2-Bar

The 2-Bar's place in the record is a little uncertain on dates. Putterzone.com lists 2005 for the original 2-Bar, while intothegrain.com puts it a year earlier, in 2004. The maker's own site material we hold speaks to the later Two-Bar Hybrid, a 2007 to 2008 development, so it doesn't settle the question of when the original shipped.

What thehackersparadise.com describes as the original 2-Bar putter that gained Rife serious attention is the model this entry concerns, credited there to founder Guerin Rife. That same outlet carries a Community note worth passing along as opinion, not fact: a longtime owner writing that "I have a 2 bar thats been in my bag for years Still love it It has helped me me with many fewer 3 putts." That sentiment, fewer three-putts and lasting satisfaction, is echoed generally in what reviewers said about the 2-Bar, though it comes from users rather than any tested review on our end.

Against the rest of the line, the original 2-Bar reads as the putter that established Rife's name before the more elaborate Two-Bar Hybrid arrived, which borrowed from both the Island Series Barbados mallet and, in the maker's words, "the even-more-successful original TwoBar putter." The Hybrid's own promotional language treats the 2-Bar as the proven predecessor being built upon rather than replaced.