February 9, 2024 • 51 mins
In Part 2 of this Fire Pit Podcast series on L.A.B. Golf, you get the story of Bill Presse, the inventor, as he goes from developing the "magic dust" of lie, angle and balance in his garage, sleeping in and selling putters out of his car to ultimately selling a "lion's share" of the company to the Hahn family. In addition to Presse, you'll hear from Sam Hahn, Matt Holm and Stuart Smith on how and why Presse's "genius" defied doubters, critics and Internet trolls.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Here's the scary similarities. I had an idea just like Carston.
I started the company with the mill, just like Carston,
the exact same mill. And I went around in the
trunk of in my superrew. I didn't have his call,
but I had a super brew outback, and I drove around, uh, California,
(00:25):
in Nevada and uh and would sleep in the back
of the car and sell potters and do demo days.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Uh, you know, just going on.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
So I hire a babysitter for my daughter, and then
I'd hit the road and then come back.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
Put another log on the fire.
Speaker 5 (00:52):
Here is given time. Welcome to the fire Pit with
Matt Chanella.
Speaker 6 (01:02):
Thanks again to Joe Horowitz for our theme song. In
case you missed it, we produced a podcast on the
writing and recording of the song with Grammy Award winning
producer Jakir King, which Joe called The Story. If you
haven't heard it, it's worth scrolling through our archive and
listening in on the process of producing a song from
start to finish. As for this story, how and why
(01:24):
Bill Pressey invented not only a putter, but game changing
putter technology. How and why a guy like Sam Hahn
would push all in and evolve and grow Pressy's invention
in a way that it ends up in the bag
and hands of Lucas Glover, who used it to win
back to back PGA tour events in twenty twenty three.
We're just getting started. In Part one, you hear from
(01:46):
both Pressy and Han how and why they met, and
you get a sense of why they work so well together.
While Pressey had a good idea, he needed Han for
capital rebranding and to get the unconventional tool in the
hands of prominent influencers and tour players. But before we
go any further, another quick appreciation for Dormy Workshop, the
(02:08):
Canadian based company that only makes quality, handmade leather goods
such as custom headcovers and accessories. The Bishop Brothers are
good golfers, good friends, and we're lucky to have them
putting our logo on their products. All available at Firepitcollective
dot com. For their complete collection of originals, headcovers and classics,
go to Dormy Workshop dot com and use promo code
(02:29):
fire Pit fifteen for fifteen percent off your next purchase.
For a quick recap of Part one of this series,
Sam Hahn is an Oregon based golf enthusiast who managed
a band and a bar by night, played a lot
of golf by day, and on one day in twenty seventeen,
Bob Duncan, Han's friend and swing instructor, presented a new putter.
Speaker 7 (02:50):
Bob comes up and, you know, shows me the reno
two point one by a company called Directed Force at
the time was how it was kind of branded, and
I was like, what the am I.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Allowed to swear? Yeah, of course you are, Yeah, yeah.
I was like, what the fuck is that?
Speaker 8 (03:05):
Like?
Speaker 7 (03:05):
Barf likes full on barf. I mean, it was just
the most ridiculous looking thing I'd ever seen. I was like,
there's no chance I'm putting with that.
Speaker 6 (03:12):
Duncan doesn't take no for an answer.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
You know, the revealer is profound.
Speaker 7 (03:17):
I mean, it's incredible to see a putter flopping around
and not doing what you know, the golf putter gurus
of the world have told you a toe hangg putter
is supposed to do, or a face balance butter is
supposed to do. And then you see this one staying
square all by itself, and it's intriguing. So he's like,
just give me nine holes, grab a cart, went out
on the golf course and I one putted the first
(03:39):
seven greens for a total of one hundred and fifty
feet worth of putts.
Speaker 6 (03:43):
Like lots of people who get past the look of
what was directed for us, and now lab Golf, the
investment for Han was paying significant dividends.
Speaker 7 (03:53):
There's no more tinkering, there's no more tweaking, like this
is the this is the putter. It's stay square by itself.
So all I gotta do is let it And and
so I went through my own process and figuring out
how to utilize the technology and ultimately ended up with
a very different technique than I had ever used with
a putter. And then and then the results became off
the chart. So starting then after I kind of found
(04:14):
my groove with it. I was a one handicap at
the time, I was a plus three and a half.
Speaker 6 (04:18):
Six weeks later, Hans says, there are four very serendipitous
moments in this company's history. Ironically, the first is when
his putter breaks.
Speaker 7 (04:28):
One of the fun things about these putters is that,
because you know, when you start spinning them around, there
isn't some massive torque pulling in one direction or another.
This was kind of like my fidget, right, Like I'm
just always walking around the grain, spinning the potter, spinning
the putter, and one day I'm.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Spinning it and I hear a little click. That's not good.
I kind of go, you know, kind of go like
this with the head. It goes.
Speaker 6 (04:53):
Fuck Bob Duncan strikes again.
Speaker 9 (04:56):
I knew Sam's background a little bit, and I knew
that if I got him together with Bill, they'd probably
go crazy.
Speaker 6 (05:08):
Bill Pressey on chemistry.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
When Sam called me.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
My head fell off, of course, she's like, hey, you know,
my head fell off, And I kid you not. As
soon as I heard his voice, and I think he'd
probably experienced this, I was like, this guy, it was
game on.
Speaker 7 (05:28):
They were about to close the doors, and I'd ask
Bill to put me in touch with the guys that
he was partnered with, worked out a deal with them, Me,
my dad, and my brother all put everything together and
bought out Bill's existing partners. And that's how the whole thing,
that's how LAB started. So then at that point, so
that was late twenty seventeen. I think we were officially,
(05:53):
you know, business married in early twenty eighteen, and we
were off to the races, and or so I.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Thought Sam possessed the traits I don't. And and and
it's a ham and eggs thing. I'm a complete uh
inventor wild you know. It's you're not gonna rain me
in ever and so uh, which is not a thing
that you want running a company. And so so Sam
(06:22):
possessed all those skills and and once uh, you know,
he expressed interest in in doing a buyout, and we
could buy out the company and I'll come along and
we'll reform another company.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
We we did that.
Speaker 6 (06:40):
So consider yourself caught up. And we're going to get
to more serendipitous moments in this company's history as it
relates to Tim Wilkinson, Jeff Sluman, Von Taylor, Kelly Slater,
Adam Scott. And then we do a deep dive into
Lucas Glover and lab Golf's impact on his career. But
before we get to all of that, those people and players,
(07:00):
I felt compelled to go back.
Speaker 5 (07:02):
A bit lie angle balance.
Speaker 6 (07:05):
I understand what all those things are, but is that
the that's the essence of all of this? That is
the essence. It's it's you know, like, if you're going
to like summarize all of that. That's the magic dust.
Speaker 7 (07:22):
Li angle balance is the magic dust. Absolutely, Bill's invention
is the magic dust. And when you get to talk
to him and find out how he came up with this,
it's it'll blow your mind. I mean, happy accidents, man, incredible, incredible,
just stars aligning for him to discover this thing, because
it's so fucking simple, right, Like, why wouldn't we Why
didn't somebody think, shouldn't we have the putter balance to
(07:44):
go where the fucking ball goes?
Speaker 2 (07:46):
And nobody thought of it?
Speaker 7 (07:48):
And he, uh, he did, and so yes, that is
the magic dust. And what the magic dust does is
unlocked people's potential. And that's why we play golf, right,
it's because we know that that the potential is there.
We know we know that we could have shot two
shots better every single fucking round we play.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
And with lab you get that much closer the hope.
The hope becomes real and it's a lot.
Speaker 7 (08:15):
Of fucking fun when you get these things dialed.
Speaker 6 (08:17):
Meet Bill Pressey, a fifty four year old journeyman. He's
a good player, an instructor, an inventor. He told me
that as a kid in mcwan, Wisconsin, in a basement
tinkering with clubs. His grandfather once told him there are
four ways to making money. You can win it, marry it,
sell it, or invent it. The take me back to
(08:40):
the beginning, Why or when or where did you get
the idea that you had some sense of technology that
was game changing and that this was something you were
willing to kind of push all in on.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Gouss.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
It must have been twenty twelve or something. I missed
the Monday qualifier for the Reno Tahoe Open that I
was playing in, and I just hit the ball te
the green. This I think I hit sixteen or seventeen
greens and ended up shooting seventy two. I just about
I want to go home and cut my wrists. But
(09:22):
so it was really the thing I did. I had
a pain SeeU five face balanced putter from the ping
works department, you know, custom machine line in it and everything.
And I back in the day when I got in
the golf business, this is in the eighties, early mid
(09:45):
mid eighties, they had the Cobra tricep cutter and they
would go outside your arm, so you'd hold it down
here in the shaft with slide outside your arm, so
you couldn't do any risk motion and it was it
was the tricep putter. So I had one of those,
and I cut the grip off my pin and put
(10:08):
a uh you know, steel shaft extension just wedged it
in the end of the shaft so I could lock
it outside my shirt and start making strokes.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
And my hands were so greasy.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
From you know, like the sunloation and the sunblock, and
my shirt was slippery and it was a little sweaty,
and I could not keep that putter face square just
holding the steel shaft.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
It kept rotating.
