February 19, 2024 • 40 mins
In part 3 of this Fire Pit Podcast series on the rise and relevancy of L.A.B. Golf, the putters being used by the likes of Lucas Glover, Adam Scott, Ben An, Will Zalatoris, Camilo Villegas and more, you hear about some of the lean years, the struggles of branding, marketing, and how Sam Hahn went about getting it into the hands of Tour players. From Kelly Slater, Tim Wilkinson, Jeff Sluman and Vaughn Taylor, the proof was in the results. “His posture is getting taller and everything is looking better,” says Hahn about Taylor. “He has got hope.”
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
I think I had a round a spyglass. I had
around a spyglass. I think I had twenty two putts,
and granted I missed a couple of greens real close,
you know, so I was putting from off the green
and they're not counted as a putt. So maybe it's
like twenty seven twenty eight putts from the ones that
included off the green. But point being that I just
(00:24):
get so confident with the thing and I just start
when I'm on, I just start making everything.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Put another logal the fire.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Nobody here is get the time.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
Welcome to the fire Pit with Matt Chanella. In part
two of this podcast series on the relevance and rise
of lab golf, we told Bill Pressey's story, the man
who took to his garage in twenty twelve and used
a modified cane and then ultimately a crutch to invent
his revealer. That invention leads Pressy to the technology he
(01:07):
implemented into his first version of the directed force putter,
which actually did what face balance and toe hang putters
claimed to do. Pressy received the patent to what was
the directed force putter in twenty fourteen and sold his
odd looking invention out of the trunk of his car.
Pressy had just enough traction to start a business, but
(01:27):
not enough marketing skills or manufacturing efficiency to be sustainable.
When the company was on the brink, Pressey got connected
to Sam Hahn in twenty seventeen, who, in addition to
his dad and brother, bought a chunk of the business
in twenty eighteen. Han says that from his perspective, there
were four magic moments that led to the success of
(01:47):
Lab Golf. The putter Lucas Glover used to win back
to back PGA Tour events in August of twenty twenty three,
which is ultimately where this series will end. The first
of those four magic moments was when Hans directed force
Putter broke and Bob Duncan put him in touch with Pressey.
Not long after buying into the company, Han relocated the
(02:08):
home office from Reno, Nevada to Eugene, Oregon, which is
where Han was living, and although he was an avid
and scratch golfer, he was new to the golf industry.
This is where we resume the narrative. Here's Sam Han.
Speaker 5 (02:22):
Damn dude, I mean we it would just school of
hard knocks I mean just every I had to learn
everything about what we were doing. I would say now
in retrospect, one of the absolute best things we had
going for us was the fact that I didn't have
any idea how the golf industry worked. And this allowed
me to keep an open mind on every facet of
(02:45):
the business. The putter is different, it works differently, you
have to tell the story differently, you use it differently,
and consequently, the way that you manufacture and market and
fulfill is different. It has to be. And if I
was a golf industry guy, it just it wouldn't have worked.
And early on, and I learned that. I learned that
(03:06):
really early. We you know, so we're putting together a
business plan and figuring out how we're going to do
this and how we're going to spread the word. What's
going to go on? And we hired a fella wonderful man.
His name is Charlie Gerber, and he used to be
the sales rep from here in North America. And Charlie
was sweet as can be. And he was tasked with
(03:26):
putting together a sales force. So he hired fifteen twenty
different independent reps around the country and to no fault
of his own. It just didn't work. You know, he's
got these the guys that were hiring. You know, there
wasn't enough margin for us to really make this their
only gig. And so the guys that we're working with
(03:47):
are selling gloves and balls and shoes and a four
to seven hundred dollars custom puttern. It just wasn't working.
And yah, can I ask you real quick?
Speaker 6 (03:57):
So at the time that you buy the company many
how many of these putters were being sold a year?
Speaker 5 (04:07):
Virtually?
Speaker 7 (04:07):
Non?
Speaker 5 (04:07):
I mean we had they had so twenty one putters?
Speaker 6 (04:11):
Would they did they sell one hundred putters times four
hundred or like?
Speaker 4 (04:16):
Like what you know?
Speaker 5 (04:16):
Like was it a thousand putters? I would say, I
would say that the day we bought the company, I
would be very surprised if there was a thousand putters
out in the world, and probably closer to four or
five hundred.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
Press he thinks there might have been a little more.
But regardless and relatively speaking, there was nowhere to go
but up or go out of business. What was at
the top of the priority in your mind, like what
did you need to do to try to make this successful?
Speaker 5 (04:44):
Branding into her presence. So the first one was branding,
So I did have I'm a good consumer, like I
in the sense that like I'm an educated consumer, right,
I am both clear on on the technology that I'm buying.
I look into it, I look for validation of it.
(05:05):
So I already had that.
Speaker 6 (05:07):
But you were doing a lot of obviously because you're
going through a lot of putters, so like the.
Speaker 5 (05:11):
Consumer exactly, so I'm using some of what was a turnoff.
There were so many turnoffs about this putter when I
got it, so many, you know, like I hated this grip,
this rubber oval grip. I couldn't stand it. I actually
love it now, but I hated I hated the analyzing,
(05:33):
Like the finish on this putter was just so cheap
looking like it just it just it looked like a
fucking infomercial product.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
You know.
Speaker 5 (05:41):
And then this logo was so bad and Bill's probably
going to listen to this and he's gonna be mad
at me. But I love you, Bill, but you know
your logo sucked, bro, And and there was just and
then the company was called Directed Force at the time,
Like that's a fucking mouthful for a company, Like it
was just it it was so so a lot of branding, branding, branding,
(06:02):
I mean, we we that was a huge thing. Day
one re rebranded the company lab Lying of Balance. That
was Bill's call. That was, as I understand it, what
he wanted to call the company in the first place.
And then we needed a logo and took forever with
these guys in Colorado that were just not not handing
us anything particularly creative. And it was actually my mom
(06:25):
uh one day was like, well, putter is a really
interesting shape. Why not just make it the putter? So
we tried a couple of iterations of just like the
straight silhouette of the putter, and then I ended up
drawing this, you know, this one here on a napkin
and that became the logo. So when I first drew it,
it didn't have the notch. It just kind of looked
(06:45):
like a heart with the tip cut off. And we
had been like three months deep into finding a logo.
I drew this thing on a napkin, had some guys
actually put it, you know, make it real, sent it
to Bill. Well, I fuck, yeah, we did it. Thank
the Lord Jesus. The logo conversation is over. This thing
is incredible, it looks good, it's sexy, it's awesome, and
(07:09):
we're so excited. The next day, shit, I got a
back up a second. About two weeks into owning the company,
somebody sends me an Instagram post that Kelly Slater had
made the surfer that he had made about this crazy
new putter that he found at Carl's Bad Golf Center.
(07:29):
So we reached out to Kelly and you know said,
you know, I introduced myself. I'm like, hey, I'm the
new owner of the company, and I saw that you're
using the putter. Let me know if there's ever anything
you need. Kelly and I hit it off. We start texting,
we're talking putters, and we become golfner buddies, and YadA YadA.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
Kelly Slater is the greatest surfer of all time, very
commonly referred to as the Goat. Slater has eleven world championships.
He won his first in nineteen ninety two, his last
in twenty eleven. The next best in surfing is Mark Richards,
who has five, and he got all of his before
nineteen eighty three. Simply put, Slater is the secretariat of
(08:08):
his sport, and if there are no waves. He plays golf,
not surprisingly, he's very good at it, a scratch if
not better, and a regular at the AT and T
Pebble Beach pro Am. Through a love of golf and surfing,
Slater is friends with Adam Scott. What was your first
introduction to this putter in this technology.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah, so the first time I saw LAB I was
playing a golf course called Redstick in Florida, and actually
I think the guy runs it used to work at Augusta,
but he moved down there to work at Redstick.
Speaker 8 (08:44):
Really good course, great greens.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
I was just playing with a buddy of mine, Bill,
who I played with a lot, an old surfer friend
of mine, and were paired up with the guy that
he plays with sometimes just a casual game, and this
guy had a directed force.
Speaker 8 (09:00):
Lab lab butter, and.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Like everyone else, I said same thing, like what's that thing?
Speaker 8 (09:07):
You know?
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Blah blah, And I'm I'm pretty open minded, like I'm
pretty into if something works, it works, I don't care
what it looks like.
Speaker 8 (09:15):
I've played some goofy clubs over the year just because they're.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Funny, and you know, just to give you an idea.
Speaker 8 (09:22):
I used to have this.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
I'm a real Mo Norman geek and I used to
have this this sandwich. It kind of looked like the
alien that Moe used to play with, and it had
a giant balance on it. I think it had about
twelve or fifteen degrees of bounce and a big soul
on the bottom of the club.
