321: A Candid Chat with L.A.B Golf's Sam Hahn

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
What is up everybody?
Welcome to another episode ofthe Chasing Daylight Podcast.
Typically this time of the yearwe do a Masters episode and
talk all about the Masters andeverything that's involved with
that.
Who knows, we may get into someof that.
We have the azaleas going on inthe background.
For those of you watching onYouTube, thank you so much for

(00:42):
tuning in there.
Already got a lot of peoplehopping on.
That's great.
We are live on Instagram.
We are live on YouTube.
Thank you so much for tuning inthere.
Already got a lot of peoplehopping on.
That's great.
We are live on Instagram.
We are live on YouTube.
We are live on X.
I brought X back in the foldthis week just to see if we can
maybe get some more engagementgoing on.
A lot of people were expectingto tune into this one because we
have a very special guest withus this evening Mr Sam Hahn from

(01:02):
Lab Golf.
Thank you, sir, so much forjoining us this evening.
Mr sam han from lab golf.
Thank you, sir, so much forjoining us this week.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Thank you, guys for having me, yeah thank you, sam
yeah, so um a little bit ofchaos took place.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
Let me put this up here real quick.
Uh, so the beginner has notbeen announced yet just so
because I'm sure 100 people aregoing to be asking about that.
A little bit of controversytook place and I got a message.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Is that what we're calling it?
We're calling it controversy.
Well, what would you call?
It All right, go on.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
So everybody knows by now, I made a post and it got a
lot of views and it's stillgetting a lot of views.
And we found out that, uh, thefacebook group from lab golf
found the video last night.
So now the facebook side of itis going nuts.
But, uh, you know, there was alot of comments, a lot of
ridiculousness, a lot of reallygood stuff, and in the end, sam

(02:02):
reached out and said we need toget on the phone and, uh, we had
what I I thought, personally,was a fantastic conversation.
I wasn't expecting it.
I thought you were trying toget a hold of me, uh, with a
cease and desist, and telling meto pull the video down.
And that's expecting, uh.
So when?

Speaker 2 (02:23):
when you my name is not chip brewer, so when you uh,
early too.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
uh, when you started the conversation and we're like,
hey, come on, let's, let's,let's chat and find out what's
going on, it was, it was veryappealing to me because, one,
you didn't have to do that, two,you could have just let it go
and been done with it.
But but I think thatconversation found out that we
both had a lot more in commonthan we thought we did and it

(02:51):
led to this.
You know, sam wasn't aware wehad a podcast, so I told him
about it.
He said hell, let's get on andlet's talk about your company.
So I know most of the peoplethat are tuning in watching this
know who you are, but let's getlet's get a little bit of
backstory on how you gotinvolved with lab and and got to

(03:12):
the point where you are now.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
Yeah, you know, and before I get to that, I just
want you know, just regardingwhat you just said, you know
turns out we had a lot more incommon than we thought we did.
it's one of the frustratingthings about sort of the the
social media golf environment isthat, like we all have so much
in common you know, we're noteven so much in common we have
the one thing that matters incommon, which is that we fucking

(03:36):
love golf, you know, and, yes,yes, you know, and, and um, yeah
, I get rubbed the wrong way alot of times when I see some of
the posts and some of the someof the shit people talk about
our stuff, but I do my best totry and remember that like in a
different world I probably wouldhave been one of those guys
talking shit about lap golf.
You know, so I get it.

(03:57):
You know I get how, how thishappens.
And I was just really excitedthat you were down to talk
because, you know, I'll tell youjust a very quick story when
Bill and I first partnered up,the inventor of the technology
is a guy named Bill Presley andI'll get to how I met him in a
second but you know, totalgenius and you know, came up

(04:20):
with this in a trailer, a in atrailer.
Um and uh, we partnered up butwe had no money and so the only,
you know, opportunity that wehad to promote our stuff was,
you know, in Facebook groups anddifferent golf blogs and stuff
like that.
And there was this one dudethat was just relentless about
giving us crap.
His name is Brett Douglas.
They call him the bird man, umand uh, and it was the same kind

