Golf ball

• US 5,332,226 A
• Filed: 12/14/1992
• Issued: 07/26/1994
• Est. Priority Date: 04/21/1992
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: POSE
• Original Assignee: Kumho & Company Incorporated
• Inventors: Kim, Chun-Sik
• Primary Examiner(s): Marlo, George J.
• Application Number:
  US07/990,258
• Time in Patent Office: 589 Days
• Field of Search: 273/232
• US Class Current: 473/384
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 37/0004 Surface depressions or protrusions
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 37/00065 located around the pole or the equator
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 37/0017 Specified total dimple volume
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 37/0018 Specified number of dimples

Abstract

A golf ball has a spherical body having a mold parting line at the equator thereof by which the body is divided into a top half sphere and a bottom half sphere of equal dimensions, the molded partition line having no dimples thereon; an axis passing through the center of the plane which is defined by the mold parting line, the axis defining two poles at the intersection thereof with each of the half spheres, and being perpendicular to the plane; a first set of four identical spherical regular triangles and six identical spherical right triangles distributed over the surface of the top half-sphere, and serving as a constraining pattern for dimple distribution; a second set of four identical spherical regular triangles and six identical spherical right triangles distributed over the surface of the bottom half sphere and serving as a constraining pattern for dimple distribution, said second set of spherical triangles being a mirror image of the first set of spherical triangles but rotated by 60 degrees centering around said axis; and a series of dimples whose configuration being determined so as to fit in said constraining patterns, at least one of said configurations being determined to exhibit optimum performance with a tailwind, one being determined to exhibit optimum performance into a headwind, one being determined to exhibit optimum performance under no wind and other configurations being determined to exhibit optimum performance under low altitude, high altitude, low temperature, and high temperature conditions, respectively.

Claims

1. A golf ball comprising:

a spherical body having a mold parting line at the equator thereof by which said body is divided into a top half sphere and a bottom half sphere of equal dimensions, said molded partition line having no dimples thereon;

an axis passing through the center of the plane which is defined by said mold parting line, said axis defining two poles at the intersection thereof with each of aid half spheres, and being perpendicular to the plane;

a first set of four identical spherical regular triangles and six identical spherical right triangles distributed over the surface of the top half-sphere, and serving as a constraining pattern for dimple distribution;

a second set of four identical spherical regular triangles and six identical spherical right triangles distributed over the surface of the bottom half sphere and serving as a constraining pattern for dimple distribution, said second set of spherical triangles being a mirror image of the first set of spherical triangles but rotated by 60 degrees centering around said axis; and

a series of dimples whose configuration being determined so as to fit in said constraining patterns, at least one of said configurations being determined to exhibit optimum performance with a tailwind, one being determined to exhibit optimum performance into a headwind, one being determined to exhibit optimum performance under no wind and other configurations being determined to exhibit optimum performance under low altitude, high altitude, low temperature, and high temperature conditions, respectively.

2. The gold ball as defined in claim 1 wherein, for each half sphere, one spherical regular triangles is so centrally located that the center thereof lies at the pole and the remaining three spherical regular triangles are located around said one regular triangle in such a way that each remaining spherical regular triangle shares a different side of the three sides of the triangle (A), and the six spherical right triangles are so located as to have the hypotenuses thereof in common with the side of said three remaining triangles, respectively.

3. The golf ball as defined in claim 2 wherein the arrangement of spherical polygons and distribution of dimples are as depicted in FIG. 7, and wherein the size and quantity of the dimples are as follows:

space="preserve" listing-type="tabular">______________________________________ No. DIMPLE DIA QTY ______________________________________ 1 .125 44 2 .135 124 3 .140 126 4 .145 34 5 .150 18 6 .155 82 ______________________________________

4. The golf ball as defined in claim 3 wherein the volumes of the dimples on the ball are slightly different for each of the different conditions which are being optimized, but the total volume of the dimples is in the range of 0.02 to 0.026 cubic inches if the volume is measured from a chord across the top of the dimple.

5. The golf ball as defined in claim 1 the total number of dimples distributed on the surface of the ball is 428.