Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-r5zm4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-24T08:38:12.028Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Titanium Golf Clubs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2013

Get access

Extract

The basic requirement golfers have about clubs is simple: “Help me to lower my score.” To the materials scientist, this means designs using the best materials. Golf clubs can be separated into three categories—woods (for long-distance hitting), irons (medium distance and accuracy), and putters (to get the ball into the hole on the green). In this article, we will discuss how material developments—in association with changes in design—have contributed to lower scores. It is very difficult to compare past achievements with those of today, perhaps with the exception of driving distances. However clubs have evolved tremendously, and it is difficult to imagine that Bobby Jones using hickory shafts could compete—at least in distance—with John Daly, Freddy Couples, or Tiger Woods, the present-day warriors armed with equipment often constructed from highstrength steel or graphite-epoxy shafts and an oversized hollow titanium head. Today professional golfers are driving farther, hitting greens with greater regularity, and sinking longer putts with the equipment they now have available attesting that the clubs constructed from advanced materials are contributing to better performance.

Type
Materials For Sports
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Courtesy Tetsuro Katayama, Japan Titanium Association.Google Scholar
2.Froes, F.H., Light Metal Age (February 1997) p. 40.Google Scholar
3.McCormick, P. and Froes, F.H., JOM (1998) in press.Google Scholar
4.Senkov, O.N., Jonas, J.J., and Froes, F.H., JOM (July 1996) p. 42.Google Scholar
5.Harrigan, W.C. (private communication).Google Scholar