"I would be at tournaments on the practice days, and then I would pack up the back of my car and start hitting the local golf stores on the Thursdays, until the next tournament," recalls Rife, the former advertising art director who has turned his creative streak to inventing putters. "It was a good old-fashioned boot-strapping operation. I would make some money and spend some money, but it was very much an uphill battle. The biggest issue at the start is trying to get people to believe in you, especially the manufacturers. Some people on Tour would spread rumours that I was some kind of a kook with these grooves, warning players that I would show up at a tournament once and then never be seen again."
They don't call Rife a kook anymore. In 2005, Champions Tour golfer Jim Thorpe put Rife's groundbreaking Two Bar putter in his bag and won with it at the second time of trying. Then Thorpe let Dana Quigley have a go, and he went on to have the most successful season of his career putting with the Two Bar, topping the Champions Tour money list with two wins and five second places. Today, Rife is one of the world's fastest growing putter manufacturers and it is the number one putter on the Champions Tour.
"We got some great publicity around Dana Quigley's success," says Rife, "and people were talking about the Two Bar putter all the time. That was basically the birth of our brand. Taking your putters on Tour is one way of spending your profits, as nobody buys anything on Tour, but then it becomes the best advertising in the world if your putter makes it into the winner's circle or if it gets on TV on the Sunday with those ‘worm-cam' shots. That is just advertising that you can't even buy - it is so valuable - it is pure honesty."
As Rife's Tour success continued, the orders flowed in. Chad Campbell won the 2006 Bob Hope Chrysler Classic with Rife,
Justin Rose won the 2007 European Order of Merit, and Ian Poulter has jumped aboard - all for no fee.
"Last year we doubled in size - we sold twice the volume of putters," claims Rife. "So far this year we are about 10% below 2008, which almost feels like we have doubled volume again, taking the economy into consideration. We are selling through and a lot of retailers are increasing their orders significantly. We give our retailers big margins and we are going to stay reasonably aggressive."
Key to the success of Rife putters has been the ‘Roll Groove' technology, a system of horizontal grooves that Rife patented in 1997, at a time when groove technology was unheard of. The precisely spaced, milled grooves press into the cover of the golf ball at impact, to grip and lift the ball into a virtually immediate forward roll. The more roll golfers produce when putting - and the less skidding - the more control they have over their putts.
Introduced to the trade at the Orlando PGA Show in January, and arriving at retail in Europe this month is Rife's latest innovation, the IMO (which stands for Inline Momentum). Rife says, "the number one fault in putting is deceleration at impact - a lack of momentum," and he hopes the IMO is the answer. 85% of the putterhead's mass is positioned directly behind the ball-striking area of the club, with the theory being that this weighting generates the momentum to help golfers drive through the ball.
"Edwin Watts, the big US chain, has told us they think the IMO is going to be bigger than the Two Bar, and that's great," adds Rife, whose latest entry will come with a UK price tag of £129. "We are just getting it out so we will have to wait and see, and we are shipping them as fast as we can make them, but the other side of the coin is the sell through, and right now it is too early to determine that part.
"We may finish the year with a bang because of the introduction of the IMO. We are not winding down, but accelerating right in the middle of the year. There are not usually that many exciting stories in the golf industry in July and August, and that is what we are trying to provide. It will make us stand out and help us stay vibrant at the toughest time of year."
Keep your eyes peeled at Turnberry because the IMO could well be in play.If a few putts roll in on the Sunday at the Open at the right moments, then we will be seeing a gathering of momentum in more ways than one.