(04:42):
of thing as this, and not thatyou know you'll end up being a
lab user, like he did, but Imean he was just relentless and
relentless, and relentless.
Finally, we you know we endedup talking.
He ended up getting a putterand talked it through and you
know, when he online and by bigI mean we sold like five putters
and like Whoa.
And we totally understand themerit of not reacting, you know,

(05:11):
quite so intensely when peoplethrow some shade and instead
just having fun conversations,cause if you have the
conversation generally, you endup learning something on both
sides.
So yeah, my backstory.
I you know, I, I was in the barmusic business and actually, as
your intro was playing there orthe guitar tuning up,
absolutely.
So yeah, my backstory.
I was in the bar music businessand actually, as your intro was
playing there, I heard theguitar tuning up.

(05:32):
I was like that's the soundI've heard a thousand times in
different garages.
But I was a golf nut because Ihad plenty of time during the
day to play golf.

Speaker 1 (05:40):
Pretty good player.
I wasn't when I was young oranything like that.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
I was a very, very late bloomer.
I was, I think, when I was 22,when I first started playing out
here in Oregon I had a hardtime breaking 90.
And then when I met a couple ofguys that were really good
players that I liked hanging outwith, and that's you know.
As you guys know, that's howyou get good, just playing with
good players, and I was ascratch player about two years
later.
And then know that's how youget good, just playing with good

(06:10):
players.
And um, I was a scratch playerabout two years later and then,
you know, just a total freakingequipment nut.
I just thought equipment wasthe coolest stuff and I loved,
you know, screwing around witheverything, particularly with
the putters.
And then, um, fast forward 15years.
I met a um, the instructor atemerald valley, which it sounds
like a couple of you guys haveplayed.
Um, uh, uh.
This guy named bob duncan andhe had come across the directed
force reno putter in australiaon a vacation and um told me I

(06:32):
had to try it.
I, like most of you, you know,blew snot out my nose when I saw
it and thought it was absurdlooking.
Um told him no way and uh, justout of respect for him, I was
like, okay, dude, I'll give itnine holes.
And I had a crazy experiencewith it and bought the putter on
the spot, had some struggleswith it early and then, once I

(06:56):
kind of went through my journeyand how to sort of unlock the
technology, crazy shit happened.
I was a one when I started withthat putter and then I was like
a plus three and a half.
About six weeks later it wasthe best golf I ever played my
entire life um and then the headfell off the putter.
So when the head fell off, Ihad to send it back.
Um, and bill was, you know,great and called me up and, you

(07:20):
know, apologized and told me toget it all squared away and we
just got to talking and we wereum kindred golf spirits.
So, um, we got to talking andthen, wouldn't have been more
than a month or two after that,that, um, directed force, which
was the name of the company atthe time, was about to you know,
they just they couldn't get itgoing and about to close the
doors, and so I, uh, um, Ipartnered up with bill and we

(07:43):
rebranded his lab and that wasthat was the rest is history.
The rest is.
The rest is history.

Speaker 1 (07:53):
So one of the one of the parts of the conversation
that we had that I thought wasreally interesting and it was
something that I never heard andit really like showcased what
you guys have been able to do.
We were talking about whathappened with Carbon Putters,
where my golf spy rated them thebest putter and they blew up,

(08:14):
couldn't meet productions andshut down.
And you were telling me aboutwhat happened with Seymour and
then you told me about AdamScott missing a putt at Augusta
the best thing that everhappened to us.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
And the best.

Speaker 1 (08:28):
Thing that ever happened to you and I was like
what?
So tell everybody what that was.

Speaker 2 (08:37):
So Lab was officially rebranded in 2018.
We got on tour in a prettyremarkable way actually.
We got another just incrediblelucky break on tour.
In a pretty remarkable way.
Actually, we got another justincredible lucky break.
Kiwi, by the name of TimWilkinson, picked up the putter
a lefty.
He's a lefty and there happenedto be a lefty putter at some
random tournament.
He was playing, I think, inUtah or something like that and

(08:57):
you can't get a credentialunless you've had some plays.
And we called up to get acredential and they're like well
, you need somebody to inviteyou or you need to have had
plays.
I'm like, well, we don't haveanybody.
They're like what's the name ofthe company?
He's like actually, you've had10 plays, so got a tour
credential, got out on tour andhad a little bit of success here
and there.
We had a really cool experiencewith Vaughn Taylor, but no

(09:28):
major players were really takinga look.
Then Kelly Slater, the surfer,had bought the putter at a pro
shop and then Kelly ended upplaying with and we got in touch
with him and then Kelly endedup getting paired with him with
Adam Scott at the AT&T PebbleBeach Pro-Am in 2019.
And Kelly out-putted everybody,everybody including I think it
was pat cantlay and and adam inthat group and like dude was
just filling it up.