Speaker 8 (09:42):
And a funny story I was in.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
I was on the big island planet Kokio where many
years ago as a member, and Adam was out there
and uh, I said, just hit this club out of
the sand, and he hit three balls to about a
foot out of the sand.
Speaker 8 (09:55):
He goes, is this thing legal? I said, yeah, I
guess so. So anyways, I've.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Always been in mind with these alternative sort of looking
and feeling gloves and uh, so I'm playing with this guy.
Speaker 8 (10:07):
We get around the front nine.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
This guy's making all sorts of plots, are at least
scaring the hold, and uh we get on about the
twelfth hole and I said, you know, let me just
take a couple of strokes of that thing. And I
drained three puts from about ten twelve feet and I
was just sold immediately.
Speaker 8 (10:24):
They just rolled the end over end. They set up
pretty perfectly for me.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
It was probably an inch long and maybe a little
too flat of alive, but I, you know, I just
set it right and uh to see how the ball
would roll, and it felt amazing. So a week later
I went to I was out here in California and
I went to Carlosbad Golf Center where they did.
Speaker 8 (10:46):
They were like one of the official fitters.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
So I went there and messed around with the fit
club for a while and you know, just set my
langle length and ordered one and waited a couple of months,
And to be honest, I was like so ty to
get it. I was sending emails kind of hagging him
on like how long do.
Speaker 8 (11:02):
The ctit go'll be done? But I really want to
get it.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
They sent it to Hawaii, out to Hawaii for me,
and the first week I had it, I went over
to McKenna and I was playing with Tommy Armor and
in the first round, Tommy goes, don't ever take that
thing out of the back. You're rolling it's so good,
and it was just end over end, And I've just
been leaver since day one and the first time I
(11:27):
try that guy's putter until I got mine. And when
I got mine, my confidence and my putting just went
through the roof, and I feel, I honestly feel like
I hardly have to practice.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
And I thought, really, well, more with Kelly Slater in
a bit, but for now, back to Sam Han on
the new logo, or so he thought.
Speaker 5 (11:46):
Bill was like a huge Kelly Slater fan, so just
tuck that away for a second. So the next day
after I give him this logo, he calls me up.
He's like, stop, the presses can't use this as a logo,
and I'm like why, What's He's like, I just played
Charity Scramble with some buddies. I showed it to them
and they all think that the top piece looks like
a ballsack. And I'm like, dude, your fucking friends are weirdos.
(12:11):
It does not look like a ballsack. It's fine. And
he's like, dude, I'm saying, we are not using this logo.
It looks like a ballsack. I don't want to be
the Ballsack Potter company. It's not happening. And I'm like, dude,
settle down. Your guys are drunk. You guys are being silly.
It's not a thing. And he's like no, I'm like yes,
and I'm like all right, let's each do our own
(12:32):
little focus group here. You've picked six guys to go
send it to and ask them what their first reaction is.
I'll pick six guys that I send it to and
ask them what their first reaction to is. And I'm like,
I'm going to send it to Kelly because Joe, you know,
Bill's big Kelly fan. As long as Kelly signs off
on it will be really good. So I text Kelly,
I'm like, you know, what do you think of this logo?
He's like, Dude, it's actually a really really cool logo.
(12:54):
But if I'm totally honest, men kind of suck and
all they're going to see is a ballsack and they're
just going to make jokes about the boss. Oh like fack,
god damn it. Back to the drawing board. And you know,
just a couple subtle tweaks made it, you know, much
(13:15):
much less testicular and much more potter oriented. But I
do love that story a lot, where I was just
so positive that was a non thing, and Slater just
validated completely that Bill was absolutely right and the thing
looks like a ball sack.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
On that note, and before I go any further, I
just want to thank Dormy Workshop for their sponsorship of
this podcast. As you know by now, the Canadian based
company only makes handmade leather goods such as custom headcovers
and accessories. The Bishop Brothers are good golfers, great friends,
and we're lucky to have them putting our logo on
their products. All available at Firepitcollective dot com. For their
(13:54):
complete collection of originals headcovers and classics, go to Dormy
Workshop dot com and use promo code fire Hit fifteen
for fifteen percent off your next purchase. Back to Samhan
in his office at Emerald Valley Golf Club in Creswell,
Organ home of the Oregon Ducks, and.
Speaker 5 (14:10):
Now comes lucky break number two. You know you had asked,
what what did I think that we needed to do
in order to get this thing moving? So it was
branding for sure. The next piece was presence, tour presence.
We had no professional tour players, and that that was
in my mind, Like I was almost thinking of this
(14:30):
as a flip when I bought the company, Like I
wasn't really thinking about growing into this crazy behemoth of
a company. I was thinking that we were going to
get out on tour and that somebody was going to
grab the putter and go win a major championship and somebody,
you know, one of the major OEMs is going to
call us up and you know, license attack or buy
us out completely or something. So first app is we
(14:53):
got to get out on tour. So I call up
to tour and I find out what's the process in
getting a credential so that we could be out on
the green and they're like, well, you either need a
specific invitation from a player or your putter has to
have been used in enough tournaments that it qualifies for
a credential. And I'm like, well, I don't have an
(15:15):
invite from a player, and how am I going to
get a putter to use it if I can't get
out on or a player to use it if I
can't get out on tour. And they're like, well, tough
shit fuck. So I'm like, how does it work? You know, like,
how do you know if a player is using it
or whatever? And they tell me about the Daryl Survey,
which I didn't know anything about at the time, but
you know, it's a company that you know, basically tracks
every single thing that's in everybody's bag. And the woman
(15:36):
on the other end of the poem. It was just like,
just out of curiosity, what's the name of the company,
And so I told her it was Directed Force. She
plugs it into the system and she's like, oh, actually,
you guys qualify. You guys have had you know, eleven plays,
and I'm like, huh. Tim Wilkinson, a left handed New
Zealand Germany journeyman. New Zealander journeyman, had bought the putter
(15:59):
in New Zealand, like somehow a lefty version of this
putter ended up in Bumblefuck, New Zealand. Random Journeyman tour
pro picks it up, likes it, uses it for eleven
events on the nationwide tour at the time, and we
got a tour credential like day one. So talk about
your lucky breaks. I have no you know, you can't
(16:20):
write that shit that otherwise I would have no idea
how we ever would have gotten out there. It never
would have happened.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
Meet Tim Wilkinson, as Han describes, he's a forty five
year old lefty tour player from New Zealand. He turned
pro in two thousand and three, and although he has
no wins, he has three top five finishes on the
PGA Tour, and he has amassed five point three million
in career earnings.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
Anyway, So twenty seventeen, I believe I was playing the corn.
Speaker 8 (16:47):
Ferry Tour.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
And I think I missed probably missed a couple of cats,
and I got to Utah maybe on the Sasine. I
was staying with a friend of mine in Poc City
and I just found a golf course nearby. I don't
even remember the name of it now, but yeah, I
found a golf course nearby, and when at the pro shop,
(17:10):
asked the pro as he normally do, I asked the
pro would he mind if I did some chipping and
parting and hit some balls on the dragon range. And
while I was doing there, you know, I always go
and have a look at the putters that they have
on their racks. So I went in there and I
asked him about this particular putter that was kind of
nothing that I'd ever seen before, and he showed me.
(17:33):
You know, I just asked because it was one of
the fitting putters, so the net could bend all, you know,
from right hand to left hand, and it could be
said at any lie angle. So I'd ask him if
he could set it up at sixty nine degree lie
and what it was zero loft at the time, I think,
So I asked him if he could just set it
(17:55):
up at left hand at sixty eight and I had
a few parts with it, and he showed me this
the revealer, which is the rack that you put the
putter around, and you can just swing it into the
face so square, and it all made sense to me.
So I asked him, you know who makes it and
where do you get it from? And Bill was actually
in Utah, I believe, and so I called him on
(18:20):
the next day, or maybe even that afternoon, or maybe
it might have been ten minutes later. I don't exactly remember,
but he came out to San Francisco the following week
and fitted me it. Brought a whole lot of putterson
and got me fitted into one. So I started using
it from there, and I think I did I get
my I can't remember if I got my PJA took
card that year or not. And I remember I know
(18:42):
I one hundred percent used it. I think the Windhom
Championship was the first PGA to event I used it
at and I remember shooting sixty two in the second
or third round but I'm not I'd have to go
back and have a look at some of the numbers
from that point.
Speaker 5 (18:58):
But yeah, it was just.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
Out of the blue and I saw the potter and
the reveala and it just at night sense, and yeah,
I guess I'd been using it for iight o ten
events and when that asked for PG two credentials and yeah,
kind of went from there and now lots of guys
(19:19):
having a lot of success.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
It's a pretty good story.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
In twenty seventeen, the ten events leading into the Windham Championship,
which is when Wilkinson put the putter in the bag,
he had missed seven cuts and had only broken seventy
three times. At Windham, he shot rounds of sixty three, seventy,
sixty eight and sixty seven for a T fourteen, which
tied for his best finish of his year, and the
(19:43):
sixty three tied his lowest round of the year. That week,
he was forty fourth in strokes game putting fourth in
total putts.