Speaker 6 (10:38):
A rotating face is the issue here, and it becomes
a theme. It's the basis for Pressy to keep tinkering
and testing.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
If face balance putter isn't staying square, which I could
see just in my just holding it on my shirt,
then then maybe these other putters have some something different
that I was never told as a young professional. And
long story short, I go and I say, well, I'm
(11:08):
going to make something to hang the putter because people
aren't going to believe me that this tricep that I'm
doing that. And I invented their first revealer in my
garage with a with an old handrail stick and a
shelf bracket and a string and a hook at the bottom,
(11:29):
and I could just suspend putters. So I went down
my arsenal of fifty something cutters, and none of them,
none of them did what I thought they were going
to do.
Speaker 6 (11:39):
As we learned in part one of this series, Pressey's
homemade revealer is key to this story and ultimately the
success of his brands and the business. It was a
cobbled together tool that he eventually made out of a crutch,
the type you'd use if you broke your leg. He
used the two metal rods of the crutch and created
a bridge between the two rods that he could suspend
(12:01):
any putter from which ultimately revealed the marketing behind face
balanced and toe hank putters is just that marketing, and
that both types of putters face balance in toe hang
required manipulation by the player to get the putter face
back to being squared impact.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
So the revealer, the next stage of that was was
like a cane, like an old man's cane, instead of
the stick and hook. And then then I took it
up to the broken crutch, and the broken crutch got
quite a bit of attention.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Early on in the forums, there's crazy guys out there
with this broken crutch. Well, you hauled the putter right,
and so we said, well that got quite a reaction,
and it's showing that all these other putters are It's
just miss marketing. You know, it's no in no way
in physics does a face balanced putter stay square to
(12:58):
a straight back straight There's zero connection.
Speaker 6 (13:02):
One more time, because I know this part of the story.
It's technical. The term face balance is in reference to
the idea that if a putter is suspended perpendicular to
the ground, the face of the putter will sit square
to the sky. A toe hangputter, if suspended perpendicular to
the ground, the toe of the putter will point down
at the ground. And if you hear the term torque,
(13:25):
that's the twist of the putter face and any additional
weight you feel as the putter head is opening or
closing throughout the putting stroke. What press he is trying
to create was a putter with no torque, a putter
that essentially didn't twist or turn as you make the
putting stroke. A putter that actually did what face balance
and toe hang putters claimed to do, which is b
(13:48):
square at the point of impact and get that ball
rolling online press. He didn't stop tinkering and testing until
he achieved lie angle and balance for his set up
and putty stroke.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
In my mind, you know, being the creative type, I
already envisioned what it should look like, right. You got
to you got to grab onto something and say, this
is what it should look like, regardless of your predisposed
thoughts or or or expectations of what something is doing
(14:24):
when it's not doing. And so I just went about
making something that did what I thought it should look like,
which is lyingle balancing. And it started with the old
bett Ardy hour glass big bend putter I had. I
had a knockoff of the big bend from in his
(14:45):
Zone Diamond Tour component company in Chicago. Anyways, it's a
great little platform because it's aluminum and it's flat, and
it's got all the holes running through the side. You know,
if you look at the side of a big ben putter,
there's all these little hole and so they take weight
and they put it in the front and back. But
on top of it looked solid, but inside it's all
(15:06):
wayfered out, and I'm thinking that's a really good idea.
Speaker 6 (15:09):
Listening to Bill Pressey can make my mind feel wafered out,
and I'm guessing you might feel the same. But that's
exactly why he was capable of inventing the original directed
force putter and no one else did. Another quick step
back in history and important to note it was nineteen
seventy six when Raymond Floyd used the ram Zebra putter
(15:31):
to win the Masters. The Zebra was among the first
D shaped mallet putters that was quote face balanced.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
When the Zebra came out, that was kind of like
it was hot and heavy on the market and King
was losing. Ping was getting their butt kicked in sales,
and I was selling them. I was in the shop
in the eighties, you know, fitting and selling pings, and
all of a sudden, the Zebra and ray Floyd came out.
So then Ping's counter to face ballotalancing was well, the
(16:02):
potter doesn't really do that. We have toe hang tow
hag flows and there was nothing to substantiate that. This
was just the marketing tool to stop the bleeding. A
term that was developed to stop the bleeding to face balance,
because the face balancing was the greatest buzzword that had
(16:25):
come out in putters since whatever healed tow waiting. So
the whole story you know of how we got to
toe hang and face balancing, and this is just my
opinion forty something years in the business. It came about
when when Ray Floyd was started rolling the Zebra and
(16:48):
ping was getting crushed in the post shops, and so
they decided to come out with toeflow. Prior to this,
and if you go back in the history books, toflo
did not exist before.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Face balancing in any marketing or advertising.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Ever, it was not even talked about until face balancing
came out.
Speaker 6 (17:10):
Almost thirty years later. What Pressey came up with where
he inserted the hazzle and how he manipulated and placed
the weights throughout the manufactured knockoff putterhead he had his
garage invention did in fact stay balanced throughout the stroke
and was square at impact with no manipulation from any
(17:31):
outside agency. He achieved lie angle balance. That's what his
revealer in fact revealed not only to Pressy, but eventually
the industry and marketplace.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Once I had the product doing what the original protos
doing what they were supposed to do, then I started
expanding and making the revealer. I took it to work.
At the time, I was the director of his stroduction
at Golf Tech, and you know, just teaching teaching, teaching, teaching,
(18:05):
and so I take it to work and show some
of my clients and they were blown away, you know,
putting their putter in this little funky looking broken stick
thing and standing around and they're like, well, what does
that mean? I hold the putter. I'm like, I know,
you hold the potter. You hold your steering wheel on
your car too, but your car drives straight right.
Speaker 6 (18:28):
Bill Pressey got the patent for his product and his brand,
the Directed Force Putter, in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
My initial launch of the company, man that I get
some heat and some angry folks.
Speaker 7 (18:42):
And.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Then a lot of great a lot of great comments,
and those outweighed the angry ones.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
And the reviewer was then like the thing.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
And and so that showed really what was happening. And
from an unbiased perspective, when you're going up against marketing
dollars from major OEMs and you don't have marketing dollars,
because you know, the people can be brainwashed and and
(19:19):
through marketing, and we see it right now in our
in our social.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
And the media and just in Americans in general, it's
really easy.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Well, one thing happens, and then the next person is
just assumes that that's right.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
And so.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
The revealer was great because it cut through all of
that and there's no batteries, it's just gravity and no
smoking mirrors. Here's what your cutter is doing. It doesn't flow,
that doesn't stay squere. And so they were there were
years and years of you know, just trying to make
(19:58):
headway in the industry in overcoming the perception and changing
the paradigm of what we perceive a putter is doing
because of marketing dollars and a message that was sent
out over generations.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Like I was one of those pros.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
You probably were too, uh that for I don't know
how long I thought face balance was going to be
square backs, square through.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
It's just not. And so.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
As a connoisseur of golf clubs and a master club repairman,
and you know, I was like the go to guy
for golf tech for clubs, like on the national level, and.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
I was so embarrassed. I was kind of mad, Like
I really was.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
I was, you know, director instruction and people what my
word carries credibility, and so when I'm talking to my clients,
credibility and accuracy of comments and accuracy information and what
you're telling people has to be good. And so yeah,
I was pretty offended as a pro when I found
(21:10):
out that when I figured out none of this was real,
and so LAB was ultimately started as a as a
desperate attempt to fix my own yips, because I had
the yips really mad, like I was shaking, like the
plutter when I took it back, maybe rotated in thirty
(21:32):
three different directions by different degrees.
Speaker 8 (21:35):
It's just.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
I couldn't stop it.
Speaker 6 (21:40):
The USGA and RNA announced the ban on anchored strokes,
all anchored strokes, not just putting, in May of twenty thirteen,
and although it wouldn't go into effect until twenty sixteen,
press he had to go back into the garage and
back to the drawing board and called a slight audible
on his invention.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Original grip was called the billboard bill and then this
grip was twenty one inches and real wide, and there's
a flat grip that went outside your arm.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
The USGA changed those rules.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
At the time, I just three D printed the original
press gript, which was not lap. It was just a
it was just a tricep locking grip. To bring the
tricept putter grip back into the mainstream. So USJA dropped
their ruling about anchoring, which prohibited tricep locking.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
And that that type of nature.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
So when I got back and they did that, I
realized that my original putters that were just shafted in
the back.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Were not balanced.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
And that's where they'd all kind of like I did
grips and.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Then and then they changed the ruling, and then I
took it.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Off, and then I removed the shaft to a balance position.
And this all happened like I don't know if you
remember when they changed the rules. They came about pretty quick,
like there was a little bit of chatter about it
for a week or two and then bang it's that
was that. And so I was in the process of
trying to start my first company at the time based
(23:20):
upon these rules, and they'd changed the rules like that,
and so I scrambled to invent LAB because I couldn't
lock it anymore. And that's how the balance thing kind
of came about. You know, I was tinkering. This is
all over the course of like two weeks or some
three weeks or something.
Speaker 6 (23:41):
I asked Press if he had any financial backing or
partners who were helping him produce his product.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
I was teaching and one of the guys I was teaching,
nick Off Tech, owned a piston company, and so he
made pistons for race cars, and he had basically the
ability to make putters. I saw that right away too.
I was like, well, I know what machines you need.
And so he had the capability and the passion for golf,
(24:11):
and so did I. So, you know, he was my
original partner, and I was, you know, I was the brains.
