Fore to Form

Designing for sports equipment demands excellence. The sheer nature of competition drives athletes to achieve the unachievable. This obsession to improve shifts from the athlete to the designer. The continual development and availability of materials, technologies and processes makes the role of the designer more critical than ever. Though the one real opportunity for innovation lies in how the designer interprets and utilizes these technologies.  The question that this research asks is: Can the integration and synchronisation of contemporary digital tools reshape the design process of golf clubs? This investigation predominantly uses an experimental ‘research through design’ approach based on the ideas and methods derived from a number of professional design projects and theoretical design approaches.  It argues that the unique combination and application of emerging digital tools can expose a breadth of creative design opportunities for golf club design. Golf clubs, like any other sports equipment must be designed with the underlying, crucial theme of performance improvement. The term performance can be broken down into two aspects; mental (visual) and physical (functional). The criteria for these aspects changes with each individual and demands a new level of customisation.  This thesis investigates how this could be achieved and proposes innovative pathways to integrate individual performance data as form defining inputs. It also explores the potential of new digital aesthetics to enhance functional criteria yet preserving critical features of traditional club design.