There’s something in the Cedar Falls Water

Hanna Golf’s Jared Doerfler, the second golf manufacturer from northern Iowa to be featured on this page in 2024, risked everything to build beautiful putters

By Tony Dear

Strange mechanical noises interrupt the conversation as Jared Doerfler talks about the genesis of Hanna Golf. He’s milling putters on a Haas-built CNC machine that are giving the University of Northern Iowa grad a new lease on life, and the process doesn’t stop for phone calls.

Doerfler formed his company and sold his first putter in May of this year and, so far, the response has been entirely positive. There are currently three models in the line-up, each named after a city in which his grandfather, Harry, lived before and after going to war (WWII – he fought in the Battle of the Bulge) as a high-school junior. One is the ‘Denver’ (where Harry attended university on the G.I. Bill after returning to the U.S.), a face-balanced mallet milled from 303 Stainless Steel with a relatively short blade length and three alignment lines.

Though the putters (he also offers gloves and towels) pay tribute to his grandfather, Doerfler named the company after his two daughters  – Johanna (4) and Harriet (2) who love coming into their father’s workshop to push the machine’s buttons and watch him work.

They always know where to find their dad because, for the last few months, Doerfler has all but slept in his workshop. A typically enterprising and industrious Iowan with an entrepreneurial spirit, Doerfler uses what little free time he gets to research and write the Perfect Putt newsletter which has around 10,000 subscribers and, earlier this year, resigned from his full-time job as VP at a commercial metal printer to pursue his dream of owning his own company and becoming his own boss.

“My father always reminded me life’s short and that you only get one,” says Doerfler. “So after talking it over with my wife for months, I decided to take the plunge.”

Besides the support of his wife and inspiration from other strands of the family, Doerfler could call on the guidance and encouragement his friend Tyler Johnson offered. You may recall Johnson as we featured him and his company – Charlie Golf Co., which makes golf bags and clubs specifically for toddlers – in January.

Doerfler and Johnson played together on the University of Northern Iowa golf team in the 2010s. Doerfler was a walk-on who gamed an inferior putter the Panthers’ coach didn’t much care for.

“So he loaned me another,” says Doerfler. “It was a TaylorMade Kia Ma something which performed a lot better than my original putter. When I graduated, I gave it back to him and spent a few years trying to find something that weighed, looked, and felt similar.”

Spending so much time searching for, and failing to find his ideal putter, eventually led Doerflerto to where he is now. After speaking with several PGA professionals to get their take on what worked and what sold well, he had his brother-in-law draw up potential designs on CAD(Computer-Aided Design) and three designs emerged – the El Reno, a classic mid-mallet milled from 303 Stainless Steel with a double-bend shaft; the Amarillo, a face-balanced, double-wide blade which is likewise milled from 303 Stainless Steel and features a double-bend shaft; and the aforementioned Denver.

Simple, classic shapes are what Doerfler went for and the results are beautifully crafted products that are half the price of larger manufacturers’ milled putters.

“To save costs and because I like simple, sturdy putters, ours don’t have multiple parts like insets or multi-material designs,” says Doerfler who adds that he’s considering offering other clubs somewhere down the line. “I hope to keep building the company gradually,” he says, “and one day soon be in a position to expand the line-up.”

The Denver
$295 (the two other models are also $295)
Weight – 368 grams
Loft – 3˚

Lie Angle – 72˚
Offset – ⅜” shaft
Grip – Iomic Hanna Golf 65-gram
hannagolf.com

 

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Colorado AvidGolfer Magazine is the state’s leading resource for golf and the lifestyle that surrounds it, publishing eight issues annually and proudly delivering daily content via coloradoavidgolfer.com.

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