He used the money and the ability to manufacture and
bring something to market, and that was down in Carson City.
So we partnered fifty to fifty, and that's how we
(24:32):
started direct to Force putters.
Speaker 6 (24:34):
In addition to the trials and tribulations of trying to
invent a putter, the pivot based on changing rules and regulations,
getting a patent, going to market, and competing with the
power and marketing dollars of the OEM's original equipment manufacturers.
Pressey was a single dad, widowed in two thousand and six.
(24:56):
His partner and five year old daughter were in a
car accident. His partner died, his daughter survived. Roughly eight
years later with his daughter at the age of thirteen,
Pressy and Directed Force were forging the aluminum heads in
Los Angeles. They machined the product in house or through
a local vendor, and the anadizing stage was outsourced.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
The whole thing was starting lab I look back, I
don't even know how I got off the ground because
it was you know, we were just shoe straining in
it and literally like there was there was marketing dollars
was zero. Like And I'll tell you what's interesting, Matt,
this is the first I think most people would consider
us an OEM. Now, this is the first time an
(25:40):
OEM company, from start to finish, has been tracked on
social media. Anything that was important from very day one
to current to current I put on my social my
Facebook page. So all the old protos, all the old
you know, when Bryson turned pro, oh he was rolling
(26:00):
director for us and I had him down in Vegas.
So all the all the old protos, new accounts, the
entire history of a company going from startup to boutique
to OEM has all been documented on social media.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
First time ever, it's kind of cool.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Bill.
Speaker 6 (26:24):
So twenty twelve, twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, how many how
many putters? How many putters are you selling?
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Per year?
Speaker 6 (26:34):
Like you out there, you're onto something. You've got this revealer.
Some people are like, quack, bullshit, get the fuck. Some
people are like, hold on, let me see that, let
me try it. How many are you selling? You're going
to merchandise shows. You're out of your trunk. Basically, how
(26:54):
many are you selling a year? In those first few
lean years.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
You know, I would order heads at like a thousand
at a time, fifteen hundred at a time, and we
would we would show a few thousand a year.
Speaker 6 (27:15):
That's a lot, a few thousand putters a year.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we would show you know, my demo
and I'm gonna be I'm gonna give this a shout
out to this guy. So there's a fella is a
PGA professional name. His name is Matt Holmes, and he's
down in Palm Springs now. He was one of my
early sales reps and he sold. We brought him in
(27:41):
as a sales rep for NorCal and he was a
fitter of the Year in Northern California. PGA. He sold
so many putters in one trip with his credibility and
the revealer and some demos and a little pop up
it and you know the table with the directive force.
(28:04):
He went around arcount and so so many putters he
had me back ordered for six months.
Speaker 6 (28:11):
Meet Matt Holme. He's a PGA teaching pro at Desert
Willow Golf Resort in Palm Desert, California.
Speaker 8 (28:17):
Twenty twelve. It's the first time I saw a directed
forest putter. I believe it was at a like a
local trade show in the Northern California PGA section. Twenty thirteen.
I'd seen several guys in our section use a putter.
Finished second. I finished second in the stroke play, so
the senior stroke play at Halfmoon Bay, and the guy
that wanted shot out sixty seven in the wind. Stuart Smith,
(28:39):
I'm sure you know Stuart, great professional at Areno, and
he ended up winning the tournament, beat me by five
and then and then it kind of rolled from there
and I was I was not a user at that point.
It was a bullseye guy, right, So I was an
old school of And twenty fifteen I did a little
stint on the Radio with Golf Guys show a nine
(29:01):
seventy at of Modesto, and he came on the show
and I just talked about the putter a little bit,
and that's how kind of get started.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Is Bill Pressy a genius?
Speaker 8 (29:13):
Bill Press he is a genius. Don't tell him that though.
And he's a very creative, outside the box kind of guy.
And he's one of these guys that he has the
ability to look at something for what it is and
not kind of what it's been marketed to.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
He's not a marketer. I told him.
Speaker 8 (29:31):
In fact, I ended up spending my own money. I said, hey, Bill,
you're going to do this, I'm going to spend some money.
I bought a tent, I bought a staff bag with
my name on it. I bought a tablecloth.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
At had thing.
Speaker 8 (29:41):
He was basically operating it like a scientist, not as
a marketing guy. And I've had a background a little bit.
He was a PG pro and managing golf courses and
seeing presentation, and he was not into that. He was
just into this is how it works. And I said, well, Bill,
you got to have both to really be successful in
this business. He kind of jumped on board with that
(30:02):
and then the rest of his history.
Speaker 6 (30:05):
You almost put him out of business. You were so
good at your job and doing what you did. You
had him back ordered for like six months. He said,
you almost put him out of business.
Speaker 8 (30:16):
Well, I think that's kind of he's kind of jokes
about it. But yeah, I sold a few putters. I
traveled around a lot. I had, Like I said, I
had a big Lincoln town car with a big trunk
and threw a bunch of putters in there in a
tent and drove around. And I think the most putters
I sold them one day. And again, this is a
putter that no one ever heard about, and a lot
of these people were buying putters, weren't even in the
(30:36):
market for putters, so I think they My most I
ever sold was like sixteen.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
In one day.
Speaker 8 (30:43):
Those small club Turlock Country Country Club in northern California,
a great little membership there. But and then I kept
calling him up and saying, when a they going to
show up? When they're going to show up. And so
it was like he was, you know, hand making him
in this friend's machine shop in Rino, and you know,
there's like one or two employees, and it was as
hard because he was you know, I was selling them
much as I can. And then you know people are
(31:05):
they want it right now.
Speaker 6 (31:06):
So Home ended our conversation with some insightful perspective and
a useful analogy.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Yeah, I mean it's interesting.
Speaker 8 (31:13):
I mean I'm a big Ernest Jones fan, and a
lot of people don't know mister Jones, but mister Jones
is a very famous instructor. Unfortunately he lost his leg
in World War One. The end of his book Swing
the Club that he makes a statement and this really
validates Bill's product. The truth is first derided and then
debated and then accept it as a matter of course.
(31:34):
So when I got in, everybody was like, oh, that
thing's junk. To look at that thing, it looks like
a spaceship. And then people started seeing what was happening.
Then they kind of did a debate about it and
started inquiring and now it's like boom, Okay, now it's
accepted as something that's really true. So it doesn't really
validated for me because I knew it. I saw it,
and I understood it. The only thing I had to
(31:55):
do is I just had to change my perspective little
bit on how I teach putting, because a lot of
it was just manipulation, trying to manipulation the putter, keeping
pressure in a certain position. It's just like if you're
driving a car. You you're a kid and your dad
hands you down a twenty year old Lincoln and it
always pulls to the right and you just hold onto
the steering wheel. The thing's always pulling to the right.
And then you get in a new car and it's
not pulling to the right. It's like, well, okay, I
(32:18):
learned to drive with this car wanted to pull to
the right. I learned to pot with a face wanted
to open. That's what this did. It didn't want to
do that. The face stays square point. You're driving a
car that doesn't pull the right. But it's basically a.
Speaker 6 (32:29):
Good analogy back to Bill Pressey.
Speaker 5 (32:33):
How much were you so? How much were you selling
him for?
Speaker 6 (32:37):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Yeah, so I think when he first started, ah, it
was like two seventy five or something, and I thought
that was crazy, but I so. Another key person in
how this kept going with Stuart Smith. He's a PGA
(32:59):
member in the Northern California. He's an excellent player on
the national lever played for UCLA. So he played with
Todd Yoshitaki, who is the director of golf at Riviera,
and Todd is a super cool guy. So Stewart called Todd.
(33:22):
He's like, hey, you got to check out this putter
by this local pro. And and so I got the
invite to go down and do a demo day at Riviera.
And I drove down on my subie with with a
trunk full of putters. I sold twenty something putters on
that demo day at Riviera and or no, not twenty.
(33:42):
I show like twelve. And then Todd said, I'll never
forget this. He says, what you I the revealer and
watching that and you show people what their putters are
doing and what your putter does. He says, my members,
you could I sold twice as many putters if you
(34:03):
would have charged three fifty or four hundred bucks because
they're not seeing the perceived value at two seventy five
if you charge more, and sure I should you not.
I ramped up to three to fifty and I sold
twice as many putters.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
I'm Stuart Smith.
Speaker 10 (34:21):
I'm the PGA Director of Golf at Somerset golfam Country
Club here in Reno, Nevada. That was certainly my initial
tie in with Bill Pressey. And after using a long
putter for nineteen years and the band coming with taking
that anchoring out of my my repertoire after a long stint,
(34:42):
you know, I just I that the lab Hutter was
the way to go for me. So here I am.
I mean, I've used it ever since.
Speaker 6 (34:52):
Both Matt Holme and Bill Pressey mentioned Stuart Smith as
a critical component to the company's evolution.
Speaker 10 (34:59):
I gave him a lot of fe back on what
I liked, and he I mean, I must have. I
have quite a few of them here, even still in
my office. I have a couple of the prototypes and grips, older,
older grips that he used with the press grip. And
I think, you know, he appreciated, appreciated me as a
sounding board. He appreciated, you know, my ability at that time.
(35:23):
You know, I played in some nice tournaments the last
ten eleven years, so he knew I was a good
accomplished player. And of course as his Bill, you know,
don't ever sell Bill short. You don't want to give
him to a side or anything. So that's how our
relationship started, and we kind of went back and forth.
