Handle for sports equipment shafts

Abstract: An item of sports equipment has a shaft 5 and a handle portion at one end for manipulation by a user during playing use of the equipment, the handle portion comprising a sleeve unit 1 arranged around said end of the shaft and adapted for manual gripping by the user of the equipment, said unit including a sleeve member 2 arranged to encircle said shaft end and an elastic media element 3 arranged between said sleeve member 2 characterised in that the inner surface 6 of said sleeve member 2 is adjacent to and extends along the outer surface 7 of said shaft 5 and is spaced therefrom and out of contact therewith, said elastic media element 3 being positioned such that manipulation of the handle during use of the item of sports equipment produces relative longitudinal rocking movement between said sleeve member 2 and said one end of the shaft.

Description: This invention relates to handles for items of sports equipment used for striking balls and the like. The handles of sports equipment, in most cases, are designed to provide a firm grip by the hand or hands to hold the equipment without slipping and to apply force to manipulate the equipment for desired movement. In some cases, such as the tennis racket, one demands an immediate and forceful response as soon as the hand force is applied. Pin-point accuracy on where the ball will be going is desirable but is not really expected. In such cases, a rigid connection between the handle and the rest of the equipment is usually desirable. The rigid connection of the handle to the rest of the equipment assures a quick response whenever the hand force is applied. However, for some sports equipment, such as putters used in golf, an immediate and forceful response is not as important to the performance as the controlled and measured response which should ideally follow, with a slower compliance, after the hand force is applied. For the putter or iron, the distance expected after hitting the ball is not large, but the distance of travel is expected to be controlled. Experience tells the golfer how he is to hold the putter and how much force he is to deliver through the handle of the club. However, the force applied to the handle by a human hand, especially with two hands together, is not an exact science. Nerves and muscles of a human body are subjected to many physical influencing factors not controlled by the player. That is why a golfer, even a professional will always have "good" days and "bad" days. The invention is to improve the equipment so that the performance of the equipment will rely less on human factors and design parameters affecting the performance is reduced. We shall discuss the invention through its application to a golf club, but it is understood that it applies to other sports equipment as well if applicable. The invention recognizes the fact that it is very difficult to maintain consistency each time when a human hand holds the handle of a golf club, its five fingers grip the handle tightly and each finger exerts a certain amount of force. The combined force from that hand is the sum of the forces from each individual finger. Each finger may have a slightly different location on the handle than the previous play and each finger may exert a slightly different magnitude of force than the previous play. Therefore, the resultant force and moment applied to the handle from both hands may be slightly different from play to play. A good player achieves a better consistency than a less experienced player. The problem addressed by the present invention is that all the ten fingers are allowed to handle the club individually. Essentially, the present invention is as follows. Suppose that all five fingers of each hand and for that matter, both of the two hands do not grip the rigid shaft directly. Suppose that the two hands are covering the shaft through an outer sleeve which can hold its shape without deformation under the gripping force, and the sleeve contacts the handle portion of the club shaft through a consistent elastic medium, such as rubber. In this way, an individual finger can not directly drive the club shaft. The combined force from all the ten fingers drives the club shaft. The movement of the club is now decided by a single bending movement from the rigid sleeve, through the elastic medium, to the handle portion of the shaft. The mechanism and parameters are simplified. One misplaced finger, or an "abnormally" large grip force from one finger, does not affect the club's response proportionately as before if the combined moment, exerted by both hands, remains the same. It is the total sum that decides, not a single individual. According to the present invention sports equipment is provided having a shaft and a handle portion at one end for manipulation by a user during playing use of the equipment, the handle portion comprising a sleeve unit arranged around said end of the shaft and adapted for manual gripping by the user of the equipment, said unit including a sleeve member arranged to encircle said shaft end and an elastic media element arranged between said sleeve member, the inner surface of said sleeve member being adjacent to and extending along the outer surface of said shaft and spaced therefrom, characterised in that said sleeve member has an inner surface facing said elastic media element which is curved in shape, said elastic media element being positioned such that manipulation of the handle during use of the item of sports equipment produces relative longitudinal rocking movement between said sleeve member and said one end of the shaft. The present invention may be understood further by consideration of some particular embodiments of the invention, with reference to the accompanying drawings in which: Figure 1 shows a conventional golf club; Figure 2 shows a sleeve unit installed on a shaft; Figure 3 shows a sleeve unit with an extended part inside the shaft; Figure 4 shows forces of a tilted holder of straight sleeve; Figure 5 shows forces of a tilted holder of curved sleeve; and Figure 6 shows an embodiment of the media inside the holder; Figure 1 shows a golf club. Figure 2 shows a sleeve unit 1 installed in the shaft of a golf club. The sleeve unit 1 consists of a holder 2, on which an optional grip made of rubber or leather is not