Oh, $20, how do I love you?
Let me count the ways…
I love that when I hold it in my hands, I rarely have to count to three.
I love that when you miss the first putt, it almost always leaves me with an easy second putt, no matter where that first putt comes from.
And I love the fact that when that second shot is a little testy (and I blame myself for that, dear friend, not you), I can almost always knock it in.
Yes, my $20 sweetheart, you stole my heart. Our souls are intertwined. We are inseparable. I am your Romeo. You are my Juliet.
For now, at least.
My $20 shot
While I’m nowhere near our shooter expert, Dave Wolfe, when it comes to a shotgun collection, I do have a few.
Well, seven.
My $20 shot is a vintage Rife 2-Bar Hybrid hammer, circa 2008. It joined the team last April, courtesy of the used section at Golfer’s Warehouse in Danvers, Mass. After some time on the bench, he finally found his way into the starting lineup a month ago.
When it comes to nails, I ride the hot hand. For most of the season, it was a Scotty Cameron Phantom X 11s, also courtesy of the used section at Golfer’s Warehouse. A LAB DF2.1 is also part of the rotation. When LAB is hot, it’s thermo-nuclear to me, but Scotty was more consistent for most of the season.
Until it wasn’t.
About a month ago, I thought I’d send both players a strong message and give Rife a head start. Since then, it has been complete Linsanity for Rife while Scotty and LAB sit in my office, Wally Pipped from a 16-year-old relic.
(Look at them.)
It’s not like Rife is drowning everything in sight. It will sink the occasional bomb, but the difference is in the distance control. What doesn’t go in is close enough to the cup to be either a tap, a gimme, or a doable.
Golf is much more fun this way.
The Rife 2-Bar Backstory
You probably know Guerin Rife as the man behind Evnroll, but his story is interesting. Rife started in commercials. He was an art director for an advertising firm in Chicago with no connection to golf. He moved to Florida in the 90s and started his own firm. One of his early clients was David Leadbetter, who asked Rife to help him create a training aid.
This led to a lifelong fascination with nailers.
Rife’s first creation was a patented hollow-back hammer called the True Blue. He admits he didn’t do a very good job writing the patent, but he would learn that lesson very well later.
His second patent, for face grooves, was built on True Blue’s low mass and toe-to-heel weight. According to Rife, the removal of all that mass in the cavity created the lift in the collision. By adding grooves and reducing loft, Rife’s putters would reduce slip and make the ball roll forward faster. Skidding, whether you are parking or driving a car, slows you down due to friction. The Rife grooves promoted a faster forward spin, which made for a smoother spin that would be less likely to come out a revolution or two short of cup.
Rife initially licensed the technology to Spalding/Top-Flite, but would eventually venture out on its own. The original 2-bar came out in the wake of the Odyssey Two-Ball in the mid-2000s and became a mini-blockbuster. At its peak, over 40 players on the PGA Champions Tour were using Rife’s creation and it was gaining momentum on the PGA Tour. The company grew quickly, prompting Rife to sell parts of his company to investors to keep up with that growth.
It would soon become a problem.
2-Bar goes tropo
The original 2-Bar had a type of rubber-looking hammer head with two bars to promote balance and stability and aid in aiming. The technology was called Twin In-Line Moment of Inertia with the weight designed to resist twisting on off-center hits. Rife sold a boatload at $199 a pop, which translates to nearly $300 in today’s dollars. In the two months from December 2005 to January 2006, Rife estimates he sold $1.5 million of 2-Bar.
A year later, Rife expanded the line with its “Island” series of barrels named after islands in the Caribbean. The Barbados, Antigua and Martinique models debuted at the 2007 PGA Show and each featured Rife’s patented RollGroove technology. Martinique and Antigua were blades, while Barbados was a rounded hammer with openings on either side of the center piece along with some flare on the perimeter. The 2-Bar Hybrid Mallet, introduced in 2008, was simply Rife putting Barbados and 2-Bar together to see what would happen.
“It was a cast body with weight plugs on the 70-gram freeweight bars,” Rife tells MyGolfSpy. “He also had a facial insert with a polymer backing.”
The 2-Bar Hybrid mounts (there was also a 2-Bar Hybrid Blade) came with a special bending tool and an instructional DVD so you can adjust the lie angle yourself, as well as a magnetic cover with a zipper pouch for save it. extra weights.
October Clash
2008 was a high point for Rife. Sales reached $10 million, making the company one of the largest independent production brands.
Next came The Crash.
The global financial crisis of 2008 took its toll on many companies, large and small. Rife, giving up shares to investors to help finance his rapid growth, had effectively lost control of his company. Additionally, the company had a ton of inventory for its now global business at the time of the crash. It was left holding the proverbial bag and ownership was looking for a way out. Talks with COBRA-PUMA stalled in 2009 before the company was sold to Seattle-based Innovex in 2011.
Rife was single and could no longer use his last name to make barrels, but he started a new tire company called Guerin. This eventually led to Evnroll and its more aggressively patented elongated parabolic grooves that returned to MyGolfSpy’s putter testing in 2016.
Which brings us back to my $20 shot.
My $20 Pusher: Best Money I’ve Ever Spent
Rife wasn’t too impressed with my $20 treasure.
“I think you paid more.”
Not according to eBay. You can find a Rife 2-Bar hybrid hammer for as low as $40, while a nicer one with a set of weights can cost up to $150. Mine needed a new grip, but is otherwise in pretty good shape for a shooter that came out during the Hannah Montana years.
What makes the Rife 2-Bar Hybrid Mallet work for me is the combination of length, lie and weight, all of which are pure luck. I tend to prefer a shorter putter with a relatively flat lie and a head weight of around 360 grams. Anyone who has owned this before set it up as I could tell it fit when I first picked it up at Golfer’s Warehouse.
The anodized aluminum face insert has a polymer base for a great non-intrusive feel. It’s soft enough not to be clicky and strong enough not to be scratchy. I also like the blue tone of the face, which matches the new Lamkin pistol grip nicely.
Golfers like to get away with fitting the golfer simply by relying on “look and feel.” However, having gone through several shooting gear, I firmly believe that a properly fitted shooter will look and feel just right.
“People are finally realizing the value of tire fitting,” says Rife. “If we get the right look, the right lie angle, the right length, the right launch angle, along with the right feel and the right comfort in your hands, then you have this little piece of magic that just feels perfect. “
We golfers can spend a lot of time and money trying to find that little piece of magic.
But sometimes, it just might find you.
For now, anyway.
Scotty and LAB are still there. Waiting.
Post Can you buy a decent shooter for $20? appeared first on MyGolfSpy.