Speaker 7 (19:52):
Does it feel good to know that, you know? As
Sam was looking to try to get it in the
hands of more tour pros and looking to sort of
figure out how he could get a tour credential that
it was you that popped up and had been using
it and ultimately got him the access he needed to
to take this company to where it's going now.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Yeah, probably one of the most unlikely you know, from
New Zealand. Yeah, you would think you'd get the putter
in the hands of a you know, right handed probably
American player really to be honest, but for me just
to come across the pastor and a pro shop and
(20:36):
just be intrigued with it and and you know, like
just to shave fractions of shots off your score as
huge and professional golf as you know. Yeah, and to
be kind of I guess at the forefront of I
guess taking a chance on a different passer. You know,
(20:57):
in the past many people haven't wanted to take it
chance on a crazy looking grip.
Speaker 8 (21:01):
That's the Ford Press grip.
Speaker 7 (21:02):
And.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Yeah, like a what do you call it? Cattle Proude
looking potter. But the science behind it was amazing and
I felt like I could just kind of aim and
hit with it.
Speaker 5 (21:20):
And then you know, the.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Conversations I had after that, the the original director force
was really big and I said, I said, the only
thing I think you need to do is add just
a touch of laught and bring down the footprint of
the potter, and I think more guys would use it.
Speaker 8 (21:34):
And it took a while, but you know that that happened.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
So Han has the credential that gets some access to
practice putting greens and thus the people who are the
gateway to validation and success. Seems simple and straightforward, but was.
Speaker 5 (21:50):
It the first The very first tour event I went
to was a corn Ferry event in Chicago and at Ivanhoe,
and uh and I was really lucky that I had
no idea about rep culture or how it works out there,
(22:12):
which gave me the luxury of being very aggressive doing
shit that now I understand is completely inappropriate. Walking right
up to players my my, my, my, My pickup line,
if you will, was like, hey, I want to see
a magic trick, and then I'd show him the revealer
and stick there putter in there and make it look
like a you know, fish on a hook and then
show them my putter and they're like fuck and uh
(22:34):
so they grab You know, got gotta remember if I
actually got any even play at Ivanhoe that week, but
I certainly got a few guys to take it made
some friends, learned a little bit. Actually met gear and
Rife that week, who was you know, rep and even
Roll and uh he kind of at the time, you know,
took me under his wing a little bit and showed
(22:56):
me the ropes and uh, you know how it all works.
And that was a lot of fun. That's twenty eight
would you say that's twenty eighteen. You're the summer of
twenty eighteen. And so I knew that I needed to
open up accounts. So that was so I lived in Eugene.
My folks were still living in Chicago. So I decided
(23:19):
to just go home and spend June in Chicago because
there's like, there's no golf in Oregon. Like it's just
not a thing. And the golf that is here is
very very Nobody out here is buying a six hundred
dollars custom putter. Have fun at Ivanhoe. Next week I
go to the Champions Tour. This is where she gets
really fun because the Champions Tour guys are a fucking blast.
(23:40):
Like I really don't like doing tour events anymore. I'll
totally go to a Champion Store event anytime. These guys
are you know, there's five guys out there that ticket. Seriously,
the rest of them are drinking Bloody Mary's and having
telling stories and talking shit and having a good time.
Speaker 8 (23:53):
Totally agree.
Speaker 6 (23:55):
I tell everybody I've been a part of the Pure
Insurance event at Pebble every year for the last I
don't know, seven eight years. Those are my guys, They're
my generation. They're the ones who I've covered since the
beginning of Sports Illustrated and Digest And I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
Like I love I love all those guys, even the
guys who were prickly dicks and asses, and you know
back in the day, they're all like super cool and
fun and friendly. Like they've started wine labels and they're
into cool shit and travel and they're like they're they're
their grandparents now they're like they they're like, they're so
much fun.
Speaker 5 (24:29):
Lovely, they're they're the happiest they've ever been there, living
the dream. Money's been made, the things are taking care
of their It is just so much fun. So I
go out to this Champions Tour event and you know,
in addition to it being pretty chill out there, like
from a putting standpoint, like eighty percent of that tours
got the yips bat so they're they're down to try anything.
(24:52):
So so I come out to that event and the
inventory that I inherited was nil. Like we had a
handful of putters. We were actually out of headcovers. I
didn't know that, you know, it didn't didn't even occur
to me to ask what the headcover inventory was. And like,
you can't not have a headcover for this fucking thing.
(25:12):
It's huge. It's gonna, you know, kill somebody. And so
I show up with a with a pink Sunday bag
about six of these putters with socks over them at
the Champions tournament and uh, and like the guys loved it,
Like they absolutely loved it, and they're all trying it
(25:33):
and they're all checking it out. And I want to
say I had four or five putters in play that week,
guys going out on into tournaments with socks on the putters.
And because there's no headcover that fits on it, not
even a fucking driver headcover fits on it. It's so big.
And I had so much fun and got so excited.
(25:54):
And the first real exciting, exciting kind of anything that
happened on TV. Jeff Sluman picked up the putter at
that event, and he ended up using it for quite
a while. I think I want to say he used
it for at least a few months and led the
Senior British later that summer through two rounds and was
(26:15):
making bombs and he had a blue one and so
everybody saw it. Everybody's like, what the hell is this
blue branding iron thing that Jeff Sluman's using, And yeah,
we got some fun pictures and that you know, really
felt like things were going to happen fast at that point.
It really really did.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
Here's Jeff Sluman, one of the true gentlemen and men's
professional golf. He won the nineteen eighty eight PGA Championship
at oak Tree Golf Club in Edmund, Oklahoma. He's a
six time winner on the PGA Tour and a six
time winner on the PGA Tour champions Do you remember
directed force or how did you get this putter in
your hands? And because I know it was kind of
(26:51):
a bit of a monstrosity at that.
Speaker 9 (26:54):
Time, Well, if I'm recollecting correct, it was at our
Senior Players Championship in Chicago. Does that sound right?
Speaker 5 (27:05):
Yep?
Speaker 8 (27:08):
They were on the putting green, the.
Speaker 9 (27:12):
Champion stores a little more lax about you know, Uh,
manufacturers reps out there on the on the putting green
versus the PGA Tour, and you know we understand that,
but we were just you know, we're always happy to
see new product. And you know, I was searching for
anything at that time as poorly as I was putting.
(27:34):
So they described their philosophy and what the putter did,
and you know, so I kind of went with it.
And Uh, as I mentioned in my email or text
back to you, I just needed the bigger hole THET
two at the time. I've I've since honestly kind of
(27:55):
really found out what what ailed me For a long
long time. I didn't I didn't putt well for certainly
an extended period of time. If I looked at my
stats and Champions Tour, and they're not as in depth
and detailed as regular tour. I had a few good
years in the early fifties, and then you know, really
(28:17):
went in the tank. So when you're kind of on
the back end of those stats, maybe not last but
not far from last, you're you can't hit it good
enough to overcome that in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 6 (28:35):
You kind of had a short stint with it, right,
It was kind of a one run. You didn't have
much of a run with it.
Speaker 9 (28:43):
No, And it was if I'm telling you the truth,
I think it was so bad that I was trying
it and then also trying to close my eyes when
I was putting the short one. So you know, there's
a lot of bad stuff going on in the old
noggin at that point.
Speaker 4 (28:59):
Back to who was grinding in and outside of the ropes, we.
Speaker 5 (29:04):
Knew we were going to lose money in the first
year or two and just doing our best not to
lose too much. I think I was working for free
at that point. Maybe I had a small salax, I
still had my bar. I had a bar here in
the Gene, and without that bar, I wouldn't have been
able to do this because I was still feeding my
family with the bar. And and so yeah, we're just
mosying along. I'm learning a little bit about production and
(29:26):
manufacturing and all that, even though that kind of wasn't
really supposed to be my side of it. Bill was
going to be doing a lot of that, but he
was busy building the putters, and so we both kind
of had to work together to figure out how to
take the manufacturing up a notch and all that we're
figuring out, we're figuring out going along and going along.
I'm hitting tour events, doing my best to get out there.
