HP : This 3D Printed Putter is Packed with Forgiveness ‐ And The Promise of a New Future for Golfers

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Press Blogs This 3D Printed Putter is Packed with Forgiveness - And The Promise of a New Future for Golfers

November 17, 2020

On the first green, Chad DeHart reached into his golf bag and grabbed his new secret weapon. At first, his buddies were just curious. Despite its traditional lines and popular blade style, they had never seen a putter quite like it.

After tapping in for birdie at Bear Creek Golf Club in the Southern California foothills, his three playing partners peppered him with questions: 'What is that?' 'Where did you get it?' Inside the back of the 3D-printed club head, a novel structure helped DeHart roll his putts precisely where he wanted.

On the third green, DeHart stood over a 12-footer for birdie and gently knocked it home. Now, his friends asked to try the putter for themselves and demanded to know: 'When is this coming out?'

'They're not real happy with me since I switched to it-I don't think anybody likes to lose,' DeHart, a two-handicap golfer, says with a smile. 'With this putter, your confidence goes through the roof. You feel like you can make almost anything.'

HP Metal Jet technology enabled the design and manufacturing of a first-of-its-kind putter from Cobra Golf.

And to answer his friends' questions: The KING Supersport-35-a limited edition putter-was printed with HP Metal Jet technology and designed by Cobra Golf, a Carlsbad, California, golf manufacturer where DeHart is the manager of product and innovation.

Its makers believe the 3D printing technique that powered the putter to market may unleash a new era for the sport, building on the rapid shift toward product personalization now transforming sectors from health and wellness to retail and entertainment.

'The dreamy stuff from a consumer standpoint is to make heads specific to the needs of one player,' says Mike Yagley, Cobra Golf's vice president of innovation and AI. 'It could be the weight of the head, loft, lie or even center of gravity location.

'This is definitely the future of our sport,' DeHart says.

But, right now, today, what makes the Supersport-35 unique is the weight distribution in the putter's head, particularly its center of gravity.

Those elements, enhanced for the first time with Metal Jet printing, offer a more-balanced swing and a more stable feel when the putter's soft, aluminum face kisses the ball, according to golfers who have tested it in play.

As a result, the Supersport-35 produces more-repeatable putts-or what golfers lovingly call 'forgiveness,' says Ryan Roach, senior principal innovation engineer at Cobra Golf.

'If you miss hit the putt on the heel or toe, you still want the putt to perform like you hit it on the sweet spot,' Roach says.

Here, the warm art of putting meets the cold science of physics. To create the club's steady touch, Cobra Golf designed and printed an array of lattice beams, resting in the center of the putter's head, opposite the face.

With 3D printing technology, Cobra was able to design a complex lattice structure that other techniques could not achieve.

The spaces within the latticework allowed the team to shift material usually residing in the center of a putter's head out to its toe and heel.

'The new weight distribution helps keep the putter face from twisting on off-center shots producing truer putts and reliable distance,' Yagley says.

'I rolled in a lot of putts in with it, which is probably the number one thing for the golfer,' says Yagley, an aerospace engineer who trialed the Supersport-35 a few times at his local golf course.

'Metal Jet has given us the ability to make those complicated shapes, including the lattice,' adds Roach, whose background is in structural engineering.

With HP's Metal Jet solution, printers place up to 630 million nanogram-sized drops per second of a liquid binding agent onto a powder bed, forming a part, layer by layer. The water-based liquid is made with a polymer that binds metal particles together during printing. The powder bed is then cured or heated, leaving a solid, high-strength part.

With 3D printing technology, Cobra was able to design a complex lattice structure that other techniques could not achieve.

For players and equipment makers alike, that technology is fueling a rare leap in club design, Roach says.

A century ago, the metal heads on putters and irons were made through forging-heating a piece of iron in a furnace then manually shaping it, usually with a hammer. That process produced 'clubs that are just hunks of metal on a stick,' Roach says.

The 1970s saw a rise in clubs made with casting, where molten metal is poured into pre-formed molds. Casting brought more design freedom, like the ability to shift weight in the head, but complex, geometric patterns (like a lattice) were still largely unachievable, Roach says.

Today, many putters on the market are fashioned through a process that uses computers to control machining tools to shave away material from a metal block. That can produce a precise shape, but there are limits on machinable structures. According to Roach, 'you can't machine away areas that you can't reach.'

'Metal Jet allows us to move grain-by-grain, printing metal material exactly where we need it,' says Cameron Day, a principal innovation designer at Cobra Golf and lead architect of the Supersport-35.

Professional golfer and long-time Cobra ambassador Bryson DeChambeau also sees the benefits of the technology. 'HP's Metal Jet technology is an incredibly advanced production method and very exacting, which is pretty critical in golf equipment,' says DeChambeau. 'I think golfers of all levels will benefit from the combination of Cobra's design and the technology.'

The 3D technology also helped Cobra Golf get to market far faster than usual. In fact, it accelerated the innovation, design, development and manufacturing process at every turn, Yagley says.

Cobra engineers cite faster iteration cycles as one of the many benefits 3D brought to the table with the KING Supersport-35.

For example, relying on the Metal Jet process meant speedier iterations during the design phase, Yagley says. And there were no rough prototypes generated, no mock-up models to hand to a development engineer with instructions to go get it made.

'There's no other way to make this putter, given how it's designed and attributes this has,' Yagley says.

'And the cost has come down to the point where we could actually mass produce these. Does the cost of it compete with conventional putter-head manufacturing processes? Not quite yet,' Yagley adds. 'But is it practical? Can we manufacture it, provide great performance and afford to sell it? Yes.'

To test the Supersport-35, Cobra Golf needed only to send out an internal email-or basically holler down the office hallway.

The staff is brimming with excellent golfers, and each have strong opinions on the products they use on their local courses.

'These are the kind of guys who can instantly look at a club and say, 'Yes,' or 'No' or 'Change this,'' Yagley says. 'They'll give you great feedback.'

That included employees like DeHart, who posted a 75, three over par, during his first time out with the putter. And that outing wasn't at a hazard-free, municipal course. The greens at Bear Creek were designed by the legendary golfer Jack Nicklaus.

The world's first mass-produced 3D printed putter will be available in a limited run beginning in November.

'In the eight- to 10-foot range (on the green), it feels like I'm automatic,' DeHart says.

And while the testers at Cobra Golf are typically good enough to be chasing birdies, the putter is truly made for the masses, said its lead designer, Day.

'Everybody wants to be a scratch golfer,' Day says. In making all of its equipment, 'Cobra considers the 25-handicapper more than the rest of the companies do. Golf is such an aspirational sport. We try to cram technology into those clubs to help everybody.'

This is Cobra's first foray into 3D printing, but it won't be the last. 'We're breaking new ground with this technology and how we're designing these clubs,' says Roach. He and the team envision a new era of golf, where the sport's expansive legacy is propelled by modern advancements that allow them to quickly design and develop products with unprecedented levels of customization. 'The end result, hopefully, will be some dramatic improvements in performance that every golfer will be able to have at their fingertips.'

Media Contacts

Chad Mack
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