(09:48):
And so I got a call the nextweek from adam scott and, um,
you know, it's like out of amovie.
I literally thought somebodywas fucking with me and I was
like okay who is?

Speaker 3 (09:59):
this really sure yeah and it was.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
And it was adam.
He told me to meet him in thelocker room.
I met him and um, just awesome,dude.
I mean he's just twice asawesome as you would imagine
from hearing him talking in thepress rooms and stuff.
Just a delightful human being.
And um, and bit him for a putter.
He didn't use it that week butuh, put it in play the following
week, which was the honda atthe time, and um and the players

(10:23):
, and then a few othertournaments in the Florida swing
and he was putting really well,took it to the Masters and and
bear in mind, this was the shortone, this is not a, this is not
a sweeper, this was aconventional length directed
force.
You know the original ogbranding iron in red, in red
nonetheless, so you could seethis thing from two, two
fairways over, and uh, and dudewas leading the masters through

(10:45):
two days in 2019.
And um, you know, and and look,I knew nothing about the golf
business.
You know, when I got into this,I knew nothing about the
equipment industry or anything,and my just stupid idea was
panning out exactly as I hadfoolishly thought like, yeah,
we'll just get out on tourSomebody.

(11:06):
Great, I'll get it.
They'll make a bunch of putts,one of the big sell a million
call and write it write us a bigcheck and you know we'll be on
our way.
And um, and so he's leading themasters and all of a sudden
it's happening.
The phone's ringing off thehook and orders are coming in,
and it's all crazy.
And um, and and we're startingto panic a little bit because we
don't have enough putters.
We don't have enough head covers, we don't have enough grips, we

(11:26):
don't have enough anything.
And then on Saturday he puttedpretty poorly, but was still
close enough to the leaderboard.
The cameras were on him and heended up missing like an 18-inch
putt on the 16th hole and thephone stopped ringing and they

(11:48):
showed this putt over and overand over and over again.
I'm like thank god I had toturn off the tv and you know,
I'm just like devastated as Ilook back on it now, like if
he'd have gone on to win, we'dhave suffered the same fate as
many, many companies, you know,scaling a business.
You just, you just can't imaginehow difficult it is, even if
you're deliberate about it, evenif you have, you know, the

(12:09):
right sequencing of growth andall that stuff.
I mean, I look back on ourjourney from where we were, you
know, certainly then.
But even even where we were,you know, three years ago, to
where we are now, like many,many companies haven't been able
to make that.
That jump into being able toproduce thousands of clubs every
month and cause it's.

(12:30):
It's a whole different thing.
You start a company with aprocess and a certain you know
manufacturing protocol andcertain components and you know
certain vendors that are helpingyou get all this stuff.
But you know, especially at thetime we were, you know we, we
make everything in america likenobody was prepared to, you know
, have our volume triple, thentriple again, then quadruple,
then quadruple again, and youknow, and on and on, and so, we

(12:52):
got a lot stop stop that's,that's what's so interesting,
right like I don't, I mean Imake like my own t-shirts.

Speaker 5 (12:59):
Right like, and it's just like, do I order 50 or 25,
you know?
And it's like I mean it's notgonna hurt me financially, right
, and it's just like, do I order50 or 25?
, you know, and it's like I meanit's not going to hurt me
financially, right, but it'slike I don't want to be stuck
with them.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
You know you don't want to be stuck with them.

Speaker 5 (13:12):
And if somebody comes up with like a hundred order,
like I don't have them for you,you know, and I mean you don't
have them, and then you'recalling up a vendor and the
vendor wants the business, butcan't say no, and then they end
up screwing you because theyover-promised.
And then you're waiting and Itotally get it, totally get it.

