Nike Working on Glueless Shaft Adapter

Other than about two-hundred or so golf ball related patents from Titleist (The #1 Ball in Golf), there hasn’t been a whole lot of particularly exciting intellectual property made public of late, but a Nike filing recently made public did catch my eye, if only for the infinite practicality of it.

It seems the team at The Oven is cooking up a new design for an adjustable hosel that requires no epoxy, glue, etc.. It’s totally dry-bonded.

Here’s Nike’s Take on the Need for the Invention:

How it Works

I’ll include a snippet of the relevant patentease below, but effectively what we’re talking about is a compression fitting of sorts. That shaft is inserted into an adapter. A securing ring/structure slides over the primary adapter, and all of that gets further secured when its inserted into the head. In theory, everything locks into place nicely and tightly, and then comes apart just as easily when you want to swap shafts, realign your graphics, SST Pure, or whatever the hell else you do with your golf shafts.

When you’re done messing around, you’re left with a 100% reusable adapter. No heat, no melted plastic, no pulling.

It’s pretty much the obsessive shaft guy’s dream.

If all of that’s a little too clear for you, here’s how Nike’s patent attorneys summarized the invention:

Got it?

The Limitation

The one glaring limitation here is that any new adapter born of this patent would be exclusive to Nike, so unless you’re a Nike guy you’ll need to keep your heatgun at the ready…at least for now. And yeah…there could be some weight/bulk issues that come with this sleeve within a sleeve within a sleeve design.

The potential upside is that, for better or worse, the golf industry is notoriously good at finding its way around other company’s patents (or doing a little horsetrading to leverage somebody else’s tech), so either way, its probably only a matter of time before the epoxy-less adapter goes mainstream.

For now, the Club Conex UNI-FIT system is as close to universal as it gets, but imagine the possibilities for the recreational gearhead (and fitters too). One adapter for every manufacturer’s head in your personal inventory…mix and match to whatever degree your dictates.

Here’s hoping this happens.