(29:50):
And then it was getting close to the end of
twenty eighteen and we didn't know what the threshold was
on usages. And I also didn't realize at the time
that the champ applied, so Jeff had actually probably already
gotten us in to get a credential the following year,
but I was really worried. So getting towards the end
(30:11):
of the season twenty eighteen, I end up at the
Barracuda in Reno and lucky break number three. One of
the things about being a REP as an owner that
makes it different than just being a rep as you know,
a guy who didn't get his tour card and is
taking his second best option, is that I don't clock
(30:33):
out at five. And I was, you know, the for
the few years that I was out there, I was
the first one there every morning and the last one
to leave every night. And that was always when it
happened for us. It was the only time I ever
got interest because the putter is so ridiculous, looking like
tour players are no different than you were. I like,
they don't want to get made fun of. They don't
want to think that they're using a crutch. They don't
want any of that shit. And so it was, you know,
(30:54):
usually the real early in the morning, a related night
that I would get guys to be even slightly.
Speaker 4 (30:59):
Interested to meet Von Taylor. He's forty seven turn pro
in nineteen ninety nine. He has three PGA Tour wins,
his last being the twenty sixteen AT and T Pebble
Beach Program where he held off Phil Mickelson. Spinning forward
to August of twenty eighteen, Taylor was coming off a
seventy four to seventy five miss cut at the RBC
(31:19):
Canadian Open.
Speaker 10 (31:20):
I got kind of an interesting story. I had never
seen it before. I was out in Burracuda, struggling to
keep my card. I'm around one twenty or so, one
twenty five, and I need a good week. And we
get there, and Reno used to be like perfect vent
grass the first couple of years I played there, and
(31:42):
then I came back a few years later and it
was the hardest to putt Poana I've ever seen. And
I showed up on Monday, I couldn't make a three
footer to save my life, and just immediately had this
high anxiety about my putting that week, and was using
(32:02):
an old faithful putter. You know, felt like I was
putting good, but just immediately I've never felt that before,
and Monday, this is Monday. I'm feeling like, oh my gosh,
what's gonna happen this week? And uh, Tuesday, putted all
day long, just grind and grind and grind on the
pudding green and still felt the same way leaving that
(32:24):
day and decided to take a last minute trip down
to the end of the range by myself. I was like,
I'm gonna go down there, work.
Speaker 8 (32:32):
Do whatever.
Speaker 10 (32:34):
And it was kind of late, it was almost dark,
and I'm like, there was no shuttles coming back to
the clubhouse. So I was like, you know what, I'll
just walk.
Speaker 9 (32:42):
It's fine.
Speaker 10 (32:43):
Kind of took a little different path to the clubhouse,
came up by kind of the backside of the putting
green and nobody's there but Sam, and he's got this
bag of putters, and I kind of turned the corner
and you know, I looked at the bag and the
putters and I'm like, what it's this, you know, I'm like,
these these things look like you know, space shuttles back
(33:04):
to Sam Hun.
Speaker 5 (33:06):
I'm there late at night. Son's going down and Von
Taylor comes up on the green and Vaughan is somebody
I respected deeply. I love the dude and loved his
putting stroke, always have. And he's messing around with his Seymour,
that same Seymour that you know he was so successful
with early in his career, made a Ryder Cup team
with that Seymour putter, and then, you know, while he's putting,
(33:30):
I pull up the phone. I start looking at his stats,
and putting stats are bad and he's been putting real,
real bad. And then I look up and I see
him putting and the dudes just can't make anything and
he's struggling and uh and then he uh, it's just
me and him on this putting green and I go
up to him and I think, I think I used
(33:50):
the magic trick line and uh. He takes a look
and he's such a sweet guy, you know, like I
don't know if you met him at all, but I
mean just kind as can be, an easy going and
lovely dude. So even if he wasn't interested. He was
the type of personality that he was going to make
a few strokes with it, and he did and they
went in and then and then he rolled a few
(34:14):
more and they went in, and then he kind of
laid a few balls down on this kind of short
right to left bugaboo for him at the time, and
they started going in, and then we really get talking
and he asked me show him the revealer again, and
we end up spending you know, forty five minutes an
hour out of the putting green, just talking putting, talking
about the tech. He's putting all over the green and
he's making him finally and postures getting taller, and everything's
(34:36):
just looking better, you know, and he's got he's got hope.
Speaker 10 (34:39):
Sam was just super friendly, you know, chill. He's like,
hey man, you want to check out a buttter? And
I'm like, yeah, why not, you know, like why not?
And so he looks at my putter, he grabs one.
He thinks it's going to match. I dropped a couple
of balls like ten set make, Make, Make, and I'm like, wow,
(35:03):
this is really interesting. And I putted with him for
probably twenty minutes, and I mean I made nine out
of ten just from everywhere. I mean, we went all around,
different breaking putts, couldn't miss, and I'm like, I was
just in shock, and I'm like, this head is huge.
The grips, you know the Bill Pressey like forward press
(35:25):
in the grip and it was way bigger around, different shape,
you know, just everything different. And I'm like, what's going on?
But I noticed, you know, the ball was rolling with
just like I've never seen on poem. I'm like, it
was just hug in the ground and I just couldn't
deny that. And I was like, Wow, I'm gonna use
(35:47):
this tomorrow in the pro am and just see what happens.
And so I told my Caddy I come out the
next day and I'm like, all right, dude, listen, I
got this big, crazy putter. I'm gonna use it today.
Let's just see what happened. He's like, okay, it was
Mike kicks, by the way, And Mike's like, sure, man,
let's let's give it a shot. And I think I
made eight out of the nine pots on the nine
(36:09):
holes or something. It's like made everything and he's like,
we got to put it in. I'm like, we got
to put it down and so all week long, I
just filled it up, was making Potts, wasn't playing that grave,
and I just kept making Potts, hanging in there, and
I think it was in the top ten headed into
Sunday and you know, had no idea what was going
(36:30):
to happen, and the same thing, just just rolling it good,
making putts, and I think I finished ninth or something,
finished top ten, kind of locked up my card and
I'm like, wow, this is you know, just one of
those bizarre, you know, happenstance meetings and you.
Speaker 8 (36:49):
Know, just rolled it like a champ.
Speaker 10 (36:50):
And Sam was out there all week.
Speaker 8 (36:52):
He was cheering me on and.
Speaker 10 (36:55):
Just want of those feel good weeks, you know, and
how things come together like that.
Speaker 5 (37:00):
Vaughn was kind of our first kind of big deal
player that used it. He's it for a while. I
think he used it probably for close to a year.
And yeah, and then we were then we were kind
of off to the races there on tour. We got
our credential back and then you know, we're able to
get a little bit more aggressive and ever so slightly
(37:20):
more validated, because it's crazy when you get out there,
like the difference, like like who's using it makes such
a big difference, you know, and Vaughan was a deeply
respected putter, you know, like all those guys. If Vaughan's
using it like this is not a gimmick, this is
not a silly thing. Here's a very deliberate guy that's
used the same putter for fifteen years. So if he's switching,
(37:41):
there's got to be something to it.
Speaker 6 (37:43):
So how does Adam get to it?
Speaker 5 (37:45):
Lucky Break number four.
Speaker 4 (37:46):
We covered how Slater got the original directed force into
his bag and at the twenty nineteen at and T
Pebble Beach Pro Am, he was paired with Adam Scott. Slater,
as an early adopter, became an authentic ambassador and influencer.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
I've just spoken about the club to anyone and anyone
who wants to listen, and generally I'll just play with
people and they'll see me roll the ball and it
just rolls so pure off the club that they can't
help but ask about it, and you know, to get
to the point with Adam, and that's that's how it
happened with Adam.
Speaker 8 (38:17):
I was playing with him.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
We were paired in the same group at Pebble for
three days and at the end of the third day,
he goes, man, you gotta just show me that club.
You got to just show me, like what how it
works for you and go on the putting green and
just just tell me, because he goes to the ball
is just rolling so pure off your club.
Speaker 8 (38:36):
And I was making all sorts of putts.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
I didn't strike the ball very well, and I wasn't
scoring great, but I was baking putts. I think I
had a round and spyglass. I had around a spy glass.
I think I had twenty two putts, and granted I
missed a couple of greens real close, you know, so
I was putting from off the green and they're not
counted as a putt, so maybe it's like twenty seven
to twenty eight putts from the ones who footed off
(39:00):
the green. But point being that I just get so
confident with the thing and I just start when I'm on,
I just start making everything. And I did the same
thing at Tahoe. I played that tournament up there, and
I didn't score very well. I was really nervous and
not striking the ball well and missing lots of greens.
Speaker 8 (39:16):
But man, I made everything on those greens.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
And yeah, I just people just I play with friends
and they see the ball roll off the club.
Speaker 8 (39:27):
And they want to try it. It's just that simple.
Speaker 4 (39:33):
Here's where we're stopping down again, just before we get
into Lucky Break number four, in which Adam Scott becomes
a believer in and a user of Lab golf.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
There's a fabitous stuff going on with the Lab, from
the grip to the head of the angles in between,
and being so non traditional it raised his eyebrows for sure.
But I I just had this sense like this, you know,
if you can embrace what this part of does and
stay out of your own way, the results could come.
