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Liquid Golf

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19/04/2007

Published in the July 1998 issue.

There's only one easy way to drop five to eight strokes off your golf score--skip the last hole. But even in friendly games, that's not an option. As a result, golfers continue to fall for two of the biggest marketing scams around. The first is the "No-Matter-What-You're-Doing-It's-Wrong" instructional video (usually hosted by some paunchy guy you've never heard of). The second is the purported technological advancement that's actually a useless gizmo dreamt up by some crackpot who bought a home shop instead of a lottery ticket.

Liquidmetal golf clubs are made from a proprietary alloy that seems to defy the laws of atomic structure.
There's only one easy way to drop five to eight strokes off your golf score--skip the last hole. But even in friendly games, that's not an option. As a result, golfers continue to fall for two of the biggest marketing scams around. The first is the "No-Matter-What-You're-Doing-It's-Wrong" instructional video (usually hosted by some paunchy guy you've never heard of). The second is the purported technological advancement that's actually a useless gizmo dreamt up by some crackpot who bought a home shop instead of a lottery ticket.

Despite this, actual technological breakthroughs do occur. (Just as I'm sure there are some good videos, although I've never seen one that did anything but confuse me.) The latest such development could turn your oversize titanium heads into techno-dinosaurs on par with the floppy disk--it can still run some software but it's overmatched when it's time to download the big files.

The technology is a proprietary alloy called Liquidmetal that's used to make club heads. It has twice the strength-to-weight ratio of titanium and three times that of stainless steel. It transfers 40% to 50% more energy to the ball. It's almost corrosion free. And it seems to defy the laws of atomic structure.

The difference in terms of actual play, according to Liquidmetal Golf, the Laguna Niguel, Calif., company that makes the stuff, is longer, more delicately controlled shots with less vibration and more feel. As the French say, vive la difference, which loosely translated into golf-speak means, grip it and rip it.

Click to enlarge
The chart at left shows that Liquidmetal is as strong as steel while less dense. At right, Liquidmetal outstrips both steel and titanium in elasticity.

Catch The Wave

Liquidmetal isn't like most metals. It's so different, in fact, that it's categorized as a metallic glass. Conventional metals have a crystalline structure, which means the atoms arrange themselves in recurring patterns. The atoms in Liquidmetal are arranged randomly. Such "amorphous" structure is more typical of metal in a liquid state (hence the name) and accounts for the alloy's unique properties.

One of the more impressive of those properties is the ability to transfer energy. When you strike a golf ball, all of the energy of your swing is not transferred into the ball. Some is converted to heat, some to sound and some is absorbed by the club. A steel head transfers about 60% of the club's energy, while titanium comes in at about 70%. According to Liquidmetal Golf, its new alloy produces 99% energy transmission--a result of its amorphous structure.

Further, Liquidmetal's density is somewhere between titanium's and steel's, so while it's not as light as titanium, it's lighter than steel. It also has lower vibrational response than either titanium or steel, which means it produces less shock and feels solid on impact.

"We don't make any distance claims," says production manager Daryl White. "We expect that people will be satisfied with the combination of distance, accuracy and feel. But we don't expect anyone to take our word for it. People need to try the clubs. The proof is in the pudding."

Wet 'N' Wild

The amorphous structure is a result of the manufacturing process. A patent-protected combination of nickel, zirconium, titanium, copper and beryllium is heated into liquid form and mixed. Then they're cooled very quickly, from about 1500 degrees F to room temperature in 5 seconds. That's 100 times faster than other metals are cooled, and it causes the molecules to harden randomly, rather than crystallizing into a pattern.

The stuff was originally formulated in 1959 by California Institute of Technology scientists trying to develop materials for aerospace applications. But they could only produce the alloy in very thin strips. If they made it any thicker, it wouldn't cool fast enough.

In 1993, Professor William Johnson and Dr. Atakan Peker, also working out of the California Institute of Technology, discovered a way to compose the alloy that would allow it to cool more slowly, yet still develop the amorphous structure. The new composition allowed them to make plates. Last year, Mizuno and Maruman used the plates to produce lines of Liquidmetal golf clubs in Japan.

Now, Liquidmetal Golf has found a way to force-form the material into 3D objects. In its molten form, the alloy is vacuum-fed into a mold. To ensure that it takes the proper shape as it cools, the alloy is kept under such high pressure that it requires an 8000-pound steel mold to withstand the force.

While costly and time-consuming, this new technique has allowed Liquidmetal Golf to produce its own line of clubs. The putters arrived this spring. Two lines of irons, Limited and Premium, came out in June, and the woods are slated for fall.

But Liquidmetal realizes that great clubs are more than just good heads, so its USGA-approved clubs can be custom-ordered. There are both steel and graphite shafts, and a variety of shaft flexes and grip sizes. The only thing the company can't change is the lie angle: Like titanium, Liquidmetal is just too hard to bend. But, as usual, comfort and technology come at a price.

The putters are $400 apiece. The Limited irons go for $2695 for a set of eight, while the Premiums are $2995. (The woods hadn't been priced at press time.) Your handicap isn't the only thing a set of Liquidmetal clubs will reduce.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/outdoors/sports/1283186.html

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