 56-60, 84.

Sauerhaft, Rob. "Easier than Ever." Golf Magazine (October 1994): 56-57.

Sauerhaft, Rob. "Iron Wars." Golf Magazine (April 1998): 168-169.

Other

Callaway Golf. http://www.callawaygolf.com .

Cobra Golf, Inc. http://www.cobragolf.com .

Karsten Manufacturing Corporation. http://www.pinggolf.com .

United States Golf Association (USGA). http://www.usga.org .

Chris Cavette



Also read article about Golf Club from Wikipedia

User Contributions:

1
Nick Buxton
do you have any information about the manufacture of the driver? i'm doing an product study on the driver and i can't find any good information about its manufacture.
2
Nick
This has been a great help to me! If anyone needs a resource of manufacturing and design structures, this is a great website to look upon. I highly recommend this to anyone who knows about golf or is searching for information about the game. Thanks!
3
Bill Weaver
Why is the club shaft located to the side or end of the club face instead of centered at the moist likely point of impact with the ball.? Is that tradition or rules?

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