(40:07):
And I just had this feeling and I said it
to Sam. Although it didn't pan out, but like, this
was the part of that can win around Augusta.
Speaker 5 (40:29):
Put another log on the fire.
Speaker 4 (40:35):
Nobody here is getting tied
I think I had a round a spyglass. I had
around a spyglass. I think I had twenty two putts,
and granted I missed a couple of greens real close,
you know, so I was putting from off the green
and they're not counted as a putt. So maybe it's
like twenty seven twenty eight putts from the ones that
included off the green. But point being that I just
(00:24):
get so confident with the thing and I just start
when I'm on, I just start making everything.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Put another logal the fire.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Nobody here is get the time.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
Welcome to the fire Pit with Matt Chanella. In part
two of this podcast series on the relevance and rise
of lab golf, we told Bill Pressey's story, the man
who took to his garage in twenty twelve and used
a modified cane and then ultimately a crutch to invent
his revealer. That invention leads Pressy to the technology he
(01:07):
implemented into his first version of the directed force putter,
which actually did what face balance and toe hang putters
claimed to do. Pressy received the patent to what was
the directed force putter in twenty fourteen and sold his
odd looking invention out of the trunk of his car.
Pressy had just enough traction to start a business, but
(01:27):
not enough marketing skills or manufacturing efficiency to be sustainable.
When the company was on the brink, Pressey got connected
to Sam Hahn in twenty seventeen, who, in addition to
his dad and brother, bought a chunk of the business
in twenty eighteen. Han says that from his perspective, there
were four magic moments that led to the success of
(01:47):
Lab Golf. The putter Lucas Glover used to win back
to back PGA Tour events in August of twenty twenty three,
which is ultimately where this series will end. The first
of those four magic moments was when Hans directed force
Putter broke and Bob Duncan put him in touch with Pressey.
Not long after buying into the company, Han relocated the
(02:08):
home office from Reno, Nevada to Eugene, Oregon, which is
where Han was living, and although he was an avid
and scratch golfer, he was new to the golf industry.
This is where we resume the narrative. Here's Sam Han.
Speaker 5 (02:22):
Damn dude, I mean we it would just school of
hard knocks I mean just every I had to learn
everything about what we were doing. I would say now
in retrospect, one of the absolute best things we had
going for us was the fact that I didn't have
any idea how the golf industry worked. And this allowed
me to keep an open mind on every facet of
(02:45):
the business. The putter is different, it works differently, you
have to tell the story differently, you use it differently,
and consequently, the way that you manufacture and market and
fulfill is different. It has to be. And if I
was a golf industry guy, it just it wouldn't have worked.
And early on, and I learned that. I learned that
(03:06):
really early. We you know, so we're putting together a
business plan and figuring out how we're going to do
this and how we're going to spread the word. What's
going to go on? And we hired a fella wonderful man.
His name is Charlie Gerber, and he used to be
the sales rep from here in North America. And Charlie
was sweet as can be. And he was tasked with
(03:26):
putting together a sales force. So he hired fifteen twenty
different independent reps around the country and to no fault
of his own. It just didn't work. You know, he's
got these the guys that were hiring. You know, there
wasn't enough margin for us to really make this their
only gig. And so the guys that we're working with
(03:47):
are selling gloves and balls and shoes and a four
to seven hundred dollars custom puttern. It just wasn't working.
And yah, can I ask you real quick?
Speaker 6 (03:57):
So at the time that you buy the company many
how many of these putters were being sold a year?
Speaker 5 (04:07):
Virtually?
Speaker 7 (04:07):
Non?
Speaker 5 (04:07):
I mean we had they had so twenty one putters?
Speaker 6 (04:11):
Would they did they sell one hundred putters times four
hundred or like?
Speaker 4 (04:16):
Like what you know?
Speaker 5 (04:16):
Like was it a thousand putters? I would say, I
would say that the day we bought the company, I
would be very surprised if there was a thousand putters
out in the world, and probably closer to four or
five hundred.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
Press he thinks there might have been a little more.
But regardless and relatively speaking, there was nowhere to go
but up or go out of business. What was at
the top of the priority in your mind, like what
did you need to do to try to make this successful?
Speaker 5 (04:44):
Branding into her presence. So the first one was branding,
So I did have I'm a good consumer, like I
in the sense that like I'm an educated consumer, right,
I am both clear on on the technology that I'm buying.
I look into it, I look for validation of it.
(05:05):
So I already had that.
Speaker 6 (05:07):
But you were doing a lot of obviously because you're
going through a lot of putters, so like the.
Speaker 5 (05:11):
Consumer exactly, so I'm using some of what was a turnoff.
There were so many turnoffs about this putter when I
got it, so many, you know, like I hated this grip,
this rubber oval grip. I couldn't stand it. I actually
love it now, but I hated I hated the analyzing,
(05:33):
Like the finish on this putter was just so cheap
looking like it just it just it looked like a
fucking infomercial product.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
You know.
Speaker 5 (05:41):
And then this logo was so bad and Bill's probably
going to listen to this and he's gonna be mad
at me. But I love you, Bill, but you know
your logo sucked, bro, And and there was just and
then the company was called Directed Force at the time,
Like that's a fucking mouthful for a company, Like it
was just it it was so so a lot of branding, branding, branding,
(06:02):
I mean, we we that was a huge thing. Day
one re rebranded the company lab Lying of Balance. That
was Bill's call. That was, as I understand it, what
he wanted to call the company in the first place.
And then we needed a logo and took forever with
these guys in Colorado that were just not not handing
us anything particularly creative. And it was actually my mom
(06:25):
uh one day was like, well, putter is a really
interesting shape. Why not just make it the putter? So
we tried a couple of iterations of just like the
straight silhouette of the putter, and then I ended up
drawing this, you know, this one here on a napkin
and that became the logo. So when I first drew it,
it didn't have the notch. It just kind of looked
(06:45):
like a heart with the tip cut off. And we
had been like three months deep into finding a logo.
I drew this thing on a napkin, had some guys
actually put it, you know, make it real, sent it
to Bill. Well, I fuck, yeah, we did it. Thank
the Lord Jesus. The logo conversation is over. This thing
is incredible, it looks good, it's sexy, it's awesome, and
(07:09):
we're so excited. The next day, shit, I got a
back up a second. About two weeks into owning the company,
somebody sends me an Instagram post that Kelly Slater had
made the surfer that he had made about this crazy
new putter that he found at Carl's Bad Golf Center.
(07:29):
So we reached out to Kelly and you know said,
you know, I introduced myself. I'm like, hey, I'm the
new owner of the company, and I saw that you're
using the putter. Let me know if there's ever anything
you need. Kelly and I hit it off. We start texting,
we're talking putters, and we become golfner buddies, and YadA YadA.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
Kelly Slater is the greatest surfer of all time, very
commonly referred to as the Goat. Slater has eleven world championships.
He won his first in nineteen ninety two, his last
in twenty eleven. The next best in surfing is Mark Richards,
who has five, and he got all of his before
nineteen eighty three. Simply put, Slater is the secretariat of
(08:08):
his sport, and if there are no waves. He plays golf,
not surprisingly, he's very good at it, a scratch if
not better, and a regular at the AT and T
Pebble Beach pro Am. Through a love of golf and surfing,
Slater is friends with Adam Scott. What was your first
introduction to this putter in this technology.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah, so the first time I saw LAB I was
playing a golf course called Redstick in Florida, and actually
I think the guy runs it used to work at Augusta,
but he moved down there to work at Redstick.
Speaker 8 (08:44):
Really good course, great greens.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
I was just playing with a buddy of mine, Bill,
who I played with a lot, an old surfer friend
of mine, and were paired up with the guy that
he plays with sometimes just a casual game, and this
guy had a directed force.
Speaker 8 (09:00):
Lab lab butter, and.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Like everyone else, I said same thing, like what's that thing?
Speaker 8 (09:07):
You know?
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Blah blah, And I'm I'm pretty open minded, like I'm
pretty into if something works, it works, I don't care
what it looks like.
Speaker 8 (09:15):
I've played some goofy clubs over the year just because they're.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Funny, and you know, just to give you an idea.
Speaker 8 (09:22):
I used to have this.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
I'm a real Mo Norman geek and I used to
have this this sandwich. It kind of looked like the
alien that Moe used to play with, and it had
a giant balance on it. I think it had about
twelve or fifteen degrees of bounce and a big soul
on the bottom of the club.
Speaker 8 (09:42):
And a funny story I was in.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
I was on the big island planet Kokio where many
years ago as a member, and Adam was out there
and uh, I said, just hit this club out of
the sand, and he hit three balls to about a
foot out of the sand.
