JP2014223127A - Putter head - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a putter head having an improved coefficient of restitution against a ball, while maintaining soft hit feeling of the ball.SOLUTION: A hollow 14 is formed on a center region of a face part of a putter head 10, and a face insert 20 is fitted into the hollow. The face insert 20 has Shore D hardness in the range of 50-63 by a material having a loss tangent (tanδ) in the range of 0.030-0.055.

Description

  The present invention relates to a putter head.

  Conventionally, there has been proposed a putter head in which a face insert made of a material different from that of the head main body is mounted on the face portion of the head main body. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2010-57539 describes a putter head equipped with a face insert formed of a polyester ether thermoplastic elastomer in order to improve the rolling of the ball while maintaining a soft ball hit feeling. ing. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2010-63665 describes a putter head equipped with a face insert made of a polyamide-based thermoplastic elastomer in order to improve the rolling of the ball while maintaining the feel of a soft ball. Yes.

JP 2010-57539 A JP 2010-63665 A

  The mounting of the resin face insert on the putter head is usually aimed at softening the feel of the ball by the face insert. However, a putter head equipped with a conventional face insert made of a resin such as a polyamide-based thermoplastic elastomer has a problem that the hit feeling can be softened by the face insert, but the coefficient of restitution becomes low.

  In view of the above problems, an object of the present invention is to provide a putter head having an improved coefficient of restitution with respect to a ball while maintaining the feel of a soft ball.

  In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a putter head having a face portion, wherein the face portion is formed with a recess in a central region thereof, and the face portion is mounted in the recess. The face insert has a Shore D hardness in the range of 50 to 63 with a material having a loss tangent (tan δ) in the range of 0.030 to 0.055.

  The face insert may have a Shore D hardness in the range of 54 to 63 with a material having a loss tangent (tan δ) in the range of 0.030 to 0.055.

  The face insert may have a Shore D hardness in the range of 50 to 63 with a material having a loss tangent (tan δ) in the range of 0.030 to 0.050.

  The face insert may have a Shore D hardness in the range of 50 to 57 with a material having a loss tangent (tan δ) in the range of 0.030 to 0.040.

  According to the present invention, the face insert is formed to have a predetermined range of Shore D hardness by a material having a predetermined range of loss tangent (tan δ). The coefficient of restitution can be improved.

It is a disassembled perspective view which shows one Embodiment of the putter head which concerns on this invention. It is a graph which shows the relationship between the Shore D hardness of an Example and a comparative example, and tan-delta. It is a graph which shows the relationship between tan-delta and a restitution coefficient of an Example and a comparative example.

  Hereinafter, an embodiment of a putter head according to the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. FIG. 1 is an exploded perspective view showing an embodiment of a putter head according to the present invention.

  As shown in FIG. 1, the putter head 10 of the present embodiment is mainly composed of a metal head main body 12 and a face insert 20. In the face portion of the head body 12, a recess 14 is formed in the central region. By fitting the face insert 20 into the recess 14, the surface of the face insert 20 becomes a part of the face surface of the putter head 10.

  As a material of the face insert 20, it is preferable to use an ionomer resin or a urethane resin. By using these resins, the face insert 20 having a Shore D hardness in the range of 50 to 63 can be obtained from a material having a loss tangent (tan δ) in the range of 0.030 to 0.055.

  Here, the loss tangent (tan δ) is represented by a value obtained by dividing the loss elastic modulus by the storage elastic modulus, and is also called a dynamic viscoelastic modulus. This tan δ can be measured with a commercially available measuring device, for example, a dynamic viscoelasticity measuring device (DMA Q800) manufactured by TA Instruments. As a measurement condition, the test piece has a width of 3 mm, a thickness of 1 mm, and a length of 20 mm (this length is the length of a part to be actually measured, and does not include the parts sandwiched at both ends). The initial distortion is 0.1 N, the amplitude is 1%, and the frequency is 15 Hz. Measurement is performed at a rate of temperature increase of 3 ° C./min over a temperature range from −100 ° C. to 80 ° C., and the value at 23 ° C. is adopted.

