Putter aficionados will be well aware of putter designer Guerin Rife.
Twenty years ago Rife began designing putters under his own name with closely spaced grooves milled into the face of the putter to aid a smooth roll at impact, an idea that many golf manufacturers now incorporate into their own technology.
In 2016 Rife brought his next generation Evnroll putters to the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando promising golfers an even better roll thanks to what he calls 'The Sweetest Face in Golf'.
Glad to be back, Rife is excited by this new face desgin:
This is by far the most exciting technology I have ever brought to market. Our unique progressive mill pattern not only broadens the sweetspot across the entire contact area, but also gently gears the ball back to the target line to ensure even heel and toe putts roll online and virtuallly the same distance as centre hits.
In development for 5 years the Evnroll design addresses a problem with closely spaced grooved faced putters. Although they create a superior roll they also soften impact becuase of less contact points, meaning the ball doesn't travel as far. Tests show that a ball hit in the centre of a non-grooved putter travel 25 feet whereas from the same putter with grooves it only travel 23.5 ft.
This problem is exacerbated on off centre strikes which travel up to an inch off line and a further 5% shorter resulting in a lot of missed putts.
Rife addresses this in the Evnroll putters with a milling pattern that imparts progressively more energy transfer through more surface area contact as you move away from the centre of the putter, effectively widening the sweetspot to ensure a consistency in distance right across the face.
The milling pattern also exerts a gearing effect on the ball that brings the ball back to the centre meaning straighter putts with better distance control. In short more putts holed and happier golfers.
The putters also feature LineAline technology where two small unpainted dots sit on the topline of the putter 1/8 inch either side of the centre sightline. This provides a subtle alignment reference for consistent lie angle positioning as well as helping on breaking putts.
Rife says that aligning the ball in front of the toe-side dot on right-to-left putts and in front of the heel-side dot on left-to-right putts will help keep the ball travelling on the high side of the target line as 90% of breaking putts are missed below the hole.
The Evnroll putters come in four head designs. The ER1 and ER2 are classic heel-and-toe weighted blades with the ER5 Hatchback and ER6 iRoll mallet designs.
The latter putter stands out with a distinctive red finish and deep centre weights. All of the putters are weighted to complement the specific length of shaft which are available 33, 34 and 35 inch lengths.