Some of you are learning about Evnroll putters for the first time today.
I know that statement will seem outlandish to those familiar with the Evnroll brand. You must remember there was a time when you, too, first learned about Evnroll as well.
For something to become familiar, first it must be new.
An Evnroll putter just captured the 2024 Most Wanted blade award. Perhaps that win was the first time you heard of Evnroll and you don’t know it was the latest of many Most Wanted victories.
Today, I want to share some of the interesting tidbits about Evnroll, allowing those of you who are seeing the sweetest face in golf for the first time to catch up with the rest of the class.
Once you know a little more about the Evnroll brand, you will quickly understand why the current Most Wanted victory was nothing even close to a fluke.
To spice up things a bit today, I’ve peppered a bit of Q&A with Guerin Rife himself thorough out the article today. Bon Appetit!
Point 1: Evnroll Putters are Designed By Guerin Rife
As soon as you flip over an Evnroll putter, you will see a notation that says “Designed by Guerin Rife.” Though, again, it seems improbable, I bet some of you out there do not know who Guerin Rife is.
The short story is Guerin Rife has been designing putters for decades. He’s a big deal when we talk about advances in putter technologies over the past 30 years.
I suspect your level of familiarity with his name likely corresponds to your age.
Those of us of a certain vintage know the Rife name from the Rife putter line that had a significant presence on the PGA Tour and in golf shops in the 2000s. His work in golf predates those but that is when the Rife name was part of the golf vernacular.
If you were into golf in those years, you were familiar with the top rails on the Rife 2 Bar, probably tried out or owned a Rife Barbados, and wished you could putt with a Rife Bimini.
Rife putters and their Roll Grooves were some of the hottest putters in golf but they faded out of existence when Guerin sold the company in 2009.
Though his association with the Rife brand was finished, Guerin Rife was not finished making putters.
If you are interested in a longer version of Guerin Rife’s groove origin story, watch this fascinating interview with MGS head honcho Adam Beach.
Question for Guerin 1: Who is Evnroll now?
The Company is still about performance driven, 100% US milled putters. But with 8 years behind us we have to be more about maintaining and growing our customer base. I use the term “beauty with brains” to best describe how we differ from our competitors. Evnroll was founded around our face technology that produces even ball speeds across the hitting area and instant forward roll. Our tagline is “Nothing rolls like and Evnroll.” Over the past few years we wandered away from that that simple focus. We were letting the tale wag the dog. Now we are back to ROLL. That’s what putters do and we humbly think nobody does it better. Helping golfers of all skill levels roll a golf ball the right distance, more accurately and more consistently is our mission.
Point 2: The Evnroll Story is Groovy
Although Guerin Rife continued to make putters after the company was sold, his works didn’t really return to the general golfing public until Evnroll putters launched in 2016.
When Evnroll launched, the story was all about one thing: New Grooves.
While grooves were also the story with Rife Golf, the Evnroll grooves were different. Not only did these grooves promote forward roll but they also corrected for distance and direction.
That’s right. Distance AND direction.
It’s one thing to have the face grooves on a putter to correct for distance loss when the center of the putter is missed. Other companies have groove patterns that claim to do that as well.
(In all likelihood, they should send a thank-you card to Guerin for the inspiration.)
Correcting a putt for path is a whole different kettle of kittens.
Evnroll’s SweetFace
Technology grooves do just that. They redirect errant putts back toward the target line. Obviously, there is a limit to this tech. If you aim wrong, or put a really bad swing on the ball, no tech on the planet is going to fix that.
Simply put, Evnroll grooves turn little misses into makes. Evnroll even went as far as to say their grooves caused their putters to have “zero ball dispersion.”
Could it possibly be true that grooves on the face of a putter could have that much influence on performance?
(Spoiler Alert: They can.)
Once again, for the long story about the development of the Evnroll grooves, watch Part 2 of Adam’s chat with Guerin.
Question for Guerin 2: What’s changed since part of the brand was sold to Creatz?
Due to a 50/50 ownership structure prior to the acquisition by Creatz/Uneekor, my previous partner and I did not agree on our product line direction. This created a watered-down approach to innovation. Creatz acquired 70% of Evnroll. With the remaining 30% I have remained the CEO and am totally responsible for growing the brand. We have upgraded our eCommerce and direct-to-consumer business. We’ve hired a digital marketing person and a worldwide marketing director. This has ramped up our social media initiatives. We’ve been off the Tour since before Covid. With our partnership with Uneekor and their cutting edge golf simulator technology we are budgeting to launch a multi-tour endorsement initiative.
Point 3: Evnroll Putters Crush the Most Wanted Competition
In many ways, MyGolfSpy’s Most Wanted testing is a way for companies to showcase how their new technologies stack up against their competitor’s technologies. Real golfers test real products to see which ones are the best of the best.
This was the perfect opportunity to see if Evnroll’s SweetFace could deliver on its promises. If a putter actually corrects for distance and dispersion, it should do very well.
It did very well.
In 2017, an Evnroll ER2 was crowned the Most Wanted Blade putter. Soon thereafter, the Evnroll ER7 earned the 2017 Most Wanted Mallet title. Not all models fared as well as these two but there was no denying these Evnroll models were best of class.
The ER3 blade won in 2018. The Evnroll ER8 Tour Mallet was the Most Wanted Mallet that year as well. Winning both awards in back-to-back years was unprecedented.