He dropped some putters. I did some things here at
(35:45):
my golf course trying to get the members involved with
LA B. And I would say, I have probably fifteen
or twenty of my members that used the lab putter.
And it's still and I get funny enough, now is
I'm a wreck ignized fitter? I mean I get even
I get calls all the time. I should say all
(36:05):
the time. I mean I'll fit one or two every
couple of weeks, it seems.
Speaker 6 (36:10):
I asked Smith what exactly he liked about the putter
and technology.
Speaker 5 (36:14):
First of all, the feel.
Speaker 10 (36:15):
You know, I know a lot of people sometimes maybe
can't get over maybe the looks of it.
Speaker 11 (36:20):
I use.
Speaker 10 (36:20):
I use the big reno slash, two point one slash
whatever we call it now, you know, the big mallets.
Speaker 5 (36:27):
So I think.
Speaker 10 (36:31):
Just of course, the feel of the solidness of strike,
and just in my mind knowing that that thing depends
irrelevant of how long a putt I have. I know
what's I know that work is absent, So to me,
that's allowing the putter to do work, do a little
bit more of the work.
Speaker 6 (36:52):
Meanwhile, back to Bill Pressey, where there was maybe a
little too much work for the startup.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
And this is a good time to set this straight.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
People think that I ran directed for us, and I
wasn't the brains my partners. My partner, Scott was the
company officer, and so a lot of the decisions.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Or we're not what I wanted.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
And and me being in the golf business, and I'm thinking,
you know, just if you just listen to me, we'll
do good. But people want to make their own input
and do things, you know, the way you might run
another company. Golf business is not like that. And you
know that. And so when my my father, uh, who
(37:40):
was kind of a strange for most of my life,
he kind of came back into my life and he
wanted to, you know, be involved. And I wanted him
to try to, you know, because I had a granddaughter,
he had his granddaughter and stuff and uh and and
so he wanted to get involved with company, and uh,
he invested a little bit and then he became the
(38:03):
kind of like Scott put him in as the company
manager or whatever. Well, I don't roll like that. And
so my father classic father's son, crap, you know, whatever
you think could happen happens. And and so I stepped
away because they didn't like the decisions that were being made,
(38:29):
especially with some of the social media forums and burning
some bridges, and it was just it was not good.
Speaker 6 (38:39):
And now we've come full circle. Twenty seventeen. This is
when Sam Hank called Pressy because his putter head had
fallen off. It was instant chemistry again. Pressy described the
relationship as ham and egg.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
And once, you know, he expressed interest in doing a buyout,
and we buy out the company and I'll come along
and we'll reform another company. We we did that and
and so uh, I took I didn't get I mean
I did get bought out, but my my equity and
(39:16):
shares and everything that I had just transferred into LAB.
And then we bought out the original investors and partners
and and then Sam and uh and myself and his family.
You know that the Hans took Lion, you know, the
Lions share of the company, and which was which was
(39:36):
nothing new to me that I was never in the
controlling seat. So it worked out great. And uh, and
as we started LAB over the years, it taken quite
a toll on my on my psyche, and so I
had to step away for mental health and and just
(39:59):
find myself and you know, society and and just starting
a company.
Speaker 3 (40:07):
You know that they beat you up pretty good.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
And you know, especially people feel threatened by new technology
and uh and.
Speaker 3 (40:15):
Everything and just burnt out.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
So I stepped away from day to day operations a
couple of years ago from LAB to do some things
and and fulfill some of my own goals that have
just been totally swamped out and neglected by the enormous
task of labbing, getting LAB to where it was and is.
(40:40):
And yeah, it'll it'll take it right out of it.
So uh, it's Sam is an amazing person because he
can he can do things that I can't do, and
vice versa. But together it's it's really a powerful uh concept.
And and you know, when when you're a CEO, you
(41:05):
have to have a good product. To be a good CEO.
You know, you're not gonna you're not going to find
same you know, and the same thing. A good CEO
can crash a great product. But those two have to
exist coherently to be successful and to scale the company
and to garner you know, when we go out on
social media.
Speaker 3 (41:25):
Now I give the whole respect.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
I mean, it's cool, but you know for years, oh
my gosh, it was brutal.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
I just stayed off social media and what some of them?
Speaker 6 (41:40):
But what were some of the comments that that you remember,
you you know, probably personal, calling you crazy? What?
Speaker 1 (41:49):
Oh yeah, yeah, there's all starts. Well I put the
hands on my potter or you know, the uh, the
branding irons. At a certain point it became at first
it was pretty offensive. But you know, I got some
stones and so I said, all right, well I've called
(42:10):
I called the the the old power pod driver, some
various things back in the day.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
So the branding iron and that that came with the territory.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
But yeah, it's it's really uh, when you when you're
putting something out there in the public, you're gonna get
judged and you have to accept that.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
But when people start.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
To get personal, that's where that's kind of where the
line gets drawn. And uh, no, people don't know my story.
They don't know how much crap I've overcome to to
be successful.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
From accuse you not, I was homeless in.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
Two thousand, like literally homeless, and so yeah, I mean
there's a lot, Uh, there's a lot more than than
just like creating a putter to get to get to
overcome the crap that the big oams pull on you, uh,
to you know, to try to keep you out of
(43:12):
stores or to keep you away from players. It's savage, savage,
and uh.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
It takes.
Speaker 3 (43:22):
It's exhausting.
Speaker 6 (43:22):
So any examples, any any specific examples or any stories.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
You'd yeah, I mean, well, here's an interesting story. So
when Bryson turned pro, I flew to Vegas. I drove
to Vegas, brought him some putters. Mike Shi, his coach,
was in Sack and so you know, Mike had seen
my putters and Stuart Smith and whatnot. Anyways, so you
(43:47):
remember when Bryson went to this side arm lock or
this side saddle thing that got banned. So I was
at I was at Whisper Rock Cavin lunch with McCord
and Case tends.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
He sleans over with his phone.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
He says, look at this and and Bryson was in
his living room. He's like his apartment living room, showing
me the stroke that he wanted to do. And if
I would make a putter that suited that li angle,
you know, eighty degrees and with this lean and and
I'm looking at the stroke and I look back at Gary,
(44:28):
I'm like, Gary, that's a non conforming stroke, like that's
that's an intentional breach of USGA, which was I don't
know how else he can look at it. So he
wanted me to move the shaft or make a really
upright thutter with the shaft length and the lean amount
(44:50):
hand drilled so that he could do that.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
So so and I and I this is the biggest
no I ever.
Speaker 1 (44:56):
I said, no, I'm not going to do that because
I think it's not unconforming and it's not in the
spirit of the rules, and I just I'm not going
to make that. So then the next week, two weeks later,
he shows up at that at that Bears event, you know,
doing his side saddle arm locked in with the beer
(45:18):
can the half beer can putter. And then and then
the USGA saw that and they made they made that
guy's putter, which was conforming, they made it non conforming
unless he moved the shaft to the back of the head.
That's how that stuff works. And if you get caught
in those traps. The best know I ever said was
right there, because that putter is no longer in existence,
(45:40):
and they made him change the shaft location and everything
because it could be effectively used in this certain condition
of vertical.
Speaker 6 (45:50):
You said, the biggest, the most important know you made
was to Bryson on what would have ultimately have been
non conforming. What were is your best yes?
Speaker 12 (46:04):
Ah, that was yes to Sam buying the company, and
and and basically, uh, because because I had so many
shares in the original BF that I was able to
kind of force a buy out.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
And uh, that was the best.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
Yes when he said he wanted to to make a
move at buying the company, that was my best Yes, Yes,
let's do it.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
By far.
Speaker 6 (46:43):
So that's Bill Pressey's story within the Directed Force Lab
Golf story, and one that I really felt that I
needed to tell before we can get to more of
Sam Han's four magical moments that lead to Lucas Glover
winning not one PGA Tour event using lab putter, but
two back to back Pressi's life is now very much
(47:04):
in order. He's a grandfather, he's lost fifty pounds, and
on Super Bowl Sunday twenty twenty four, he will be
sober for three years. In episode three, you'll hear from
Jeff Sluman, Von Taylor, Kelly Slater Adam Scott and several
other protagonists. As we build to August of twenty twenty three,
you went from like selling five putters a week or
(47:29):
whatever the number was.
Speaker 7 (47:30):
We sold more broomsticks in the last week than we
had in the last two years combined.
Speaker 5 (47:44):
Put another long on fire.
Speaker 4 (47:50):
Nobody here is getting tired, settled down, and the story
hears about to begin, The circles starting to take its shape,
(48:14):
seats filled, and the tired, some lands ANSI escape.
Speaker 5 (48:23):
And everybody's got some glory. Just wait on to unfold.
Everybody's got some story. Just wait on to be too.
Speaker 11 (48:36):
The place for that is here, all those smiles and
all those tears, Let them go.
Speaker 5 (48:50):
Put another long five.
Speaker 4 (48:56):
Nobody hears getting tired, settle down, and settle in.
Speaker 5 (49:08):
The story he is about to begin.
Speaker 4 (49:17):
The tales were told of war, and that was lost
in a lifetimes dreams that were so Maybe you should
stop and listen at the wisdom and me maybe you
shoulpoil your heart out.
Speaker 5 (49:37):
We ain't going the way. Bind you mercy and the
sound as the smoke gets pushed around in your soul.
