SWEPT AWAY

This picture describes our aerodynamic wind tunnel experiments set-up, conducted at Cranfield University for our aerofoil hosel golf club head in 2005 / 06.

Our wind tunnel model is in black in the centre of the picture, mounted to an aero balance cradle between the mouths of the wind tunnel. If you look very closely at the metallic golf shaft, you can see the leading edge of our aerofoil hosel below follows the same forward angle of the golf shaft. For wind tunnel testing only a short section of the lower part of the golf shaft is modelled.

The hosel is the part of the club head where the lower part of the golf shaft intersects with the top surface of the golf club head. A standard hosel is circular.

Golf shafts use a forward angle to make sure the golfers hands are positioned forward of the striking face of the club head. When you surround the lower part of the circular golf shaft with an aerofoil hosel which follows the forward angle of the golf shaft this results in the leading top point of the hosel being further forward than the bottom point of the hosel.

Callaway Golf describes this as a ‘swept hosel’. And this really is the crucial point according to Callaway.

At the time Callaway supplied a wind tunnel model of their standard ‘driver’ to enable us to conduct direct comparison tests with our aero club head model. In return I offered Callaway full access to our data and test results.

Unfortunately for Callaway, Golf Refugees were the first golf company to design, build, test and prove the advantage in terms of increased aerodynamic efficiency of an aerofoil hosel for a golf club head, which follows the natural forward angel of the golf shaft.

We have just sent to Callaway’s IP Counsel close-up pictures of our aerofoil hosel showing the forward position of the top leading edge in relation to the bottom edge and the rest of the golf club head.

This acts as prior art and provides evidence that Golf Refugees tested and published several years before Callaway's 'new' 2012 concept of a 'swept hosel'.

http://www.golf-refugees.com >>
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