US 5,547,427 · Granted 1996-08-20
The Plastic-and-Metal Golf Club Head That Changed Club Design Forever
TaylorMade figured out how to make golf club heads lighter and more forgiving by combining a hollow plastic body with a metal impact plate. The design lets golfers feel the sweet spot better while distributing weight around the club head to make off-center hits less punishing.
The plain-English version
What it protects
The claim covers a golf club head constructed from a single molded plastic piece with an open front, combined with a separate metallic sealing element that forms the striking surface and front wall. What's protected here is the specific combination of hollow thermoplastic construction with a metal impact face that work together to create an inner cavity, plus the way weight can be strategically positioned around this structure to increase the club's forgiving properties.
Why it matters
This patent represents a major shift in golf club manufacturing, moving away from traditional all-metal or all-wood designs toward hybrid composite construction. By using plastic for the body and metal for the strike face, manufacturers gained the ability to redistribute weight more freely around the club head, improving what golfers call the moment of inertia. This made clubs more forgiving on mishits and allowed TaylorMade to compete more aggressively in the growing golf equipment market of the 1990s.
Real-world use
Every time a golfer swings a modern oversized driver or fairway wood with a hollow body and visible metal face—which is nearly all of them now—they're using technology pioneered by this patent design.
Original USPTO abstract
The invention is related to a golf club head including a hollow body made of a single molded thermoplastic piece, an opening facing forwardly and including an upper wall, a peripheral wall, and possibly a lower wall. Further included is an impact-resistant metallic sealing element including a front wall forming the impact surface of the club head, attached and cooperating with the body so as to define an inner space. Such a construction improves upon the sensation perceived by the golfer at impact while retaining direct transmission of information to him or her, and it increases the range of possible mass distribution and concentration so as to make the head more tolerant by increasing its moments of inertia.
Patent details
- Publication number
- US 5,547,427
- Filing date
- 1993-02-26
- Grant date
- 1996-08-20
- Assignee
- Taylor Made Golf Company, Inc.
- Inventor(s)
- RIGAL; JEAN-PIERRE, VINCENT; BENO+E,CIR I+EE T
- CPC class
- A63B53/04
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