(50:28):
Put another log on the five. Nobody hears getting tired,
settle down, and settle in.
Speaker 13 (50:46):
The story. Hears about to begin the story, hears about
to begin the story here was about to begin.
Speaker 9 (51:08):
H
Here's the scary similarities. I had an idea just like Carston.
I started the company with the mill, just like Carston,
the exact same mill. And I went around in the
trunk of in my superrew. I didn't have his call,
but I had a super brew outback, and I drove around, uh, California,
(00:25):
in Nevada and uh and would sleep in the back
of the car and sell potters and do demo days.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Uh, you know, just going on.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
So I hire a babysitter for my daughter, and then
I'd hit the road and then come back.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
Put another log on the fire.
Speaker 5 (00:52):
Here is given time. Welcome to the fire Pit with
Matt Chanella.
Speaker 6 (01:02):
Thanks again to Joe Horowitz for our theme song. In
case you missed it, we produced a podcast on the
writing and recording of the song with Grammy Award winning
producer Jakir King, which Joe called The Story. If you
haven't heard it, it's worth scrolling through our archive and
listening in on the process of producing a song from
start to finish. As for this story, how and why
(01:24):
Bill Pressey invented not only a putter, but game changing
putter technology. How and why a guy like Sam Hahn
would push all in and evolve and grow Pressy's invention
in a way that it ends up in the bag
and hands of Lucas Glover, who used it to win
back to back PGA tour events in twenty twenty three.
We're just getting started. In Part one, you hear from
(01:46):
both Pressy and Han how and why they met, and
you get a sense of why they work so well together.
While Pressey had a good idea, he needed Han for
capital rebranding and to get the unconventional tool in the
hands of prominent influencers and tour players. But before we
go any further, another quick appreciation for Dormy Workshop, the
(02:08):
Canadian based company that only makes quality, handmade leather goods
such as custom headcovers and accessories. The Bishop Brothers are
good golfers, good friends, and we're lucky to have them
putting our logo on their products. All available at Firepitcollective
dot com. For their complete collection of originals, headcovers and classics,
go to Dormy Workshop dot com and use promo code
(02:29):
fire Pit fifteen for fifteen percent off your next purchase.
For a quick recap of Part one of this series,
Sam Hahn is an Oregon based golf enthusiast who managed
a band and a bar by night, played a lot
of golf by day, and on one day in twenty seventeen,
Bob Duncan, Han's friend and swing instructor, presented a new putter.
Speaker 7 (02:50):
Bob comes up and, you know, shows me the reno
two point one by a company called Directed Force at
the time was how it was kind of branded, and
I was like, what the am I.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Allowed to swear? Yeah, of course you are, Yeah, yeah.
I was like, what the fuck is that?
Speaker 8 (03:05):
Like?
Speaker 7 (03:05):
Barf likes full on barf. I mean, it was just
the most ridiculous looking thing I'd ever seen. I was like,
there's no chance I'm putting with that.
Speaker 6 (03:12):
Duncan doesn't take no for an answer.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
You know, the revealer is profound.
Speaker 7 (03:17):
I mean, it's incredible to see a putter flopping around
and not doing what you know, the golf putter gurus
of the world have told you a toe hangg putter
is supposed to do, or a face balance butter is
supposed to do. And then you see this one staying
square all by itself, and it's intriguing. So he's like,
just give me nine holes, grab a cart, went out
on the golf course and I one putted the first
(03:39):
seven greens for a total of one hundred and fifty
feet worth of putts.
Speaker 6 (03:43):
Like lots of people who get past the look of
what was directed for us, and now lab Golf, the
investment for Han was paying significant dividends.
Speaker 7 (03:53):
There's no more tinkering, there's no more tweaking, like this
is the this is the putter. It's stay square by itself.
So all I gotta do is let it And and
so I went through my own process and figuring out
how to utilize the technology and ultimately ended up with
a very different technique than I had ever used with
a putter. And then and then the results became off
the chart. So starting then after I kind of found
(04:14):
my groove with it. I was a one handicap at
the time, I was a plus three and a half.
Speaker 6 (04:18):
Six weeks later, Hans says, there are four very serendipitous
moments in this company's history. Ironically, the first is when
his putter breaks.
Speaker 7 (04:28):
One of the fun things about these putters is that,
because you know, when you start spinning them around, there
isn't some massive torque pulling in one direction or another.
This was kind of like my fidget, right, Like I'm
just always walking around the grain, spinning the potter, spinning
the putter, and one day I'm.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Spinning it and I hear a little click. That's not good.
I kind of go, you know, kind of go like
this with the head. It goes.
Speaker 6 (04:53):
Fuck Bob Duncan strikes again.
Speaker 9 (04:56):
I knew Sam's background a little bit, and I knew
that if I got him together with Bill, they'd probably
go crazy.
Speaker 6 (05:08):
Bill Pressey on chemistry.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
When Sam called me.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
My head fell off, of course, she's like, hey, you know,
my head fell off, And I kid you not. As
soon as I heard his voice, and I think he'd
probably experienced this, I was like, this guy, it was
game on.
Speaker 7 (05:28):
They were about to close the doors, and I'd ask
Bill to put me in touch with the guys that
he was partnered with, worked out a deal with them, Me,
my dad, and my brother all put everything together and
bought out Bill's existing partners. And that's how the whole thing,
that's how LAB started. So then at that point, so
that was late twenty seventeen. I think we were officially,
(05:53):
you know, business married in early twenty eighteen, and we
were off to the races, and or so I.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Thought Sam possessed the traits I don't. And and and
it's a ham and eggs thing. I'm a complete uh
inventor wild you know. It's you're not gonna rain me
in ever and so uh, which is not a thing
that you want running a company. And so so Sam
(06:22):
possessed all those skills and and once uh, you know,
he expressed interest in in doing a buyout, and we
could buy out the company and I'll come along and
we'll reform another company.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
We we did that.
Speaker 6 (06:40):
So consider yourself caught up. And we're going to get
to more serendipitous moments in this company's history as it
relates to Tim Wilkinson, Jeff Sluman, Von Taylor, Kelly Slater,
Adam Scott. And then we do a deep dive into
Lucas Glover and lab Golf's impact on his career. But
before we get to all of that, those people and players,
(07:00):
I felt compelled to go back.
Speaker 5 (07:02):
A bit lie angle balance.
Speaker 6 (07:05):
I understand what all those things are, but is that
the that's the essence of all of this? That is
the essence. It's it's you know, like, if you're going
to like summarize all of that. That's the magic dust.
Speaker 7 (07:22):
Li angle balance is the magic dust. Absolutely, Bill's invention
is the magic dust. And when you get to talk
to him and find out how he came up with this,
it's it'll blow your mind. I mean, happy accidents, man, incredible, incredible,
just stars aligning for him to discover this thing, because
it's so fucking simple, right, Like, why wouldn't we Why
didn't somebody think, shouldn't we have the putter balance to
(07:44):
go where the fucking ball goes?
Speaker 2 (07:46):
And nobody thought of it?
Speaker 7 (07:48):
And he, uh, he did, and so yes, that is
the magic dust. And what the magic dust does is
unlocked people's potential. And that's why we play golf, right,
it's because we know that that the potential is there.
We know we know that we could have shot two
shots better every single fucking round we play.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
And with lab you get that much closer the hope.
The hope becomes real and it's a lot.
Speaker 7 (08:15):
Of fucking fun when you get these things dialed.
Speaker 6 (08:17):
Meet Bill Pressey, a fifty four year old journeyman. He's
a good player, an instructor, an inventor. He told me
that as a kid in mcwan, Wisconsin, in a basement
tinkering with clubs. His grandfather once told him there are
four ways to making money. You can win it, marry it,
sell it, or invent it. The take me back to
(08:40):
the beginning, Why or when or where did you get
the idea that you had some sense of technology that
was game changing and that this was something you were
willing to kind of push all in on.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Gouss.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
It must have been twenty twelve or something. I missed
the Monday qualifier for the Reno Tahoe Open that I
was playing in, and I just hit the ball te
the green. This I think I hit sixteen or seventeen
greens and ended up shooting seventy two. I just about
I want to go home and cut my wrists. But
(09:22):
so it was really the thing I did. I had
a pain SeeU five face balanced putter from the ping
works department, you know, custom machine line in it and everything.
And I back in the day when I got in
the golf business, this is in the eighties, early mid
(09:45):
mid eighties, they had the Cobra tricep cutter and they
would go outside your arm, so you'd hold it down
here in the shaft with slide outside your arm, so
you couldn't do any risk motion and it was it
was the tricep putter. So I had one of those,
and I cut the grip off my pin and put
(10:08):
a uh you know, steel shaft extension just wedged it
in the end of the shaft so I could lock
it outside my shirt and start making strokes.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
And my hands were so greasy.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
From you know, like the sunloation and the sunblock, and
my shirt was slippery and it was a little sweaty,
and I could not keep that putter face square just
holding the steel shaft.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
It kept rotating.
Speaker 6 (10:38):
A rotating face is the issue here, and it becomes
a theme. It's the basis for Pressy to keep tinkering
and testing.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
If face balance putter isn't staying square, which I could
see just in my just holding it on my shirt,
then then maybe these other putters have some something different
that I was never told as a young professional. And
long story short, I go and I say, well, I'm
(11:08):
going to make something to hang the putter because people
aren't going to believe me that this tricep that I'm
doing that. And I invented their first revealer in my
garage with a with an old handrail stick and a
shelf bracket and a string and a hook at the bottom,
(11:29):
and I could just suspend putters. So I went down
my arsenal of fifty something cutters, and none of them,
none of them did what I thought they were going
to do.
