This invention relates to a golf green and, in particular, to a golf green having a concave surface to facilitate a ball that lands and stays on the green to gravitate toward and enter the hole therein.
Golf is an extremely popular game and numerous course designs and games have been developed for golfers to use to increase their skill and practice play. One of the ways in which players develop their golf skills is by going to a driving range. Driving ranges enable a golfer to practice with a particular club or stroke over and over by hitting a multitude of balls from a single tee. It is typical for a driving range to have yardage markers so that golfers can get an indication of how far a hit ball traveled.
In addition, some golf driving ranges place golf greens in the driving field of the driving range so that golfers may try to improve their distance and accuracy by hitting onto the golf greens. One of the shortcomings with such greens is that, after many balls become deposited on the green, it is difficult for a golfer to determine whether the most recently struck ball landed on the green or not.
Other golf practice greens and targets previously known include U.S. Pat. No. 2,936,179 to Thurston. Thurston discloses a golf target having a trap receptacle including a conical flexible bag. If a golf ball lands in the trap receptacle, it travels through a spout in the bottom of the conical bag and out a conductor where it triggers a signal means that the ball was successfully received in the trap receptacle. The signal means disclosed is a flag on a staff that is raised when the trap receptacle receives a ball and it travels through the conductor.
A concentrated golf game is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,599,980 to Harmond. Harmond discloses a golf course including an enclosed area of land at one end of an elongated fairway. The enclosed area includes driving tees, ball dispensers, and putting greens. The fairway is generally dish-shaped and includes a plurality of target greens. Balls are returned to dispensers on the tees by a pneumatic system connected to cups in the putting greens and an opening at a low point of the dish-shaped fairway where balls are collected.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,917,279 to Barber discloses a golf game apparatus that includes a green having a concave recess adjacent the hole or cup. The recess has a radius of about 18 inches to 36 inches from the center of the cup so that a ball coming within the radius of the recess will tend to roll toward and enter the cup.
A compact golf course is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,726,589 to Grigas. The course is divided into a plurality of sections by intersecting covered passageways, which enable the golfer to transmit common fairway shots between greens and tees disposed around the perimeter of the course. Balls falling within the interior of the course are collected by the sections and transported to covered hitting areas accessible by the passageways. The sections include an incline surface that slopes downwardly towards a ball receiving means such that golf ball deposited within the section rolls into the receiving means and thereafter into a means for transporting the ball to the appropriate hitting area.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,846,478 to Saint-Cricq discloses a game for practicing golf, and an installation is provided that includes at least one green with a hole. A device for recovering balls from the green that are in the vicinity of the green is also provided. The installation also includes an arrangement enabling the player to evaluate the precision of his strokes and measure his skill alone or with respect to other players. The device for recovering the balls includes a rotating rake that pushes the balls into a trough.
Another compact golf course is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,112,054 to Oswald. The course includes a common putting green containing nine holes and target greens designed to automatically clear balls from the surface. The target greens are sloped and have a collection receptacle extending along a lower portion thereof where balls roll and are collected.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,219,161 to Williams discloses a golf driving range with an apparatus adapted for use as a green. The apparatus includes a self-clearing means for preventing golf balls, which land on the green surface, from remaining there. The self-clearing of golf balls is accomplished by either shaping the green surface so the balls inherently roll off the green or providing a mechanism, which raises and lowers one end of the green surface in order to clear the balls. The cup in the green includes a sensor for identifying the ball and a signal light or horn to indicate when a ball has entered the hole. The green also includes impact sensors for designating when the ball lands on the green.
A golf range method and apparatus are also disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,370,389 to Reising. The method and apparatus include greens, wherein if a player lands a ball in one of the greens, it triggers a score on the visual display that is located near the teeing area so that the player can easily see the score. Each of the greens is sloped so that a ball that lands on a green's surface will roll into a hole located at the lowest point of the surface. Each of the balls has a distinctive marking, either a color code or a bar code, so that the sensor can determine from which tee the ball was hit. The score from the player landing the ball on the green is then added to a visual display corresponding with each tee. The greens include a fabric or canvas surface and a ball ejector mechanism.
Another driving range and an automated scoring system are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,439,224 to Bertoncino. The golf range includes a series of independent targets, each of which consists of a sloped area, located at different distances. The range is equipped with a scoring system that uses a UPC code on the balls and optical scanners located in the targets so that each golfer's score can be computed and recorded. The targets include ringed sections and a cup located at a low portion of each section so that a ball landing in any particular section will automatically roll toward the cup, wherein the ball will be scanned for the UPC code.
Another golf driving range is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,569,028 to Nichols et al. The system disclosed by Nichols includes a golf target, a detection system, and a golf-ball dispensing system. The target area includes a frame and barrier netting that provides an immediate indication when the target is struck, such as by a change in illumination. The netting also includes drooping regions, wherein the balls are collected in the drooping region.
A drawback of the prior art is that the green may not have desirable landing characteristics for receiving the ball. That is, some of the greens are too hard so the ball may hit and bounce off of instead of rolling into the lower ball-receiving area or are too soft, such as the '028 patent to Nichols having a netting so that any ball landing therein is captured and will not rebound. Neither of these options is preferred, as it is desirable to have the green surface provide both some impact absorption and rebound that will enable a well-hit ball to stay on the green, yet will allow line drives or balls without proper spin to bounce off of the green. It is, therefore, one object of the present invention to provide a green having improved impact absorption and rebounding characteristics. These and other objects of the invention will become clearer in the detailed specification and attached drawings.
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