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Golf club development

The New Launcher 460 Comp driver combines the benefits of lightweight carbon fiber composite with the strength of beta titanium to create the largest, hottest, longest, straightest and best looking Cleveland driver ever.

The Launcher Comp driver is made with an ultra-lightweight tri-ply carbon fiber composite crown. This feather light section allows for the redistribution of 25 grams of weight to lower and deeper locations around the club head perimeter.

Features
• This redistribution of mass reduces center of gravity (CG) height and moves it further away from the face to produce drives with high launch and low spin from a greater percentage of the clubface. This phenomenon is known as the vertical gear effect. This same mass redistribution also allows for additional weighting to critical perimeter areas that dramatically increase moment of inertia (MOI), or the resistance to twisting on off center hits.
  
  
• Finally, argon-quenched SP700 beta-titanium is laser-welded into the face to create a hitting area that maximizes ball speed at all locations. The sum total of this technology is the largest, hottest, longest and straightest multi-material driver in golf.
  
  
• Though there are many composite drivers available today, the Launcher Comp features an award winning 460cc head shape which is currently the largest and best looking multi-material driver available on the market. Additionally, the engineers at Cleveland Golf have analyzed and optimized the impact sound to be hotter than regular titanium, and more solid than previous multi-material drivers.

It wasn't always like this.

The earliest clubs would have been fashioned by a bowmaker or other wood craftsman from a suitably selected branch of a tree, probably thornwood or beech.

On 4th April 1603 King James VI of Scotland appointed William Mayne lifetime clubmaker to the court as well as bowmaker and spearmaker.
Later clubs were made in two pieces with the shaft made from hazel or ash and the clubhead from a hardwood either beech, holly, dogwood or blackthorn. The head would be connected to the shaft either with a scarf joint or by a method known as scaring which required a deep vee to be cut into the head for the shaft to slot in. The joint would be glued and then firmly bound using twine dipped in pitch.

The poem The Goff written by Thomas Matheson in 1743 gives a clue to the materials used.

Of finest ash, Castalio's shaft was made:
Pondrous with lead and fenced with horn the head.
The work of Dickson who in Letha dwells
And in the art of making clubs excels..

Dickson was a celebrated clubmaker from Leith.
The lead provided balance and the horn or bone inserts protection against damage.

The earliest examples of clubs were found behind a false wall in Hull, England in 1889 during house renovations. The clubs were wrapped in a newspaper dated 1741 but the date of club manufacture although earlier is not known. The clubs were purchased at auction by Adam Wood, Captain of the Royal Troon Golf Club.

The great clubmakers of the day included ...