Speaker 6 (11:39):
As we learned in part one of this series, Pressey's
homemade revealer is key to this story and ultimately the
success of his brands and the business. It was a
cobbled together tool that he eventually made out of a crutch,
the type you'd use if you broke your leg. He
used the two metal rods of the crutch and created
a bridge between the two rods that he could suspend
(12:01):
any putter from which ultimately revealed the marketing behind face
balanced and toe hank putters is just that marketing, and
that both types of putters face balance in toe hang
required manipulation by the player to get the putter face
back to being squared impact.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
So the revealer, the next stage of that was was
like a cane, like an old man's cane, instead of
the stick and hook. And then then I took it
up to the broken crutch, and the broken crutch got
quite a bit of attention.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Early on in the forums, there's crazy guys out there
with this broken crutch. Well, you hauled the putter right,
and so we said, well that got quite a reaction,
and it's showing that all these other putters are It's
just miss marketing. You know, it's no in no way
in physics does a face balanced putter stay square to
(12:58):
a straight back straight There's zero connection.
Speaker 6 (13:02):
One more time, because I know this part of the story.
It's technical. The term face balance is in reference to
the idea that if a putter is suspended perpendicular to
the ground, the face of the putter will sit square
to the sky. A toe hangputter, if suspended perpendicular to
the ground, the toe of the putter will point down
at the ground. And if you hear the term torque,
(13:25):
that's the twist of the putter face and any additional
weight you feel as the putter head is opening or
closing throughout the putting stroke. What press he is trying
to create was a putter with no torque, a putter
that essentially didn't twist or turn as you make the
putting stroke. A putter that actually did what face balance
and toe hang putters claimed to do, which is b
(13:48):
square at the point of impact and get that ball
rolling online press. He didn't stop tinkering and testing until
he achieved lie angle and balance for his set up
and putty stroke.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
In my mind, you know, being the creative type, I
already envisioned what it should look like, right. You got
to you got to grab onto something and say, this
is what it should look like, regardless of your predisposed
thoughts or or or expectations of what something is doing
(14:24):
when it's not doing. And so I just went about
making something that did what I thought it should look like,
which is lyingle balancing. And it started with the old
bett Ardy hour glass big bend putter I had. I
had a knockoff of the big bend from in his
(14:45):
Zone Diamond Tour component company in Chicago. Anyways, it's a
great little platform because it's aluminum and it's flat, and
it's got all the holes running through the side. You know,
if you look at the side of a big ben putter,
there's all these little hole and so they take weight
and they put it in the front and back. But
on top of it looked solid, but inside it's all
(15:06):
wayfered out, and I'm thinking that's a really good idea.
Speaker 6 (15:09):
Listening to Bill Pressey can make my mind feel wafered out,
and I'm guessing you might feel the same. But that's
exactly why he was capable of inventing the original directed
force putter and no one else did. Another quick step
back in history and important to note it was nineteen
seventy six when Raymond Floyd used the ram Zebra putter
(15:31):
to win the Masters. The Zebra was among the first
D shaped mallet putters that was quote face balanced.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
When the Zebra came out, that was kind of like
it was hot and heavy on the market and King
was losing. Ping was getting their butt kicked in sales,
and I was selling them. I was in the shop
in the eighties, you know, fitting and selling pings, and
all of a sudden, the Zebra and ray Floyd came out.
So then Ping's counter to face ballotalancing was well, the
(16:02):
potter doesn't really do that. We have toe hang tow
hag flows and there was nothing to substantiate that. This
was just the marketing tool to stop the bleeding. A
term that was developed to stop the bleeding to face balance,
because the face balancing was the greatest buzzword that had
(16:25):
come out in putters since whatever healed tow waiting. So
the whole story you know of how we got to
toe hang and face balancing, and this is just my
opinion forty something years in the business. It came about
when when Ray Floyd was started rolling the Zebra and
(16:48):
ping was getting crushed in the post shops, and so
they decided to come out with toeflow. Prior to this,
and if you go back in the history books, toflo
did not exist before.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Face balancing in any marketing or advertising.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Ever, it was not even talked about until face balancing
came out.
Speaker 6 (17:10):
Almost thirty years later. What Pressey came up with where
he inserted the hazzle and how he manipulated and placed
the weights throughout the manufactured knockoff putterhead he had his
garage invention did in fact stay balanced throughout the stroke
and was square at impact with no manipulation from any
(17:31):
outside agency. He achieved lie angle balance. That's what his
revealer in fact revealed not only to Pressy, but eventually
the industry and marketplace.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Once I had the product doing what the original protos
doing what they were supposed to do, then I started
expanding and making the revealer. I took it to work.
At the time, I was the director of his stroduction
at Golf Tech, and you know, just teaching teaching, teaching, teaching,
(18:05):
and so I take it to work and show some
of my clients and they were blown away, you know,
putting their putter in this little funky looking broken stick
thing and standing around and they're like, well, what does
that mean? I hold the putter. I'm like, I know,
you hold the potter. You hold your steering wheel on
your car too, but your car drives straight right.
Speaker 6 (18:28):
Bill Pressey got the patent for his product and his brand,
the Directed Force Putter, in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
My initial launch of the company, man that I get
some heat and some angry folks.
Speaker 7 (18:42):
And.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Then a lot of great a lot of great comments,
and those outweighed the angry ones.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
And the reviewer was then like the thing.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
And and so that showed really what was happening. And
from an unbiased perspective, when you're going up against marketing
dollars from major OEMs and you don't have marketing dollars,
because you know, the people can be brainwashed and and
(19:19):
through marketing, and we see it right now in our
in our social.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
And the media and just in Americans in general, it's
really easy.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Well, one thing happens, and then the next person is
just assumes that that's right.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
And so.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
The revealer was great because it cut through all of
that and there's no batteries, it's just gravity and no
smoking mirrors. Here's what your cutter is doing. It doesn't flow,
that doesn't stay squere. And so they were there were
years and years of you know, just trying to make
(19:58):
headway in the industry in overcoming the perception and changing
the paradigm of what we perceive a putter is doing
because of marketing dollars and a message that was sent
out over generations.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Like I was one of those pros.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
You probably were too, uh that for I don't know
how long I thought face balance was going to be
square backs, square through.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
It's just not. And so.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
As a connoisseur of golf clubs and a master club repairman,
and you know, I was like the go to guy
for golf tech for clubs, like on the national level, and.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
I was so embarrassed. I was kind of mad, Like
I really was.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
I was, you know, director instruction and people what my
word carries credibility, and so when I'm talking to my clients,
credibility and accuracy of comments and accuracy information and what
you're telling people has to be good. And so yeah,
I was pretty offended as a pro when I found
(21:10):
out that when I figured out none of this was real,
and so LAB was ultimately started as a as a
desperate attempt to fix my own yips, because I had
the yips really mad, like I was shaking, like the
plutter when I took it back, maybe rotated in thirty
(21:32):
three different directions by different degrees.
Speaker 8 (21:35):
It's just.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
I couldn't stop it.
Speaker 6 (21:40):
The USGA and RNA announced the ban on anchored strokes,
all anchored strokes, not just putting, in May of twenty thirteen,
and although it wouldn't go into effect until twenty sixteen,
press he had to go back into the garage and
back to the drawing board and called a slight audible
on his invention.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Original grip was called the billboard bill and then this
grip was twenty one inches and real wide, and there's
a flat grip that went outside your arm.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
The USGA changed those rules.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
At the time, I just three D printed the original
press gript, which was not lap. It was just a
it was just a tricep locking grip. To bring the
tricept putter grip back into the mainstream. So USJA dropped
their ruling about anchoring, which prohibited tricep locking.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
And that that type of nature.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
So when I got back and they did that, I
realized that my original putters that were just shafted in
the back.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Were not balanced.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
And that's where they'd all kind of like I did
grips and.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Then and then they changed the ruling, and then I
took it.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Off, and then I removed the shaft to a balance position.
And this all happened like I don't know if you
remember when they changed the rules. They came about pretty quick,
like there was a little bit of chatter about it
for a week or two and then bang it's that
was that. And so I was in the process of
trying to start my first company at the time based
(23:20):
upon these rules, and they'd changed the rules like that,
and so I scrambled to invent LAB because I couldn't
lock it anymore. And that's how the balance thing kind
of came about. You know, I was tinkering. This is
all over the course of like two weeks or some
three weeks or something.
Speaker 6 (23:41):
I asked Press if he had any financial backing or
partners who were helping him produce his product.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
I was teaching and one of the guys I was teaching,
nick Off Tech, owned a piston company, and so he
made pistons for race cars, and he had basically the
ability to make putters. I saw that right away too.
I was like, well, I know what machines you need.
And so he had the capability and the passion for golf,
(24:11):
and so did I. So, you know, he was my
original partner, and I was, you know, I was the brains.
He used the money and the ability to manufacture and
bring something to market, and that was down in Carson City.
So we partnered fifty to fifty, and that's how we
(24:32):
started direct to Force putters.