  The tan δ of the material used for the face insert 20 is preferably in the range of 0.030 to 0.050, and more preferably in the range of 0.030 to 0.040. The Shore D hardness of the face insert 20 is preferably in the range of 54 to 63 when tan δ is in the range of 0.030 to 0.055. Further, the Shore D hardness of the face insert 20 is preferably in the range of 50 to 63 when tan δ is in the range of 0.030 to 0.050. Further, the Shore D hardness of the face insert 20 is preferably in the range of 50 to 57 when tan δ is in the range of 0.030 to 0.040.

  Although it does not specifically limit as ionomer resin, For example, what uses the following (a) component and / or (b) component as a base resin can be used. Moreover, the following (c) component can be arbitrarily added to this base resin. The component (a) is an olefin-unsaturated carboxylic acid-unsaturated carboxylic acid ester ternary random copolymer and / or a metal salt thereof, and the component (b) is an olefin-unsaturated carboxylic acid binary random copolymer and The metal salt (c) component is a thermoplastic block copolymer having a polyolefin crystal block and a polyethylene / butylene random copolymer.

  Examples of the olefin in the component (a) and the component (b) include olefins having 2 or more carbon atoms and an upper limit of 8 or less, particularly 6 or less. More specifically, ethylene, propylene, butene, pentene, hexene, heptene, octene and the like can be mentioned, and ethylene is particularly preferable. Examples of the unsaturated carboxylic acid in the component (a) and the component (b) include acrylic acid, methacrylic acid, maleic acid, fumaric acid and the like. Furthermore, examples of the unsaturated carboxylic acid ester in component (a) include the lower alkyl esters of the unsaturated carboxylic acid described above, and specifically include methyl methacrylate, ethyl methacrylate, propyl methacrylate, and methacrylic acid. Butyl, methyl acrylate, ethyl acrylate, propyl acrylate, butyl acrylate, and the like.

  Among ionomer resins, highly neutralized ionomer resins are more preferable. The highly neutralized ionomer resin refers to an ionomer resin in which the metal ion neutralization degree of the carboxylic acid in the component is usually 75 mol% or more, preferably 80 mol% or more, more preferably 85 mol% or more. This degree of neutralization can be adjusted by adding a neutralizing agent that neutralizes the acid groups in component (a) and component (b). Examples of the neutralizing agent include basic inorganic metal compounds such as magnesium oxide, magnesium hydroxide, magnesium carbonate, zinc oxide, sodium hydroxide, sodium carbonate, calcium oxide, calcium hydroxide, lithium hydroxide, and lithium carbonate.

  As the urethane resin, it is preferable to use thermoplastic polyurethane. The structure of the thermoplastic polyurethane includes a soft segment made of a polymer polyol that is a long-chain polyol and a hard segment made of a chain extender and a polyisocyanate compound. The long-chain polyol is not particularly limited. For example, polyester polyol, polyether polyol, polycarbonate polyol, polyester polycarbonate polyol, polyolefin polyol, conjugated diene polymer polyol, castor oil polyol, silicone polyol, vinyl polymer polyol, etc. 1 type or multiple types can be used.

  The chain extender is not particularly limited, and for example, 1,4-butylene glycol, 1,2-ethylene glycol, 1,3-butanediol, 1,6-hexanediol, 2,2-dimethyl-1,3 -Propanediol or the like is preferably used. The polyisocyanate compound is not particularly limited. For example, 4,4′-diphenylmethane diisocyanate, 2,4- (or) 2,6-toluene diisocyanate, p-phenylene diisocyanate, xylylene diisocyanate, naphthylene 1,5 1 type selected from the group consisting of diisocyanate, tetramethylxylene diisocyanate, hydrogenated xylylene diisocyanate, dicyclohexylmethane diisocyanate, tetramethylene diisocyanate, hexamethylene diisocyanate, isophorone diisocyanate, norbornene diisocyanate, trimethylhexamethylene diisocyanate, dimer diisocyanate Multiple species can be used.