Speaker 8 (09:55):
He goes, is this thing legal? I said, yeah, I
guess so. So anyways, I've.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Always been in mind with these alternative sort of looking
and feeling gloves and uh, so I'm playing with this guy.
Speaker 8 (10:07):
We get around the front nine.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
This guy's making all sorts of plots, are at least
scaring the hold, and uh we get on about the
twelfth hole and I said, you know, let me just
take a couple of strokes of that thing. And I
drained three puts from about ten twelve feet and I
was just sold immediately.
Speaker 8 (10:24):
They just rolled the end over end. They set up
pretty perfectly for me.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
It was probably an inch long and maybe a little
too flat of alive, but I, you know, I just
set it right and uh to see how the ball
would roll, and it felt amazing. So a week later
I went to I was out here in California and
I went to Carlosbad Golf Center where they did.
Speaker 8 (10:46):
They were like one of the official fitters.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
So I went there and messed around with the fit
club for a while and you know, just set my
langle length and ordered one and waited a couple of months,
And to be honest, I was like so ty to
get it. I was sending emails kind of hagging him
on like how long do.
Speaker 8 (11:02):
The ctit go'll be done? But I really want to
get it.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
They sent it to Hawaii, out to Hawaii for me,
and the first week I had it, I went over
to McKenna and I was playing with Tommy Armor and
in the first round, Tommy goes, don't ever take that
thing out of the back. You're rolling it's so good,
and it was just end over end, And I've just
been leaver since day one and the first time I
(11:27):
try that guy's putter until I got mine. And when
I got mine, my confidence and my putting just went
through the roof, and I feel, I honestly feel like
I hardly have to practice.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
And I thought, really, well, more with Kelly Slater in
a bit, but for now, back to Sam Han on
the new logo, or so he thought.
Speaker 5 (11:46):
Bill was like a huge Kelly Slater fan, so just
tuck that away for a second. So the next day
after I give him this logo, he calls me up.
He's like, stop, the presses can't use this as a logo,
and I'm like why, What's He's like, I just played
Charity Scramble with some buddies. I showed it to them
and they all think that the top piece looks like
a ballsack. And I'm like, dude, your fucking friends are weirdos.
(12:11):
It does not look like a ballsack. It's fine. And
he's like, dude, I'm saying, we are not using this logo.
It looks like a ballsack. I don't want to be
the Ballsack Potter company. It's not happening. And I'm like, dude,
settle down. Your guys are drunk. You guys are being silly.
It's not a thing. And he's like no, I'm like yes,
and I'm like all right, let's each do our own
(12:32):
little focus group here. You've picked six guys to go
send it to and ask them what their first reaction is.
I'll pick six guys that I send it to and
ask them what their first reaction to is. And I'm like,
I'm going to send it to Kelly because Joe, you know,
Bill's big Kelly fan. As long as Kelly signs off
on it will be really good. So I text Kelly,
I'm like, you know, what do you think of this logo?
He's like, Dude, it's actually a really really cool logo.
(12:54):
But if I'm totally honest, men kind of suck and
all they're going to see is a ballsack and they're
just going to make jokes about the boss. Oh like fack,
god damn it. Back to the drawing board. And you know,
just a couple subtle tweaks made it, you know, much
(13:15):
much less testicular and much more potter oriented. But I
do love that story a lot, where I was just
so positive that was a non thing, and Slater just
validated completely that Bill was absolutely right and the thing
looks like a ball sack.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
On that note, and before I go any further, I
just want to thank Dormy Workshop for their sponsorship of
this podcast. As you know by now, the Canadian based
company only makes handmade leather goods such as custom headcovers
and accessories. The Bishop Brothers are good golfers, great friends,
and we're lucky to have them putting our logo on
their products. All available at Firepitcollective dot com. For their
(13:54):
complete collection of originals headcovers and classics, go to Dormy
Workshop dot com and use promo code fire Hit fifteen
for fifteen percent off your next purchase. Back to Samhan
in his office at Emerald Valley Golf Club in Creswell,
Organ home of the Oregon Ducks, and.
Speaker 5 (14:10):
Now comes lucky break number two. You know you had asked,
what what did I think that we needed to do
in order to get this thing moving? So it was
branding for sure. The next piece was presence, tour presence.
We had no professional tour players, and that that was
in my mind, Like I was almost thinking of this
(14:30):
as a flip when I bought the company, Like I
wasn't really thinking about growing into this crazy behemoth of
a company. I was thinking that we were going to
get out on tour and that somebody was going to
grab the putter and go win a major championship and somebody,
you know, one of the major OEMs is going to
call us up and you know, license attack or buy
us out completely or something. So first app is we
(14:53):
got to get out on tour. So I call up
to tour and I find out what's the process in
getting a credential so that we could be out on
the green and they're like, well, you either need a
specific invitation from a player or your putter has to
have been used in enough tournaments that it qualifies for
a credential. And I'm like, well, I don't have an
(15:15):
invite from a player, and how am I going to
get a putter to use it if I can't get
out on or a player to use it if I
can't get out on tour. And they're like, well, tough
shit fuck. So I'm like, how does it work? You know, like,
how do you know if a player is using it
or whatever? And they tell me about the Daryl Survey,
which I didn't know anything about at the time, but
you know, it's a company that you know, basically tracks
every single thing that's in everybody's bag. And the woman
(15:36):
on the other end of the poem. It was just like,
just out of curiosity, what's the name of the company,
And so I told her it was Directed Force. She
plugs it into the system and she's like, oh, actually,
you guys qualify. You guys have had you know, eleven plays,
and I'm like, huh. Tim Wilkinson, a left handed New
Zealand Germany journeyman. New Zealander journeyman, had bought the putter
(15:59):
in New Zealand, like somehow a lefty version of this
putter ended up in Bumblefuck, New Zealand. Random Journeyman tour
pro picks it up, likes it, uses it for eleven
events on the nationwide tour at the time, and we
got a tour credential like day one. So talk about
your lucky breaks. I have no you know, you can't
(16:20):
write that shit that otherwise I would have no idea
how we ever would have gotten out there. It never
would have happened.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
Meet Tim Wilkinson, as Han describes, he's a forty five
year old lefty tour player from New Zealand. He turned
pro in two thousand and three, and although he has
no wins, he has three top five finishes on the
PGA Tour, and he has amassed five point three million
in career earnings.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
Anyway, So twenty seventeen, I believe I was playing the corn.
Speaker 8 (16:47):
Ferry Tour.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
And I think I missed probably missed a couple of cats,
and I got to Utah maybe on the Sasine. I
was staying with a friend of mine in Poc City
and I just found a golf course nearby. I don't
even remember the name of it now, but yeah, I
found a golf course nearby, and when at the pro shop,
(17:10):
asked the pro as he normally do, I asked the
pro would he mind if I did some chipping and
parting and hit some balls on the dragon range. And
while I was doing there, you know, I always go
and have a look at the putters that they have
on their racks. So I went in there and I
asked him about this particular putter that was kind of
nothing that I'd ever seen before, and he showed me.
(17:33):
You know, I just asked because it was one of
the fitting putters, so the net could bend all, you know,
from right hand to left hand, and it could be
said at any lie angle. So I'd ask him if
he could set it up at sixty nine degree lie
and what it was zero loft at the time, I think,
So I asked him if he could just set it
(17:55):
up at left hand at sixty eight and I had
a few parts with it, and he showed me this
the revealer, which is the rack that you put the
putter around, and you can just swing it into the
face so square, and it all made sense to me.
So I asked him, you know who makes it and
where do you get it from? And Bill was actually
in Utah, I believe, and so I called him on
(18:20):
the next day, or maybe even that afternoon, or maybe
it might have been ten minutes later. I don't exactly remember,
but he came out to San Francisco the following week
and fitted me it. Brought a whole lot of putterson
and got me fitted into one. So I started using
it from there, and I think I did I get
my I can't remember if I got my PJA took
card that year or not. And I remember I know
(18:42):
I one hundred percent used it. I think the Windhom
Championship was the first PGA to event I used it
at and I remember shooting sixty two in the second
or third round but I'm not I'd have to go
back and have a look at some of the numbers
from that point.
Speaker 5 (18:58):
But yeah, it was just.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
Out of the blue and I saw the potter and
the reveala and it just at night sense, and yeah,
I guess I'd been using it for iight o ten
events and when that asked for PG two credentials and yeah,
kind of went from there and now lots of guys
(19:19):
having a lot of success.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
It's a pretty good story.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
In twenty seventeen, the ten events leading into the Windham Championship,
which is when Wilkinson put the putter in the bag,
he had missed seven cuts and had only broken seventy
three times. At Windham, he shot rounds of sixty three, seventy,
sixty eight and sixty seven for a T fourteen, which
tied for his best finish of his year, and the
(19:43):
sixty three tied his lowest round of the year. That week,
he was forty fourth in strokes game putting fourth in
total putts.
