Equipment
Evnroll NeoClassics putters: What you need to know
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: The Evnroll NeoClassics line of putters reflect five of the company’s more familiar mallet and blade shapes, but most importantly offer a new take on the trademark grooved face insert that provides more consistent forward roll and tighter directional dispersion, as well. These new but familiar models, including the ER2 heel-toe weighted cavity blade and the ER5 fanged mallet, feature a milled aluminum face insert and changeable heel and toe sole weights, all within a fully milled body made of 303 forged steel.
PRICE: $400 (stainless steel finish); $450 (ceramic black finish). Models: ER1.2, ER2, ER2.2, ER5, ER8.
When Evnroll founder and longtime putter designer Guerin Rife first designed a putter with grooves, players consistently left putts short because the grooves softened the energy transfer at impact. Change the design of the grooves, he reasoned, and he could better control ball speed across the face. Rife continues to refine that idea on these classic blades with a soft aluminum face insert that produces consistent distance and direction.
We like mallet putters the way we like grandmothers: They’re so forgiving. Sometimes, though, attempts at forgiveness in a mallet go too far. These traditional shapes get it right. Unlike extreme heads that require substantial mass deep in the perimeter, these classic looks find forgiveness in a grooved face insert. The spacing and individual widths create consistent energy transfer across the face, so like grandma’s change purse full of rare silver dollars, the forgiveness is bigger than it looks.
3 COOL THINGS
1. Groovin’ on a Sunday afternoon. The Evnroll story is the story of founder and chief designer Guerin Rife, who has been making grooved putters for the better part of two decades. What he’s discovered and made the mission with the Evnroll brand is how the spacing and size of the grooves on the face of a putter breeds consistency.
“You can see how the land area in the middle is really small and the grooves are wider,” Rife said. “As you come out away from center, the land area get progressively wider, and the grooves get smaller. hat that's doing is progressively putting more contact surface where the putter is weaker.
“To put it in the simple terms, I softened the hit in the middle but increasingly made the hit harder away from the middle. So everything goes the same distance, an even roll.”
For this new lineup of familiar models, the NeoClassics will move away from milling the grooves in the face of a one-piece block of steel. Instead, the block of milled stainless steel will feature a lightweight aluminum face insert with the grooves milled into the face. Behind the aluminum is a vibration absorbing polymer. The net effect is a softer feel with the weight savings in the center of the head that allows for more stability in the design through increased heel, toe and perimeter weighting.
2. Weight for me. Heel and toe sole weights may not immediately grab your attention as a fundamental necessity in optimizing putter performance, but they are more than just affectation. From a practical standpoint it is easier to manufacture putter heads with the same weight and then use heel and toe weights to get the total head weight to better match up with a change in shaft length (heavier heads for shorter shafted putters for example) or player preferences.
The key for the Evnroll NeoClassics line was to make these sole weights solid, Rife said, because if the sole weights are simply hollowed out to achieve desired swing weights, you risk having a less solid sounding and feeling putter. That’s why the NeoClassics sole weights are made through a metal injection molding process that allows for steel and heavier tungsten to be mixed proportionally to find varying weights.
“If you're going to give people a better product, it needs to have a constant swing weight,” Rife said.
The sole weights range from 12.5 grams (fully steel) to 42.5 grams (fully tungsten), and in addition to accommodating different shaft lengths, Rife said the weights can be used to achieve different fitting or stroke purposes. As an example, a player may get better results with a heavier weight in the heel or toe, or vice versa. As putter fittings with advanced analysis tools like SAM PuttLab, Quintic or even a GC Quad or Trackman, players can try multiple settings and get instant assessments of how the stroke is improved by a weight change or more often a complete model change.
3. Five friendly faces. Speaking of options, the NeoClassics line features five of Rife’s more well known designs. Those designs include a new Evnroll script logo on the sole, as well. The models:
ER1.2: This blade feaures a longer heel to toe shape but with the classic heel- and toe-weighted bumpers and the traditional plumber-neck hosel.
ER2: The most popular Evnroll blade shape, it’s more compact in length than the ER1.2 but wider front to back. It features a single bend shaft connected directly into the head for a slight toe hang.
ER2.2: This blade mixes the more compact shaping of the ER2 with the plumber-neck hosel of the ER1.2.
ER5: This gently rounded fang-style mallet features a parallel central cavity the width of the ball
ER8: A traditional half-mallet shape, it tapers down in three levels from front to back and features a center cavity the width of a ball with the longest aiming line of all the NeoClassics models. It features a single bend shaft that connects directly to the head.