Acushnet Company

Peter R Voorheis

Murali Rajagopalan

David A Bulpett

Edmund A Hebert

Shenshen Wu

Laurent C Bissonnette

Mark N Wrigley

Michael J Sullivan

Derek A Ladd

Samuel A Pasqua, Jr

Christopher Cavallaro

Ryan W Bosanko

Brian Comeau

Kevin M Harris

Mitchell E Lutz

Michael D Jordan

Golf balls including cores formed from polybutadiene reaction products having a percent change in dynamic stiffness from 0&#xb0; C. to &#x2212;50&#xb0; C. of less than 130 percent where the reaction products include a resilient polymer component, a crosslinking material, a cis-to-trans catalyst, and a free radical source. The golf balls may be formed with polyurethane covers, covers formed from castable reactive liquid materials, among other materials. The golf balls may also include an intermediate layer.

Thin-layer-covered golf ball with improved velocity

A golf ball comprising a core, an outer cover layer, and, optionally, an intermediate layer disposed between the core and the outer cover layer is provided. The core, intermediate layer, or cover layer includes a composition formed from a base polymer blend, a crosslink initiator, and at least one additive. The outer cover layer may comprise a polyurethane or polyurea composition. The base polymer blend preferably includes two or more rubber materials. The additive has at least one C&#x2014;O&#x2014;B linkage, the carbon in the linkage being a secondary or tertiary carbon and is selected from the group consisting of boranes, borates, boronates, borinates, heterocylic compounds having at least one boron atom as a ring member, boron-containing organosulfides, salts of such additives, and metal salts, organometallic salts, and non-metal salts of boron complexes.

Compositions for use in golf balls

The present invention is directed to resilient golf balls and portions thereof including compositions containing zinc dimethacrylate and zinc pentachlorothiophenol, and methods for making same. In particular, the present invention is directed to a golf ball having at least one of a center, cover, or intermediate layer that includes a reaction product that includes a resilient polymer component, a free radical source, zinc dimethacrylate and at least one halogenated organosulfur compound having the following general formula I: 

High CoR golf ball using zinc dimethacrylate

Golf ball compositions including novel processing aids, e.g., metal salts of unsaturated fatty acids, high styrene resins, transpolyisoprene, and transpolybutadiene, for inclusion in rubber-based compositions that reduce safety risks, mixer down time, increase dispersion of the ingredients during processing, and increase component COR over that of a component formed with a conventional processing aid.

Golf ball core compositions

Golf balls including centers formed from polybutadiene reaction products having a percent change in dynamic stiffness from 0&#xb0; C. to &#x2212;50&#xb0; C. of less than 130 percent where the reaction products include a resilient polymer component, a crosslinking material, a cis-to-trans catalyst, and a free radical source. The golf balls may be formed with polyurethane covers, covers formed from castable reactive liquid materials, among other materials. The golf balls may also include an intermediate layer.

A perimeter weighted golf ball with a low compression core is provided. The core preferably comprises a diene polymer that has low cross-link density or not cross-linked with a reactive co-agent. This core has low compression and low specific gravity. The low specific gravity core is encased within a thin dense layer positioned outside of the centroid radius to provide the ball with a high moment of inertia. The same core can be encased within a plurality of intermediate layers having either increasing hardness or decreasing hardness to provide selective golf balls for either low swing speed players or advanced players. Alternatively, a thin layer of diene polymer highly cross-linked with reactive a co-agent may be incorporated into the ball to increase the hardness of the ball.

Perimeter weighted golf ball

A golf ball including a core and at least one layer disposed about the core, wherein the core or the layer includes a composition formed from a base polymer, a crosslink initiator, and at least one additive. The additive has at least one C&#x2014;O&#x2014;B linkage, the carbon in the linkage being a secondary or tertiary carbon. The additive is also selected from the group consisting of boranes, borates, boronates, borinates, heterocylic compounds having at least one boron atom as a ring member, boron-containing organosulfides, sulfur-containing silicocompounds, salts of such additives, and metal salts, organometallic salts, and non-metal salts of boron complexes.

A golf ball comprising a core, an outer cover layer, and, optionally, an intermediate layer disposed between the core and the outer cover layer is presently disclosed. At least one layer of the golf ball is formed from a composition free of cystine and comprising at least one additive selected from the group consisting of aliphatic amino acids other than cystine, aromatic amino acids, halogenated amino acids, and amides thereof, peptides thereof, conjugates thereof, esters thereof, salts thereof, and isomers thereof having amine and acid groups. The outer cover layer may comprise a polyurethane or polyurea composition. At least one portion of the golf ball comprises a composition that enhances physical properties and/or performance characteristics (e.g., coefficient of restitution) of the golf ball. Preferably, the coefficient of restitution of the core is 0.8 or greater.

The present invention is directed to golf balls having at least one layer formed from a rubber composition comprising a base rubber and from 5 to 100 parts of an oily substance, by weight per 100 parts of the base rubber. The rubber composition may be present in any one or more of a core layer, a cover layer, or an intermediate layer.

Rubber compositions comprising high levels of oily substance and the use thereof in golf balls

A golf ball comprising a center comprising a polybutadiene having a molecular weight of greater than 200,000 and a resilience index of at least about 40; and a cover layer comprising a polyurethane composition formed from a prepolymer having no greater than 7.5 percent by weight unreacted isocyanate groups.

Growing community of inventors

New Bedford, MA, United States of America

Peter R Voorheis