US 6,123,627 · Granted 2000-09-26
The Metal Band That Made Golf Clubs Harder to Break
A golf club head gets stronger by wrapping a reinforced metal band around its outer edge and loading it with hidden weights. This band acts like a protective cage while shifting the club's weight to spots that help the ball fly farther and more consistently.
The plain-English version
What it protects
The claim covers a golf club head design that uses a reinforcing outer support band wrapped around the perimeter of the club head, combined with weighted inserts built into that band. What's protected here is the specific structural arrangement: how the band provides both strength to the club head's outer surfaces and serves as a housing for additional weight modules positioned on the club's outer edges.
Why it matters
Metalwood clubs were in fierce competition during the late 1990s, with manufacturers constantly searching for ways to improve durability and performance. This design solves two problems at once—it reinforces the club head against impact damage while strategically placing weight on the periphery, which helps golfers generate more stable, longer shots. The dual-function approach (protection plus performance enhancement) was a meaningful innovation in club head engineering during this era.
Real-world use
Every time a golfer strikes a ball with a metalwood driver or fairway wood featuring this design, they're benefiting from both the protective band that keeps the club from cracking and the hidden weights that improve the club's forgiveness on off-center hits.
Original USPTO abstract
A metalwood type golf club head is disclosed including an reinforcing outer support band which provides additional strength and mass on outer surfaces of the club head and further includes an elongated weighted insert formed with said reinforcing band to add additional weight to outer peripheral surfaces of the club head.
Patent details
- Publication number
- US 6,123,627
- Filing date
- 1999-01-13
- Grant date
- 2000-09-26
- Assignee
- Antonious; Anthony J.
- Inventor(s)
- ANTONIOUS; ANTHONY J.
- CPC class
- A63B53/04
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