Speaker 7 (19:52):
Does it feel good to know that, you know? As
Sam was looking to try to get it in the
hands of more tour pros and looking to sort of
figure out how he could get a tour credential that
it was you that popped up and had been using
it and ultimately got him the access he needed to
to take this company to where it's going now.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Yeah, probably one of the most unlikely you know, from
New Zealand. Yeah, you would think you'd get the putter
in the hands of a you know, right handed probably
American player really to be honest, but for me just
to come across the pastor and a pro shop and
(20:36):
just be intrigued with it and and you know, like
just to shave fractions of shots off your score as
huge and professional golf as you know. Yeah, and to
be kind of I guess at the forefront of I
guess taking a chance on a different passer. You know,
(20:57):
in the past many people haven't wanted to take it
chance on a crazy looking grip.
Speaker 8 (21:01):
That's the Ford Press grip.
Speaker 7 (21:02):
And.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Yeah, like a what do you call it? Cattle Proude
looking potter. But the science behind it was amazing and
I felt like I could just kind of aim and
hit with it.
Speaker 5 (21:20):
And then you know, the.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Conversations I had after that, the the original director force
was really big and I said, I said, the only
thing I think you need to do is add just
a touch of laught and bring down the footprint of
the potter, and I think more guys would use it.
Speaker 8 (21:34):
And it took a while, but you know that that happened.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
So Han has the credential that gets some access to
practice putting greens and thus the people who are the
gateway to validation and success. Seems simple and straightforward, but was.
Speaker 5 (21:50):
It the first The very first tour event I went
to was a corn Ferry event in Chicago and at Ivanhoe,
and uh and I was really lucky that I had
no idea about rep culture or how it works out there,
(22:12):
which gave me the luxury of being very aggressive doing
shit that now I understand is completely inappropriate. Walking right
up to players my my, my, my, My pickup line,
if you will, was like, hey, I want to see
a magic trick, and then I'd show him the revealer
and stick there putter in there and make it look
like a you know, fish on a hook and then
show them my putter and they're like fuck and uh
(22:34):
so they grab You know, got gotta remember if I
actually got any even play at Ivanhoe that week, but
I certainly got a few guys to take it made
some friends, learned a little bit. Actually met gear and
Rife that week, who was you know, rep and even
Roll and uh he kind of at the time, you know,
took me under his wing a little bit and showed
(22:56):
me the ropes and uh, you know how it all works.
And that was a lot of fun. That's twenty eight
would you say that's twenty eighteen. You're the summer of
twenty eighteen. And so I knew that I needed to
open up accounts. So that was so I lived in Eugene.
My folks were still living in Chicago. So I decided
(23:19):
to just go home and spend June in Chicago because
there's like, there's no golf in Oregon. Like it's just
not a thing. And the golf that is here is
very very Nobody out here is buying a six hundred
dollars custom putter. Have fun at Ivanhoe. Next week I
go to the Champions Tour. This is where she gets
really fun because the Champions Tour guys are a fucking blast.
(23:40):
Like I really don't like doing tour events anymore. I'll
totally go to a Champion Store event anytime. These guys
are you know, there's five guys out there that ticket. Seriously,
the rest of them are drinking Bloody Mary's and having
telling stories and talking shit and having a good time.
Speaker 8 (23:53):
Totally agree.
Speaker 6 (23:55):
I tell everybody I've been a part of the Pure
Insurance event at Pebble every year for the last I
don't know, seven eight years. Those are my guys, They're
my generation. They're the ones who I've covered since the
beginning of Sports Illustrated and Digest And I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
Like I love I love all those guys, even the
guys who were prickly dicks and asses, and you know
back in the day, they're all like super cool and
fun and friendly. Like they've started wine labels and they're
into cool shit and travel and they're like they're they're
their grandparents now they're like they they're like, they're so
much fun.
Speaker 5 (24:29):
Lovely, they're they're the happiest they've ever been there, living
the dream. Money's been made, the things are taking care
of their It is just so much fun. So I
go out to this Champions Tour event and you know,
in addition to it being pretty chill out there, like
from a putting standpoint, like eighty percent of that tours
got the yips bat so they're they're down to try anything.
(24:52):
So so I come out to that event and the
inventory that I inherited was nil. Like we had a
handful of putters. We were actually out of headcovers. I
didn't know that, you know, it didn't didn't even occur
to me to ask what the headcover inventory was. And like,
you can't not have a headcover for this fucking thing.
(25:12):
It's huge. It's gonna, you know, kill somebody. And so
I show up with a with a pink Sunday bag
about six of these putters with socks over them at
the Champions tournament and uh, and like the guys loved it,
Like they absolutely loved it, and they're all trying it
(25:33):
and they're all checking it out. And I want to
say I had four or five putters in play that week,
guys going out on into tournaments with socks on the putters.
And because there's no headcover that fits on it, not
even a fucking driver headcover fits on it. It's so big.
And I had so much fun and got so excited.
(25:54):
And the first real exciting, exciting kind of anything that
happened on TV. Jeff Sluman picked up the putter at
that event, and he ended up using it for quite
a while. I think I want to say he used
it for at least a few months and led the
Senior British later that summer through two rounds and was
(26:15):
making bombs and he had a blue one and so
everybody saw it. Everybody's like, what the hell is this
blue branding iron thing that Jeff Sluman's using, And yeah,
we got some fun pictures and that you know, really
felt like things were going to happen fast at that point.
It really really did.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
Here's Jeff Sluman, one of the true gentlemen and men's
professional golf. He won the nineteen eighty eight PGA Championship
at oak Tree Golf Club in Edmund, Oklahoma. He's a
six time winner on the PGA Tour and a six
time winner on the PGA Tour champions Do you remember
directed force or how did you get this putter in
your hands? And because I know it was kind of
(26:51):
a bit of a monstrosity at that.
Speaker 9 (26:54):
Time, Well, if I'm recollecting correct, it was at our
Senior Players Championship in Chicago. Does that sound right?
Speaker 5 (27:05):
Yep?
Speaker 8 (27:08):
They were on the putting green, the.
Speaker 9 (27:12):
Champion stores a little more lax about you know, Uh,
manufacturers reps out there on the on the putting green
versus the PGA Tour, and you know we understand that,
but we were just you know, we're always happy to
see new product. And you know, I was searching for
anything at that time as poorly as I was putting.
(27:34):
So they described their philosophy and what the putter did,
and you know, so I kind of went with it.
And Uh, as I mentioned in my email or text
back to you, I just needed the bigger hole THET
two at the time. I've I've since honestly kind of
(27:55):
really found out what what ailed me For a long
long time. I didn't I didn't putt well for certainly
an extended period of time. If I looked at my
stats and Champions Tour, and they're not as in depth
and detailed as regular tour. I had a few good
years in the early fifties, and then you know, really
(28:17):
went in the tank. So when you're kind of on
the back end of those stats, maybe not last but
not far from last, you're you can't hit it good
enough to overcome that in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 6 (28:35):
You kind of had a short stint with it, right,
It was kind of a one run. You didn't have
much of a run with it.
Speaker 9 (28:43):
No, And it was if I'm telling you the truth,
I think it was so bad that I was trying
it and then also trying to close my eyes when
I was putting the short one. So you know, there's
a lot of bad stuff going on in the old
noggin at that point.
Speaker 4 (28:59):
Back to who was grinding in and outside of the ropes, we.
Speaker 5 (29:04):
Knew we were going to lose money in the first
year or two and just doing our best not to
lose too much. I think I was working for free
at that point. Maybe I had a small salax, I
still had my bar. I had a bar here in
the Gene, and without that bar, I wouldn't have been
able to do this because I was still feeding my
family with the bar. And and so yeah, we're just
mosying along. I'm learning a little bit about production and
(29:26):
manufacturing and all that, even though that kind of wasn't
really supposed to be my side of it. Bill was
going to be doing a lot of that, but he
was busy building the putters, and so we both kind
of had to work together to figure out how to
take the manufacturing up a notch and all that we're
figuring out, we're figuring out going along and going along.
I'm hitting tour events, doing my best to get out there.
(29:50):
And then it was getting close to the end of
twenty eighteen and we didn't know what the threshold was
on usages. And I also didn't realize at the time
that the champ applied, so Jeff had actually probably already
gotten us in to get a credential the following year,
but I was really worried. So getting towards the end
(30:11):
of the season twenty eighteen, I end up at the
Barracuda in Reno and lucky break number three. One of
the things about being a REP as an owner that
makes it different than just being a rep as you know,
a guy who didn't get his tour card and is
taking his second best option, is that I don't clock
(30:33):
out at five. And I was, you know, the for
the few years that I was out there, I was
the first one there every morning and the last one
to leave every night. And that was always when it
happened for us. It was the only time I ever
got interest because the putter is so ridiculous, looking like
tour players are no different than you were. I like,
they don't want to get made fun of. They don't
want to think that they're using a crutch. They don't
want any of that shit. And so it was, you know,
(30:54):
usually the real early in the morning, a related night
that I would get guys to be even slightly.
