About Us
The Radi-Eye is a curved-face blade putter, USGA conforming, machined from 318 stainless steel and assembled in Concord, North Carolina. This is how it happened.
The Dream
In 2008, Eric Shuford lost his construction company in the housing crash. Sitting at home watching golf, he had a dream one night. He was standing on a putting green, and when he looked down, the face of the putter was rounded.
The next morning he went into his garage, machined a rounded face out of aluminum, and superglued it to a regular putter.
That holiday, he showed it to the family on a putting machine he had built. Everybody said that's cool, and everybody brushed it off.
The Round That Changed Everything
Then he superglued that same prototype face onto his nephew's putter. His nephew Alec was a once in a while golfer who three and four putted his way around every green. That day, over 18 holes, he two putted every hole but one. The one was a 50 foot eagle putt he drained in one. No lessons. No practice. He changed nothing but the face on his putter.
Three People and a Milled Putter
Alec had just finished film school. His fiancee Dawn was a graphic designer. They partnered with Eric on the spot, had a professional milled model made right here in North Carolina, and started sending slow motion putting machine videos to anyone in golf who would watch. Push putt. Pull putt. The ball auto corrected and went in.
The World Notices
USA Today featured it in What's Hot in Golf. At the BMW Championship, Greg Kinnear tried it on the practice green, instantly started making putts, and traded his own putter for it on the spot. The next day, Golf Channel was showing highlights of Kinnear draining a 30 footer and asking where that came from.
Twice, It Almost Went on Tour
Twice, it got all the way to the tour. Hall of Famer Larry Nelson wanted to buy half the company, then backed out the week he was set to debut it because a buddy thought it looked weird. William McGirt sank his first putt with it from 50 feet and planned to put it in play at the Houston Open, then called it off. His reason is the whole point of this putter. His coach could not coach it, he said, because it allows him to make a mistake.
The Ones That Got Away
A Manhattan marketing company shot testimonials across the country for a national campaign, then pushed the project, and it never happened. The president of a major golf brand called to say his company had tried this exact technology in the eighties and nineties and never got the radius right, and that these guys had nailed it. Nothing ever came of that either.
Sold the Way It Always Worked
So they sold it the only way that always worked. They took it to clubs and practice greens and ran the Radi-Eye Challenge. Putt with yours. Now putt with ours. People saw the difference in three putts and bought it on the spot.
Thirteen Years Later
Then life got in the way, and the putter sat on the back burner for 13 years.
It never stopped working. It just waited. Now it is back, machined from 318 stainless steel, USGA conforming, assembled in Concord, North Carolina, and sold the same way it was always sold. Take the Challenge, and see for yourself.
The People
Eric Shuford invented the Radi-Eye after dreaming its rounded face in 2008. He built the first one in his garage, and every Radi-Eye is still assembled in Concord, North Carolina.
Alec Lockavitch is Eric's nephew and co-founder. The prototype went onto his putter first, and one round was all it took.
Dawn Lockavitch is the designer of the three, and the reason any of this looks the way it does.
In the Press
The Radi-Eye has been featured by USA Today and ESPN, among others. See the coverage on our In the Press page.