Speaker 6 (24:34):
In addition to the trials and tribulations of trying to
invent a putter, the pivot based on changing rules and regulations,
getting a patent, going to market, and competing with the
power and marketing dollars of the OEM's original equipment manufacturers.
Pressey was a single dad, widowed in two thousand and six.
(24:56):
His partner and five year old daughter were in a
car accident. His partner died, his daughter survived. Roughly eight
years later with his daughter at the age of thirteen,
Pressy and Directed Force were forging the aluminum heads in
Los Angeles. They machined the product in house or through
a local vendor, and the anadizing stage was outsourced.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
The whole thing was starting lab I look back, I
don't even know how I got off the ground because
it was you know, we were just shoe straining in
it and literally like there was there was marketing dollars
was zero. Like And I'll tell you what's interesting, Matt,
this is the first I think most people would consider
us an OEM. Now, this is the first time an
(25:40):
OEM company, from start to finish, has been tracked on
social media. Anything that was important from very day one
to current to current I put on my social my
Facebook page. So all the old protos, all the old
you know, when Bryson turned pro, oh he was rolling
(26:00):
director for us and I had him down in Vegas.
So all the all the old protos, new accounts, the
entire history of a company going from startup to boutique
to OEM has all been documented on social media.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
First time ever, it's kind of cool.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Bill.
Speaker 6 (26:24):
So twenty twelve, twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, how many how
many putters? How many putters are you selling?
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Per year?
Speaker 6 (26:34):
Like you out there, you're onto something. You've got this revealer.
Some people are like, quack, bullshit, get the fuck. Some
people are like, hold on, let me see that, let
me try it. How many are you selling? You're going
to merchandise shows. You're out of your trunk. Basically, how
(26:54):
many are you selling a year? In those first few
lean years.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
You know, I would order heads at like a thousand
at a time, fifteen hundred at a time, and we
would we would show a few thousand a year.
Speaker 6 (27:15):
That's a lot, a few thousand putters a year.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we would show you know, my demo
and I'm gonna be I'm gonna give this a shout
out to this guy. So there's a fella is a
PGA professional name. His name is Matt Holmes, and he's
down in Palm Springs now. He was one of my
early sales reps and he sold. We brought him in
(27:41):
as a sales rep for NorCal and he was a
fitter of the Year in Northern California. PGA. He sold
so many putters in one trip with his credibility and
the revealer and some demos and a little pop up
it and you know the table with the directive force.
(28:04):
He went around arcount and so so many putters he
had me back ordered for six months.
Speaker 6 (28:11):
Meet Matt Holme. He's a PGA teaching pro at Desert
Willow Golf Resort in Palm Desert, California.
Speaker 8 (28:17):
Twenty twelve. It's the first time I saw a directed
forest putter. I believe it was at a like a
local trade show in the Northern California PGA section. Twenty thirteen.
I'd seen several guys in our section use a putter.
Finished second. I finished second in the stroke play, so
the senior stroke play at Halfmoon Bay, and the guy
that wanted shot out sixty seven in the wind. Stuart Smith,
(28:39):
I'm sure you know Stuart, great professional at Areno, and
he ended up winning the tournament, beat me by five
and then and then it kind of rolled from there
and I was I was not a user at that point.
It was a bullseye guy, right, So I was an
old school of And twenty fifteen I did a little
stint on the Radio with Golf Guys show a nine
(29:01):
seventy at of Modesto, and he came on the show
and I just talked about the putter a little bit,
and that's how kind of get started.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Is Bill Pressy a genius?
Speaker 8 (29:13):
Bill Press he is a genius. Don't tell him that though.
And he's a very creative, outside the box kind of guy.
And he's one of these guys that he has the
ability to look at something for what it is and
not kind of what it's been marketed to.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
He's not a marketer. I told him.
Speaker 8 (29:31):
In fact, I ended up spending my own money. I said, hey, Bill,
you're going to do this, I'm going to spend some money.
I bought a tent, I bought a staff bag with
my name on it. I bought a tablecloth.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
At had thing.
Speaker 8 (29:41):
He was basically operating it like a scientist, not as
a marketing guy. And I've had a background a little bit.
He was a PG pro and managing golf courses and
seeing presentation, and he was not into that. He was
just into this is how it works. And I said, well, Bill,
you got to have both to really be successful in
this business. He kind of jumped on board with that
(30:02):
and then the rest of his history.
Speaker 6 (30:05):
You almost put him out of business. You were so
good at your job and doing what you did. You
had him back ordered for like six months. He said,
you almost put him out of business.
Speaker 8 (30:16):
Well, I think that's kind of he's kind of jokes
about it. But yeah, I sold a few putters. I
traveled around a lot. I had, Like I said, I
had a big Lincoln town car with a big trunk
and threw a bunch of putters in there in a
tent and drove around. And I think the most putters
I sold them one day. And again, this is a
putter that no one ever heard about, and a lot
of these people were buying putters, weren't even in the
(30:36):
market for putters, so I think they My most I
ever sold was like sixteen.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
In one day.
Speaker 8 (30:43):
Those small club Turlock Country Country Club in northern California,
a great little membership there. But and then I kept
calling him up and saying, when a they going to
show up? When they're going to show up. And so
it was like he was, you know, hand making him
in this friend's machine shop in Rino, and you know,
there's like one or two employees, and it was as
hard because he was you know, I was selling them
much as I can. And then you know people are
(31:05):
they want it right now.
Speaker 6 (31:06):
So Home ended our conversation with some insightful perspective and
a useful analogy.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Yeah, I mean it's interesting.
Speaker 8 (31:13):
I mean I'm a big Ernest Jones fan, and a
lot of people don't know mister Jones, but mister Jones
is a very famous instructor. Unfortunately he lost his leg
in World War One. The end of his book Swing
the Club that he makes a statement and this really
validates Bill's product. The truth is first derided and then
debated and then accept it as a matter of course.
(31:34):
So when I got in, everybody was like, oh, that
thing's junk. To look at that thing, it looks like
a spaceship. And then people started seeing what was happening.
Then they kind of did a debate about it and
started inquiring and now it's like boom, Okay, now it's
accepted as something that's really true. So it doesn't really
validated for me because I knew it. I saw it,
and I understood it. The only thing I had to
(31:55):
do is I just had to change my perspective little
bit on how I teach putting, because a lot of
it was just manipulation, trying to manipulation the putter, keeping
pressure in a certain position. It's just like if you're
driving a car. You you're a kid and your dad
hands you down a twenty year old Lincoln and it
always pulls to the right and you just hold onto
the steering wheel. The thing's always pulling to the right.
And then you get in a new car and it's
not pulling to the right. It's like, well, okay, I
(32:18):
learned to drive with this car wanted to pull to
the right. I learned to pot with a face wanted
to open. That's what this did. It didn't want to
do that. The face stays square point. You're driving a
car that doesn't pull the right. But it's basically a.
Speaker 6 (32:29):
Good analogy back to Bill Pressey.
Speaker 5 (32:33):
How much were you so? How much were you selling
him for?
Speaker 6 (32:37):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Yeah, so I think when he first started, ah, it
was like two seventy five or something, and I thought
that was crazy, but I so. Another key person in
how this kept going with Stuart Smith. He's a PGA
(32:59):
member in the Northern California. He's an excellent player on
the national lever played for UCLA. So he played with
Todd Yoshitaki, who is the director of golf at Riviera,
and Todd is a super cool guy. So Stewart called Todd.
(33:22):
He's like, hey, you got to check out this putter
by this local pro. And and so I got the
invite to go down and do a demo day at Riviera.
And I drove down on my subie with with a
trunk full of putters. I sold twenty something putters on
that demo day at Riviera and or no, not twenty.
(33:42):
I show like twelve. And then Todd said, I'll never
forget this. He says, what you I the revealer and
watching that and you show people what their putters are
doing and what your putter does. He says, my members,
you could I sold twice as many putters if you
(34:03):
would have charged three fifty or four hundred bucks because
they're not seeing the perceived value at two seventy five
if you charge more, and sure I should you not.
I ramped up to three to fifty and I sold
twice as many putters.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
I'm Stuart Smith.
Speaker 10 (34:21):
I'm the PGA Director of Golf at Somerset golfam Country
Club here in Reno, Nevada. That was certainly my initial
tie in with Bill Pressey. And after using a long
putter for nineteen years and the band coming with taking
that anchoring out of my my repertoire after a long stint,
(34:42):
you know, I just I that the lab Hutter was
the way to go for me. So here I am.
I mean, I've used it ever since.
Speaker 6 (34:52):
Both Matt Holme and Bill Pressey mentioned Stuart Smith as
a critical component to the company's evolution.
Speaker 10 (34:59):
I gave him a lot of fe back on what
I liked, and he I mean, I must have. I
have quite a few of them here, even still in
my office. I have a couple of the prototypes and grips, older,
older grips that he used with the press grip. And
I think, you know, he appreciated, appreciated me as a
sounding board. He appreciated, you know, my ability at that time.
(35:23):
You know, I played in some nice tournaments the last
ten eleven years, so he knew I was a good
accomplished player. And of course as his Bill, you know,
don't ever sell Bill short. You don't want to give
him to a side or anything. So that's how our
relationship started, and we kind of went back and forth.
He dropped some putters. I did some things here at
(35:45):
my golf course trying to get the members involved with
LA B. And I would say, I have probably fifteen
or twenty of my members that used the lab putter.
