US 5,776,011 · Granted 1998-07-07
The Modular Golf Club Head That Lets You Swap Weights Like a Video Game
Instead of buying a whole new golf club when you want to adjust how it plays, this design lets you unscrew and swap out weights in the club head itself. Three stamped metal pieces snap together to form the head, and the removable weights in back let golfers fine-tune their club's feel and performance without replacing the whole thing.
The plain-English version
What it protects
The claim covers a metalwood club head assembled from three separate stamped pieces (face, crown, and bottom) with a special hosel design that has a narrowed section near the heel. What's protected here is the removable weight system built into the bottom piece—specifically, the threaded opening that lets you screw in different weights from a set, plus the weighted masses attached to the rear of the face that can be either concentric rings or a spiral pattern extending backward.
Why it matters
This patent addresses a real problem in golf equipment: one-size-fits-all clubs don't work for every player or playing condition. By making weights removable and interchangeable, Echelon Golf created a way for players to customize club behavior without buying multiple clubs. The modular assembly approach also made manufacturing cheaper and more flexible, since the three stamped pieces could be produced separately and combined in different configurations.
Real-world use
When a golfer notices their club feels too heavy or light for their swing, they can unscrew the weight cartridge from the sole and swap it for a lighter or heavier one from the set—like changing game difficulty settings on a controller.
Original USPTO abstract
A metalwood golf club head is provided by attaching three distinct stamped pieces: a face and hosel piece, a crown piece and a bottom piece. The hosel of the face and hosel piece has a diameter and a narrowed section adjacent the heel, the narrowed section having a width from the toe to heel direction which is less than the diameter of the hosel. The bottom piece includes a threaded opening for threadably coupling a removable weight which may be selected from a set of removable weights, with each removable weight in the set having a different weight. Weighting is provided on a rear surface of the face, and may take the form of either a plurality of concentric masses or a spiral mass extending rearwardly from the rear surface of the face.
Patent details
- Publication number
- US 5,776,011
- Filing date
- 1996-09-27
- Grant date
- 1998-07-07
- Assignee
- Echelon Golf
- Inventor(s)
- SU; CHARLES, CHANG; PHIL
- CPC class
- A63B53/04
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