shown for clarity, media 3 and an optional inner tube 4. The sleeve unit is installed over the head portion of a conventional shaft of the golf club 5. The holder 2 is made of a material, such as graphite fiber composite, metal, plastic or other material, hard enough to maintain a rigid shape upon the gripping force of the hands. There may be an optional layer of grip material, such as rubber or leather to cover the outer surface of the holder so that the hands will not slip. The media 3 are made of one or more resilient, elastic and preferable moldable, elastomer materials, such as rubber, which fill partially or completely the space between the inner surface 6 of the holder 2 and the outer surface 7 of the optional tube 4 or directly to club shaft 5. The optional thin tube 4, made of durable material, such as plastics, is between the media 3 and the shaft 5. This tube 4 may be used to facilitate installation of the sleeve unit over the shaft 5. This tube may be omitted if the inner surface of 3 has no difficulty in sliding over the outer surface of the shaft 5; or if unit 1 is molded over the shaft 5 with media 3 being molded during manufacturing of the golf club shaft. The inner surface 6 of the holder may be radially curved surface as shown in Fig. 2, of arbitrary curvature; it may be a straight line surface, or a combination of straight lines and curved arcs. There may be a small surface contact between 2 and 5 at the apex 8 of the convex surface 6 with no media material 3 in between, providing a pivot for rocking motion between the two. However, some media material between the two in the apex region is allowed. There is no permanent structural fixed connection at said contact point, and the length of contact is kept as small as possible, or none at all. By manipulating the shapes and volumes of the media, different compliance of the shaft to the handle can be achieved. The apex point 8 of the inner surface of the sleeve may be anywhere in the interior portion of the handle. Said inner surface 6 may also be a straight length from one end of the sleeve and begins to flare rapidly towards the other end approximately in the shape of a bell with media material 3 filling the space between the inner surface of the sleeve and the outer surface of the tube 4 or of the handle 5. The components 2 and 3 in Fig. 2 may be hollowed and the media material of 3 may be different at different places, or have multiple concentric layers so that the elastic stiffness of the media may be affected which will change the bending moment, or the longitudinal rocking force, applied to the shaft handle 5. Since the diameter of the handle of a conventional golf club is small, the outer diameter of the sleeve 2 can not be large and consequently, the thickness of the media can not be large. In order that the sleeve can bend the handle through compression of the media, more media material should be introduced. A source for such purpose is the empty space inside the usually hollow shaft 5. Fig. 3 shows the holder 2 extended around the neck end 9 of the shaft 5 and extends into the interior hollow space 10 of the shaft tube 5 in the form of a rod 11 which may be hollow or solid, with some suitable length extended inside the hollow shaft. Then the media 3 may extend as media 12 into the space 10 between the inner surface 13 of the tube 5 and the outer surface 14 of the rod 11. There is not hard connection, which makes relative movement impossible, between the sleeve and the shaft anywhere except through the elastic media. The embodiment of Fig. 3 enables the sleeve to manipulate the handle more effectively and therefore the force applied to the putter, or a sports racket, can be more controlled. To be effective, it is essential that the joint of the sleeve at the end 9 should be a quite rigid body, preferably an integrated cast or mold, so as to hold the bending from 11 to 2 through 9 adequately without excessive deformation. A simple screw to hold two sleeves together is insufficient. Also, it is preferred that the extended length of the sleeve 11 which enters the interior 10 of the hollow space in the shaft 5 at one end 9 has sufficient length in the axial direction so that the internal sleeve 11 will have significant media length 12 to pressure the shaft portion clamped between the inner sleeve 11 and the outer sleeve 2 for the required tilting of 5. Experiments have shown that a preferred minimum internal length of the sleeve 11 is 20% of the external sleeve length 2 so that enough shaft end length of 5 is clamped in between the two for manipulation. An optimum length of 11 is to be approximately from 30% to 50% of the length of the sleeve 2. For application to a tennis racket handle or to the golf club handle, design and emphasis for the extension into the shaft are different because the function is different. For tennis, a very large handle force is used to tilt the handle quickly and forcefully, and for golf, subtle control rather than force is the norm. The sleeve unit as shown in Fig. 2 may be made as a detachable assembly unit which consists of components 2, 3 and optionally 4. This unit may slip over, with or without glue, on an existing golf club shaft with its rubber grip stripped. Some detailed description regarding the operation of the sleeve unit may be helpful to understand more of the invention and its merits. We shall assume the holder is rigid and the portion of the handle that is inside the holder is also rigid. We shall examine how the bending of a sleeve will compress the media and which in turn bends the handle. Figure 4 shows a conventional golf club 41 with sleeve and media. The size of the sleeve unit 2 is exaggerated in its proportion to the shaft for clarity. We shall examine a sleeve configuration in Fig. 4 which has a straight inner surface with the media layer and a sleeve in Fig. 5 which has a convex surface. A forward tilting of the sleeve will produce a bending moment at the handle 5. The media 3 inside these different sleeves will transmit the compressive force from the sleeve to the handle in quite a different way. A sleeve 2 with a straight, thin inner surface 42 is shown in Fig. 4 and it is being compared with a favored sleeve in Fig. 5 whose inner surface 52 is convex with apex point 53 near the middle portion of the length of the sleeve. A