  The face insert 20 is preferably a single layer structure of the predetermined material described above. Further, the shape of the face insert 20 is not limited to the rectangle shown in FIG. 1, but may be a polygon such as an ellipse, a pentagon, and a hexagon. The thickness of the face insert 20 is preferably about 0.5 mm or more, and more preferably about 1.0 mm or more. On the other hand, the thickness of the face insert 20 is preferably about 6 mm or less, and more preferably about 5 mm or less. It is preferable that the face insert 20 has a uniform thickness. Moreover, it is preferable that the surface which becomes the face surface of the face insert 20 be flat.

  On the other hand, examples of the material of the head body 12 include, but are not limited to, stainless steel, aluminum, aluminum alloy, brass, copper, titanium alloy, zinc, carbon fiber reinforced resin, and the like.

  Face inserts having different Shore D hardnesses were made using polyamide, urethane, and ionomer materials having different tan δ shown in Table 1 and FIG. And this was mounted | worn to the head main body and the putter head was produced, and also the putter was produced using this. The height of the face insert was 20 mm, the width was 50 mm, the thickness was 4 mm, and the weight was 4 g. The material of the head body was an aluminum alloy, and the weight of the putter head was 340 g. The material of the shaft was steel, and the club weight was 505 g.

  In addition, the coefficient of restitution of face inserts using these materials was measured. The coefficient of restitution was measured using a resilience tester manufactured by Toyo Seiki. The result is shown in FIG.

  Normally, although the harder material tends to have a higher coefficient of restitution, as shown in FIG. 3, it can be seen that, as tan δ is lower, the coefficient of restitution tends to be higher regardless of the hardness of the material. Therefore, by providing a face insert having a predetermined hardness using a material having a tan δ of 0.055 or less, a putter head having an improved coefficient of restitution with respect to the ball while maintaining a soft ball hit feeling is provided. Can do. In particular, with ionomer A, ionomer E, and ionomer F, it was possible to achieve both soft feel with a Shore D hardness of 57 or less and high resilience with a restitution coefficient of 0.860 or more. Further, in the case of ionomer C, ionomer D, ionomer I, and urethane B, the coefficient of restitution could be 0.860 or more even when the Shore D hardness was in a relatively wide range of 54 to 63. Urethane B was able to obtain both a soft feel and high resilience, but the material is preferably an ionomer. In other words, it can be said that tan δ is 0.055 or less and a predetermined coefficient of restitution can be obtained, but 0.050 or less is more preferable. Note that ionomer A, ionomer D, and ionomer F are highly neutralized ionomer resins.

  Also, for each putter using Ionomer A and Urethane A face inserts with relatively different shore D hardness but relatively close resilience coefficients, three golfers actually hit the ball and evaluated the hit feeling. received. As a result, it was evaluated that the ionomer A face insert has a long contact time, feels that the face is bent, and has a feeling of sticking. The initial velocity of the ball at this time was 2.88 to 2.89 m / s, and the distance of the ball was 543 to 558 cm. On the other hand, the urethane A face insert was evaluated as being hard, loud, touching distance, hard and rolling. At this time, the initial velocity of the ball was 2.86 to 2.88 m / s, and the distance of the ball was 546 to 559 cm.

10 Putter head 12 Head body 14 Dimple 20 Face insert 30 Putter

Claims (4)

  A putter head having a face portion, wherein the face portion has a recess formed in a central region thereof, and the face portion includes a face insert to be mounted in the recess, and the face insert is A putter head having a Shore D hardness in the range of 50 to 63 with a material having a loss tangent (tan δ) in the range of 0.030 to 0.055.   The putter head according to claim 1, wherein the face insert has a Shore D hardness in the range of 54 to 63 with a material having a loss tangent (tan δ) in the range of 0.030 to 0.055.   The putter head according to claim 1, wherein the face insert has a Shore D hardness in the range of 50 to 63 with a material having a loss tangent (tan δ) in the range of 0.030 to 0.050.   The putter head according to claim 1, wherein the face insert has a Shore D hardness in the range of 50 to 57 with a material having a loss tangent (tan δ) in the range of 0.030 to 0.040.

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