Speaker 4 (30:59):
Interested to meet Von Taylor. He's forty seven turn pro
in nineteen ninety nine. He has three PGA Tour wins,
his last being the twenty sixteen AT and T Pebble
Beach Program where he held off Phil Mickelson. Spinning forward
to August of twenty eighteen, Taylor was coming off a
seventy four to seventy five miss cut at the RBC
(31:19):
Canadian Open.
Speaker 10 (31:20):
I got kind of an interesting story. I had never
seen it before. I was out in Burracuda, struggling to
keep my card. I'm around one twenty or so, one
twenty five, and I need a good week. And we
get there, and Reno used to be like perfect vent
grass the first couple of years I played there, and
(31:42):
then I came back a few years later and it
was the hardest to putt Poana I've ever seen. And
I showed up on Monday, I couldn't make a three
footer to save my life, and just immediately had this
high anxiety about my putting that week, and was using
(32:02):
an old faithful putter. You know, felt like I was
putting good, but just immediately I've never felt that before,
and Monday, this is Monday. I'm feeling like, oh my gosh,
what's gonna happen this week? And uh, Tuesday, putted all
day long, just grind and grind and grind on the
pudding green and still felt the same way leaving that
(32:24):
day and decided to take a last minute trip down
to the end of the range by myself. I was like,
I'm gonna go down there, work.
Speaker 8 (32:32):
Do whatever.
Speaker 10 (32:34):
And it was kind of late, it was almost dark,
and I'm like, there was no shuttles coming back to
the clubhouse. So I was like, you know what, I'll
just walk.
Speaker 9 (32:42):
It's fine.
Speaker 10 (32:43):
Kind of took a little different path to the clubhouse,
came up by kind of the backside of the putting
green and nobody's there but Sam, and he's got this
bag of putters, and I kind of turned the corner
and you know, I looked at the bag and the
putters and I'm like, what it's this, you know, I'm like,
these these things look like you know, space shuttles back
(33:04):
to Sam Hun.
Speaker 5 (33:06):
I'm there late at night. Son's going down and Von
Taylor comes up on the green and Vaughan is somebody
I respected deeply. I love the dude and loved his
putting stroke, always have. And he's messing around with his Seymour,
that same Seymour that you know he was so successful
with early in his career, made a Ryder Cup team
with that Seymour putter, and then, you know, while he's putting,
(33:30):
I pull up the phone. I start looking at his stats,
and putting stats are bad and he's been putting real,
real bad. And then I look up and I see
him putting and the dudes just can't make anything and
he's struggling and uh and then he uh, it's just
me and him on this putting green and I go
up to him and I think, I think I used
(33:50):
the magic trick line and uh. He takes a look
and he's such a sweet guy, you know, like I
don't know if you met him at all, but I
mean just kind as can be, an easy going and
lovely dude. So even if he wasn't interested. He was
the type of personality that he was going to make
a few strokes with it, and he did and they
went in and then and then he rolled a few
(34:14):
more and they went in, and then he kind of
laid a few balls down on this kind of short
right to left bugaboo for him at the time, and
they started going in, and then we really get talking
and he asked me show him the revealer again, and
we end up spending you know, forty five minutes an
hour out of the putting green, just talking putting, talking
about the tech. He's putting all over the green and
he's making him finally and postures getting taller, and everything's
(34:36):
just looking better, you know, and he's got he's got hope.
Speaker 10 (34:39):
Sam was just super friendly, you know, chill. He's like,
hey man, you want to check out a buttter? And
I'm like, yeah, why not, you know, like why not?
And so he looks at my putter, he grabs one.
He thinks it's going to match. I dropped a couple
of balls like ten set make, Make, Make, and I'm like, wow,
(35:03):
this is really interesting. And I putted with him for
probably twenty minutes, and I mean I made nine out
of ten just from everywhere. I mean, we went all around,
different breaking putts, couldn't miss, and I'm like, I was
just in shock, and I'm like, this head is huge.
The grips, you know the Bill Pressey like forward press
(35:25):
in the grip and it was way bigger around, different shape,
you know, just everything different. And I'm like, what's going on?
But I noticed, you know, the ball was rolling with
just like I've never seen on poem. I'm like, it
was just hug in the ground and I just couldn't
deny that. And I was like, Wow, I'm gonna use
(35:47):
this tomorrow in the pro am and just see what happens.
And so I told my Caddy I come out the
next day and I'm like, all right, dude, listen, I
got this big, crazy putter. I'm gonna use it today.
Let's just see what happened. He's like, okay, it was
Mike kicks, by the way, And Mike's like, sure, man,
let's let's give it a shot. And I think I
made eight out of the nine pots on the nine
(36:09):
holes or something. It's like made everything and he's like,
we got to put it in. I'm like, we got
to put it down and so all week long, I
just filled it up, was making Potts, wasn't playing that grave,
and I just kept making Potts, hanging in there, and
I think it was in the top ten headed into
Sunday and you know, had no idea what was going
(36:30):
to happen, and the same thing, just just rolling it good,
making putts, and I think I finished ninth or something,
finished top ten, kind of locked up my card and
I'm like, wow, this is you know, just one of
those bizarre, you know, happenstance meetings and you.
Speaker 8 (36:49):
Know, just rolled it like a champ.
Speaker 10 (36:50):
And Sam was out there all week.
Speaker 8 (36:52):
He was cheering me on and.
Speaker 10 (36:55):
Just want of those feel good weeks, you know, and
how things come together like that.
Speaker 5 (37:00):
Vaughn was kind of our first kind of big deal
player that used it. He's it for a while. I
think he used it probably for close to a year.
And yeah, and then we were then we were kind
of off to the races there on tour. We got
our credential back and then you know, we're able to
get a little bit more aggressive and ever so slightly
(37:20):
more validated, because it's crazy when you get out there,
like the difference, like like who's using it makes such
a big difference, you know, and Vaughan was a deeply
respected putter, you know, like all those guys. If Vaughan's
using it like this is not a gimmick, this is
not a silly thing. Here's a very deliberate guy that's
used the same putter for fifteen years. So if he's switching,
(37:41):
there's got to be something to it.
Speaker 6 (37:43):
So how does Adam get to it?
Speaker 5 (37:45):
Lucky Break number four.
Speaker 4 (37:46):
We covered how Slater got the original directed force into
his bag and at the twenty nineteen at and T
Pebble Beach Pro Am, he was paired with Adam Scott. Slater,
as an early adopter, became an authentic ambassador and influencer.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
I've just spoken about the club to anyone and anyone
who wants to listen, and generally I'll just play with
people and they'll see me roll the ball and it
just rolls so pure off the club that they can't
help but ask about it, and you know, to get
to the point with Adam, and that's that's how it
happened with Adam.
Speaker 8 (38:17):
I was playing with him.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
We were paired in the same group at Pebble for
three days and at the end of the third day,
he goes, man, you gotta just show me that club.
You got to just show me, like what how it
works for you and go on the putting green and
just just tell me, because he goes to the ball
is just rolling so pure off your club.
Speaker 8 (38:36):
And I was making all sorts of putts.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
I didn't strike the ball very well, and I wasn't
scoring great, but I was baking putts. I think I
had a round and spyglass. I had around a spy glass.
I think I had twenty two putts, and granted I
missed a couple of greens real close, you know, so
I was putting from off the green and they're not
counted as a putt, so maybe it's like twenty seven
to twenty eight putts from the ones who footed off
(39:00):
the green. But point being that I just get so
confident with the thing and I just start when I'm on,
I just start making everything. And I did the same
thing at Tahoe. I played that tournament up there, and
I didn't score very well. I was really nervous and
not striking the ball well and missing lots of greens.
Speaker 8 (39:16):
But man, I made everything on those greens.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
And yeah, I just people just I play with friends
and they see the ball roll off the club.
Speaker 8 (39:27):
And they want to try it. It's just that simple.
Speaker 4 (39:33):
Here's where we're stopping down again, just before we get
into Lucky Break number four, in which Adam Scott becomes
a believer in and a user of Lab golf.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
There's a fabitous stuff going on with the Lab, from
the grip to the head of the angles in between,
and being so non traditional it raised his eyebrows for sure.
But I I just had this sense like this, you know,
if you can embrace what this part of does and
stay out of your own way, the results could come.
(40:07):
And I just had this feeling and I said it
to Sam. Although it didn't pan out, but like, this
was the part of that can win around Augusta.
Speaker 5 (40:29):
Put another log on the fire.
Speaker 4 (40:35):
Nobody here is getting tied
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