And it's still and I get funny enough, now is
I'm a wreck ignized fitter? I mean I get even
I get calls all the time. I should say all
(36:05):
the time. I mean I'll fit one or two every
couple of weeks, it seems.
Speaker 6 (36:10):
I asked Smith what exactly he liked about the putter
and technology.
Speaker 5 (36:14):
First of all, the feel.
Speaker 10 (36:15):
You know, I know a lot of people sometimes maybe
can't get over maybe the looks of it.
Speaker 11 (36:20):
I use.
Speaker 10 (36:20):
I use the big reno slash, two point one slash
whatever we call it now, you know, the big mallets.
Speaker 5 (36:27):
So I think.
Speaker 10 (36:31):
Just of course, the feel of the solidness of strike,
and just in my mind knowing that that thing depends
irrelevant of how long a putt I have. I know
what's I know that work is absent, So to me,
that's allowing the putter to do work, do a little
bit more of the work.
Speaker 6 (36:52):
Meanwhile, back to Bill Pressey, where there was maybe a
little too much work for the startup.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
And this is a good time to set this straight.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
People think that I ran directed for us, and I
wasn't the brains my partners. My partner, Scott was the
company officer, and so a lot of the decisions.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Or we're not what I wanted.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
And and me being in the golf business, and I'm thinking,
you know, just if you just listen to me, we'll
do good. But people want to make their own input
and do things, you know, the way you might run
another company. Golf business is not like that. And you
know that. And so when my my father, uh, who
(37:40):
was kind of a strange for most of my life,
he kind of came back into my life and he
wanted to, you know, be involved. And I wanted him
to try to, you know, because I had a granddaughter,
he had his granddaughter and stuff and uh and and
so he wanted to get involved with company, and uh,
he invested a little bit and then he became the
(38:03):
kind of like Scott put him in as the company
manager or whatever. Well, I don't roll like that. And
so my father classic father's son, crap, you know, whatever
you think could happen happens. And and so I stepped
away because they didn't like the decisions that were being made,
(38:29):
especially with some of the social media forums and burning
some bridges, and it was just it was not good.
Speaker 6 (38:39):
And now we've come full circle. Twenty seventeen. This is
when Sam Hank called Pressy because his putter head had
fallen off. It was instant chemistry again. Pressy described the
relationship as ham and egg.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
And once, you know, he expressed interest in doing a buyout,
and we buy out the company and I'll come along
and we'll reform another company. We we did that and
and so uh, I took I didn't get I mean
I did get bought out, but my my equity and
(39:16):
shares and everything that I had just transferred into LAB.
And then we bought out the original investors and partners
and and then Sam and uh and myself and his family.
You know that the Hans took Lion, you know, the
Lions share of the company, and which was which was
(39:36):
nothing new to me that I was never in the
controlling seat. So it worked out great. And uh, and
as we started LAB over the years, it taken quite
a toll on my on my psyche, and so I
had to step away for mental health and and just
(39:59):
find myself and you know, society and and just starting
a company.
Speaker 3 (40:07):
You know that they beat you up pretty good.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
And you know, especially people feel threatened by new technology
and uh and.
Speaker 3 (40:15):
Everything and just burnt out.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
So I stepped away from day to day operations a
couple of years ago from LAB to do some things
and and fulfill some of my own goals that have
just been totally swamped out and neglected by the enormous
task of labbing, getting LAB to where it was and is.
(40:40):
And yeah, it'll it'll take it right out of it.
So uh, it's Sam is an amazing person because he
can he can do things that I can't do, and
vice versa. But together it's it's really a powerful uh concept.
And and you know, when when you're a CEO, you
(41:05):
have to have a good product. To be a good CEO.
You know, you're not gonna you're not going to find
same you know, and the same thing. A good CEO
can crash a great product. But those two have to
exist coherently to be successful and to scale the company
and to garner you know, when we go out on
social media.
Speaker 3 (41:25):
Now I give the whole respect.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
I mean, it's cool, but you know for years, oh
my gosh, it was brutal.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
I just stayed off social media and what some of them?
Speaker 6 (41:40):
But what were some of the comments that that you remember,
you you know, probably personal, calling you crazy? What?
Speaker 1 (41:49):
Oh yeah, yeah, there's all starts. Well I put the
hands on my potter or you know, the uh, the
branding irons. At a certain point it became at first
it was pretty offensive. But you know, I got some
stones and so I said, all right, well I've called
(42:10):
I called the the the old power pod driver, some
various things back in the day.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
So the branding iron and that that came with the territory.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
But yeah, it's it's really uh, when you when you're
putting something out there in the public, you're gonna get
judged and you have to accept that.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
But when people start.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
To get personal, that's where that's kind of where the
line gets drawn. And uh, no, people don't know my story.
They don't know how much crap I've overcome to to
be successful.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
From accuse you not, I was homeless in.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
Two thousand, like literally homeless, and so yeah, I mean
there's a lot, Uh, there's a lot more than than
just like creating a putter to get to get to
overcome the crap that the big oams pull on you, uh,
to you know, to try to keep you out of
(43:12):
stores or to keep you away from players. It's savage, savage,
and uh.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
It takes.
Speaker 3 (43:22):
It's exhausting.
Speaker 6 (43:22):
So any examples, any any specific examples or any stories.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
You'd yeah, I mean, well, here's an interesting story. So
when Bryson turned pro, I flew to Vegas. I drove
to Vegas, brought him some putters. Mike Shi, his coach,
was in Sack and so you know, Mike had seen
my putters and Stuart Smith and whatnot. Anyways, so you
(43:47):
remember when Bryson went to this side arm lock or
this side saddle thing that got banned. So I was
at I was at Whisper Rock Cavin lunch with McCord
and Case tends.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
He sleans over with his phone.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
He says, look at this and and Bryson was in
his living room. He's like his apartment living room, showing
me the stroke that he wanted to do. And if
I would make a putter that suited that li angle,
you know, eighty degrees and with this lean and and
I'm looking at the stroke and I look back at Gary,
(44:28):
I'm like, Gary, that's a non conforming stroke, like that's
that's an intentional breach of USGA, which was I don't
know how else he can look at it. So he
wanted me to move the shaft or make a really
upright thutter with the shaft length and the lean amount
(44:50):
hand drilled so that he could do that.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
So so and I and I this is the biggest
no I ever.
Speaker 1 (44:56):
I said, no, I'm not going to do that because
I think it's not unconforming and it's not in the
spirit of the rules, and I just I'm not going
to make that. So then the next week, two weeks later,
he shows up at that at that Bears event, you know,
doing his side saddle arm locked in with the beer
(45:18):
can the half beer can putter. And then and then
the USGA saw that and they made they made that
guy's putter, which was conforming, they made it non conforming
unless he moved the shaft to the back of the head.
That's how that stuff works. And if you get caught
in those traps. The best know I ever said was
right there, because that putter is no longer in existence,
(45:40):
and they made him change the shaft location and everything
because it could be effectively used in this certain condition
of vertical.
Speaker 6 (45:50):
You said, the biggest, the most important know you made
was to Bryson on what would have ultimately have been
non conforming. What were is your best yes?
Speaker 12 (46:04):
Ah, that was yes to Sam buying the company, and
and and basically, uh, because because I had so many
shares in the original BF that I was able to
kind of force a buy out.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
And uh, that was the best.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
Yes when he said he wanted to to make a
move at buying the company, that was my best Yes, Yes,
let's do it.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
By far.
Speaker 6 (46:43):
So that's Bill Pressey's story within the Directed Force Lab
Golf story, and one that I really felt that I
needed to tell before we can get to more of
Sam Han's four magical moments that lead to Lucas Glover
winning not one PGA Tour event using lab putter, but
two back to back Pressi's life is now very much
(47:04):
in order. He's a grandfather, he's lost fifty pounds, and
on Super Bowl Sunday twenty twenty four, he will be
sober for three years. In episode three, you'll hear from
Jeff Sluman, Von Taylor, Kelly Slater Adam Scott and several
other protagonists. As we build to August of twenty twenty three,
you went from like selling five putters a week or
(47:29):
whatever the number was.
Speaker 7 (47:30):
We sold more broomsticks in the last week than we
had in the last two years combined.
Speaker 5 (47:44):
Put another long on fire.
Speaker 4 (47:50):
Nobody here is getting tired, settled down, and the story
hears about to begin, The circles starting to take its shape,
(48:14):
seats filled, and the tired, some lands ANSI escape.
Speaker 5 (48:23):
And everybody's got some glory. Just wait on to unfold.
Everybody's got some story. Just wait on to be too.
Speaker 11 (48:36):
The place for that is here, all those smiles and
all those tears, Let them go.
Speaker 5 (48:50):
Put another long five.
Speaker 4 (48:56):
Nobody hears getting tired, settle down, and settle in.
Speaker 5 (49:08):
The story he is about to begin.
Speaker 4 (49:17):
The tales were told of war, and that was lost
in a lifetimes dreams that were so Maybe you should
stop and listen at the wisdom and me maybe you
shoulpoil your heart out.
Speaker 5 (49:37):
We ain't going the way. Bind you mercy and the
sound as the smoke gets pushed around in your soul.
(50:28):
Put another log on the five. Nobody hears getting tired,
settle down, and settle in.
Speaker 13 (50:46):
The story. Hears about to begin the story, hears about
to begin the story here was about to begin.
Speaker 9 (51:08):
H
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