A golf club includes a shaft, a grip, and a club head. The shaft is coupled to the grip and to the club head. The club head includes a substantially rigid shell, a club face, and a contact area. The substantially rigid shell includes a conventional shape that has a toe area, a heel area, a sole area, a top area, and a back area. The club face is mechanically coupled to the substantially rigid shell to provide a face of the club head. The contact area is within the substantially rigid shell and positioned proximal to the club face. The contact area includes a plurality of force-focusing layers that functions to concentrate impact forces of the club head towards an area on the club face that makes contact with a golf ball during contact with the golf ball.

Golf club heads are provided for selectively increasing or optimizing the coefficient of restitution (COR) at likely impact locations on the striking face of the golf club heads, while simultaneously maintaining characteristic time (CT) below a threshold value in those likely impact locations. By analyzing historical impact locations of a large cross-section of golfers, golf club head COR values can be increased or optimized in preferential locations on the striking face, such as using weighting factors for a predefined set of locations on the striking face. Therefore, instead of increasing COR uniformly across the face and/or increasing COR at impact locations on the face where golfers are unlikely to strike the golf ball, the sweet spot of the golf club head can be increased at the impact locations where golfers typically strike the golf ball.

A golf club with a multi-material face is disclosed herein. More specifically, the golf club head in accordance with the present invention has a striking face portion that is backed by a composite layer. The multi-material face disclosed in accordance with the present invention may generally be manufactured via a bladder molding process that applies hydrostatic forces to the composite layer to create a more consistent bond between the composite material and the metallic material.

A golf club head includes a front body and a rear body coupled to the front body to define a hollow cavity therebetween. The front body includes a strike face that defines a ball striking surface, a hosel, and a frame that at least partially surrounds the strikeface and extends rearward from a perimeter of the strikeface away from the ball striking surface. The strike face and frame are formed from a thermoplastic composite comprising a thermoplastic polymer having a plurality of discontinuous fibers embedded therein. Each of the plurality of discontinuous fibers have a length between about 0.01 mm and 3 mm. In some embodiments, the thermoplastic composite is 30% to 70% fibers by volume.

Golf clubs heads having a forward portion located at a front side of the golf club head and an aft portion located rearward of the forward portion and joined to the forward portion. The front portion incudes a forward joint section and the aft portion includes an aft joint section. The aft portion also includes an aft rib attached to an interior surface of the aft portion, the aft rib extends, from an interior surface of the aft joint section, in a direction away from the striking face. The golf club head may also include a crown the crown having an areal density of less than 1000 g/m.sup.2 and made from a structure comprising an inner layer, a middle layer in contact with the inner layer, and an outer layer in contact with the middle layer.

A golf club with a multi-material face is disclosed herein. More specifically, the golf club head in accordance with the present invention has a multi-material striking face portion that is made out of a backing layer having a frontal pocket, made out of titanium, and an insert, made out of a composite material, adapted to be inserted into the frontal pocket. The frontal pocket and the insert could have complementary dovetail shaped undercut features to create a mechanical bond between these two components.

A golf club with a multi-material face is disclosed herein. More specifically, the golf club head in accordance with the present invention has a multi-material striking face portion that is made out of a backing layer having a frontal pocket, made out of titanium, and an insert, made out of a composite material, adapted to be inserted into the frontal pocket. The frontal pocket and the insert could have complementary dovetail shaped undercut features to create a mechanical bond between these two components.

Putter type club head with vertical groove patterns are described herein. A putter type club head comprises a putter face having a plurality of first curved grooves and a plurality of second curved grooves. The first curved grooves and the second curved grooves extend in a general vertical direction, and intersect each other at a plurality of points across the putter face. The width and depth of the first curved grooves and the second curved grooves can vary across the putter face in a direction extending from a heel end to a toe end, and/or in a direction extending from a top rail to a sole. The vertical groove pattern provides consistent ball speed performance for any impact location on the putter face.

Disclosed herein is a driver-type golf club head that is made from at least one first material, having a density between 0.9 g/cc and 3.5 g/cc, at least one second material, having a density between 3.6 g/cc and 5.5 g/cc, and at least one third material, having a density between 5.6 g/cc and 20.0 g/cc. The first material has a first mass no more than 55% and no less than 25% of the total mass of the golf club head. The second material has a second mass no more than 65% and no less than 20% of the total mass of the golf club head. The third material has a third mass equal to the total mass of the golf club head less the first mass of the first material and the second mass of the second material.

Disclosed herein is a driver-type golf club head that has a strike face. The strike face has a central region, defined by a 40 mm by 20 mm rectangular area centered on a geometric center of the strike face and elongated in a heel-to-toe direction. The driver-type golf club head is configured such that after 500 impacts of a standard golf ball at the geometric center of the strike face, where at each impact the standard golf ball has a velocity of 52 meters per second, the CT of the strike face at any point within the central region is less than 256 microseconds and the CT at the geometric center of the strike face is no more than five microseconds different than the initial CT value.