sleeve with a straight inner surface parallel to the outer surface will have a straight, contacting boundary 42 with the media and the media will have a constant thickness along the longitudinal direction.. When the sleeve is bent to produce a bending moment on the handle, the compression on the media is lineary proportional to the distance from the centre point of tilting. Therefore, the central portion of the media is less strained than the outer portion because the displacement of the sleeve perpendicular to the longitudinal axis is less near the centre of the rocking motion than the points farther from the centre. In the force diagram, P1 and P2 are resultants, the force distribution is a triangle with a moment arm of 2L/3 where L is the length of the handle. The sleeve of Fig. 5 has a convex inner surface 52 with apex point 53. The thickness of the media increases along its longitudinal length from the apex towards the two ends. The compressive force diagram is shown as rapidly increasing at the ends. The areas near the two ends of the sleeve have much greater force than the centre, but the strain, which is defined in mechanics as the elongation divided by the initial length, are approximately the same from the apex to the ends because thicker media near the ends has greater displacement from the tilting motion and thinner media near the centre has small displacement. The moment arm is more than 3L/4 and media is equally strained in all areas. Therefore, the favored convex shaped media will execute a smooth, more stable, pitching motion to the handle. A golfer who holds the sleeve by both hands needs only, based on experience, tilt the sleeve towards a desired inclination at a desired rate of the movement of the hands. The compressed media will transmit the measured force to the handle gently and consistently. Compared to the conventional way of holding the handle directly by the hands, and forcing the handle along the length by forces transmitted through fingers, the invention reduces the complexity of force transmission and improves the control significantly. It is imperative in this application to distinguish the physical characteristics of the media suitable for a successful application to this invention. If the media are too stiff, the response of the shaft will not be too different than the prior art shaft. If the media are too soft, the response will be too slow or they may not be able to deliver the required torque. There are designs in tennis racket handles using structural foams or damping material to fill some space between a stiff sleeve and the inner handle. For some material which is compressible, such as rubber, there should be some free space at one exposed end to allow the material to move in order to produce displacement. Some material has excellent shear rigidity, such as some orthotropic plastic foam material, the connection between the holder and the shaft may be designed as spaced apart annular rings, such as shown in Fig. 6. In Figure 6, 61 are spacings between rings 62, and the tilting of the holder will force the bending of the shaft through both shear and compression of the media between them. Since putters should produce a drive force on the ball with as minimum "shock" to the ball as possible, the cushioning effect of the media with no rigid connection between the holder and the shaft would be a very valuable advantage, and perhaps a deciding one, in driving a ball straight to the hole. Orthotropic elastic material may be used for media. Some orthotropic material has great shear rigidity. Due to the large shear rigidity, the sleeve will resist twist along its longitudinal axis better then delivering bending movement for tilting handle. Some minor revisions in geometry and design are permitted which is within the scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims, as long as the principle of why the inventive holder adds to the consistency of the putter's performance is achieved.

Claims: An item of sports equipment having a shaft 5 and a handle portion at one end for manipulation by a user during playing use of the equipment, the handle portion comprising a sleeve unit 1 arranged around said end of the shaft and adapted for manual gripping by the user of the equipment, said unit including a sleeve member 2 arranged to encircle said shaft end and an elastic media element 3 arranged between said sleeve member 2, the inner surface 6 of said sleeve member 2 being adjacent to and extending along the outer surface 7 of said shaft 5 and spaced therefrom, characterised in that said sleeve member 2 has an inner surface 6 facing said elastic media element which is curved in shape, said elastic media element 3 being positioned such that manipulation of the handle during use of the item of sports equipment produces relative longitudinal rocking movement between said sleeve member 2 and said one end of the shaft. The item of sports equipment according to Claim 1 in which there is a small surface contact between an apex 8 of the curved inner surface 6 of said sleeve member 2 and the outer surface 7 of said shaft 5 providing a pivot for rocking motion between said sleeve member 2 and said shaft 5. The item of sports equipment of Claim 1 or Claim 2 wherein said sleeve member has an inner surface facing said elastic media element whose shape is such that it is convex towards the elastic media element and the apex is anywhere in the interior portion of said handle. The item of sports equipment according to Claim 3 wherein said apex is at the middle portion of the length of said sleeve member. The item of sports equipment of any of Claims 1 to 4 including a cylindrical member 4 between said elastic media element 3 and the shaft 5 of the sports equipment. The item of sports equipment of any of Claims 1 to 5 wherein the sports equipment is a golf club. The item of sports equipment of any of Claims 1 to 6 wherein the shaft 5 is at least partially hollow and said sleeve member 2 and said elastic media element 3 extend into the hollow space inside the shaft. The sports equipment of any of Claims 1 to 7 wherein said sleeve unit 1 is detachable from the shaft of the sports equipment.

Inventors: SOONG TSAI CHEN, SOONG, TSAI CHEN
Applicants: SOONG TSAI C, SOONG, TSAI CHEN
Application year: 1992
Main classification: A63B53
IPC codes: A63B53