The Evnroll ER2 won again in 2020.
Ranking was not as high for Evnroll putters in the following years. Evnroll had a bit of a hardware hiatus post-2020.
About a month ago, the Evnroll NEO Classic ER2 won the Most Wanted blade award for 2024.
Remember, all of the big putter names are in these competitions. BIg companies with way deeper R&D pockets than Evnroll. Yet Evnroll keeps winning titles.
Seems like Guerin may in fact know a thing or two about groove tech.
Question for Guerin 3: How can Evnroll compete with the big companies like Odyssey, Scotty Cameron, TaylorMade, and PING?
Since launching Evnroll we have never considered competing with the four big OEMs. We are happy to be a trusted brand that has its focus on performance and innovation. We’ve been called “the nerd’s putter.” That’s a compliment in my book. We don’t have to be the biggest. We just have to be the best.
Point 4: Evnroll Putters Evolve
You’ll notice that the Evnroll 2 that won back in 2017 and the one that won this year are not identical putters. I see Guerin Rife as a tinkerer. He has developed something truly special with his SweetFace grooves but that does not mean he is not working to improve things.
Not even the grooves are safe from Guerin’s tinkering.
Remember, the NEO Classic ER2 that won has a whole new face design. Somehow, switching from a milled face to a milled insert over polymer made the putter even better.
Evnroll is willing to try new things.
For example, last year’s V-Series mallet line was a massive undertaking. Each mallet could be configured for color, weight and neck. All components were easily swappable, allowing the consumer to dial in one perfect design or swap parts in and out as needed.
Producing such a line likely took a great deal of work. Was the line a success? That’s hard to gauge. I don’t know sales numbers. Maybe they did well or maybe there were just too many choices for the consumer.
What I do know is that the fact that Guerin developed such a complex line speaks to his commitment to putter building. He’s not content just cranking the ER2 out over and over again.
Some of his designs are out there (looking at you 10K) but grooves on the face of a putter was once considered out there as well. Oddities that work quickly become commonplace.
His continued quest to build a better putter means the golf consumer continues to get better and better putters.
Question for Guerin 4: Why is the Evnroll groove tech still such a differentiator in the marketplace?
The short answer is, it works. When we first came on the scene and gained the unprecedented recognition from MyGolfSpy, four other putter brands “borrowed” our patented progressive mill pattern. Our SweetFace Technology is demonstrable physics. I invented closely spaced groove on putters in the mid 90s and know that less contact surface hitting the ball means less energy transfer. As the name implies Evnroll produces even ball speeds across the hitting area. Real physics. Real results.
Point 5: Evnroll is Not Done Yet
This is a big year for Evnroll. As I mentioned, the Evnroll NEO Classic ER2 was the 2024 Most Wanted Blade putter. We will know very soon if an Evnroll mallet was able to capture that category as well.
The NEO Classic Face was the big story of the new line, but not the only story. The other big improvement in the new NEO Classics line is that the putters are more attractive than their predecessors.
Granted, that may just be my opinion, but the previous graphics and engravings always made Evnroll putters look very utilitarian.
I know. The putter doesn’t need to be pretty to sink putts but it may need to look pretty to make sales.
Cosmetically, the NEO Classics are a step in the right aesthetic direction, confirming that looking good and performing well need not be mutually exclusive.
Evnroll is not finished releasing putters this year, either. More on that in the very near future.
Question for Guerin 5: What’s next for the Evnroll brand?
Innovation and taking chances are how we roll. We may be right and we may be wrong but we will never follow. Good or not-so-good, our friends at MyGolfSpy will be right there in the beginning to let everybody know.
Final Thoughts on Evnroll Putters
In the video above, Adam equates Guerin’s contributions to the field of putter design to those made by Scotty Cameron and Bob Bettinardi. Though Guerin’s level of fame and name recognition may not be at the level of the other two, I think his assessment is spot-on.
Think of it this way. What would the current putter market look like without Guerin Rife’s innovations? Would putter faces have grooves or any other kind of face technologies?
I don’t know that they would. Someone had to figure out how a grooved face could enhance the roll of the golf ball.
That someone was Guerin Rife.
Guerin’s answer in the last question really tells you all you need to know about Evnroll’s putter building philosophy. We may be right and we may be wrong but we will never follow.
Personally, I find that statement both inspirational, and exciting in terms of what we will see next from Evnroll.
Find out more about the Evnroll putters at Evnroll.com
FAQ: Evnroll Putters
Why don’t other companies make grooves that work like Evnroll grooves?
The design is patented and thus only found on Evnroll putters.
Are Evnroll putters collectible?
I suppose you could collect them but Evnroll is not big on limited-edition offerings. These are to be played, not archived in plastic cases.
Do Professional Tour players use Evnroll putters?
Of course they are. They work, so pros use them. Follow this link and you can find more Tour information.
Can you give me any hints about what new putters are coming soon from Evnroll?
I am honor-bound to keep that information secret. However, if you were to head over to the Evnroll Instagram account, there may be a post with some clues.
This post was written in partnership with Evnroll
The post 5 Things You Should Know About Evnroll Putters appeared first on MyGolfSpy.
Article Link: https://mygolfspy.com/news-opinion/5-things-you-should-know-about-evnroll-putters/