(13:33):
Yeah, it's crazy.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
All right, so we got Joe.
There's a couple of questionscoming in.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
I got them written down, I think we just do Q&A at
the end and we just go and thenI'm writing everything down when
are we going to talk about thefucking bullshit that you pulled
on Instagram, on us?

Speaker 5 (13:51):
hey, call him out.
I love it.

Speaker 1 (13:53):
Fire away, fire away oh, one of my favorite things
was.

Speaker 5 (14:01):
People were calling him an angry old man and he's my
golf buddy, but, but I call himdad as well, we call him dad
because he is older than us.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
Why does your AI caricature look like a baby then
?

Speaker 1 (14:17):
Because I have to do it 16 times to get it the way I
want it to look like me.

Speaker 5 (14:21):
This is the greatest podcast ever.
This is the greatest podcastever, and.

Speaker 2 (14:25):
I want to know what you should probably show the
people, what the originalcaricature of me was like.
Did you just type in neuroticglasses and that's what you
wrote.

Speaker 1 (14:36):
I can find it Hang on .

Speaker 5 (14:37):
A second Big Matt did say, play the video if you
didn't see that.

Speaker 3 (14:41):
Let's see, I don't think Sam wants to see that
anymore.

Speaker 2 (14:48):
It's like I shared it with all my friends and
apparently it's everybody'sprofile picture for me now.

Speaker 5 (14:51):
No, when matt started going it was like I, I mean, it
was just he didn't even plan onit that was the original all
strung out oh that's so good.

Speaker 1 (15:07):
Heavens ai man, ai it'll get, you it'll get you not
prepared, it'll get you.
Uh.
So what were you saying, joe?

Speaker 5 (15:20):
I think, uh, I mean, when matt posted that video, I
thought I mean he didn't meanfor it to go that way, right,
like he didn't think it wasgoing to blow up.
And that's just Matt, being thenerd golfer that he is, and I
was just like wow, that's reallylike that just happened
spontaneously.
And I told him I thought it wasbrilliant.
You know, I was like wow, Iwouldn't have never thought

(15:43):
about posting that video.
And yeah, I wouldn't have neverthought about posting that
video.
And yeah, it was just crazythat it took off.

Speaker 2 (15:50):
Yeah, it was a big learning experience for us for a
couple of reasons.
Number one I realized that if Icomment on something, I'm still
used to having 6,000 followersinstead of 140,000.
If I comment on something.
It ends up in everybody's feed,so yes, it does.

Speaker 1 (16:10):
But, yeah, man.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
I mean, I, I, I think a lot of why lab, you know,
came to be is because I do lookat social media every night and
every single night I ask myselfwhy the hell am I doing this?
Because it's, you know, it'sfrustrating.

Speaker 5 (16:28):
And what's the world we live in now?
Unfortunately, it's the worldwe live in is the world?

Speaker 2 (16:33):
and and for the longest time, up until really
the last kind of two years, itwas manageable.

Speaker 1 (16:39):
You know like there was a you know I could have
conversations with people.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
I had the time to actually address almost every
thread or every comment or youknow, whatever it was Now it's.
You know it's almost impossibleto do that, but I tried to the
extent possible.
But for whatever reason thatone caught me, you know, at just
the right time and you know atnight, and you know I fired back
and so it was important for meto understand.

(17:03):
You know A that we ought to bea little bit more careful with
what I comment on.
if I don't want to post aparticular amount of attention,
but what a lot of the successthat we've had is because, I
think, more than a lot of othercompanies out there, we've
listened to the consumer andwhile you know?

(17:25):
yeah, I thought your video wasstupid and a lot of people did,
but oversimplified the message alittle bit, but what I did see
not only was your originalsentiment, but any number of
people who agreed with yourevealer, um, I would not have
bought the company um, if therevealer didn't exist.

(17:48):
Um, because the, the, it's justsuch an easy explanation.
If you, the, the generalconsumer sees numbers or data or
whatever and they scroll rightpast they, they see some dude
saying this one's going tochange your game and they scroll
right past.
You know, like it's um, it'sjust such a simple explainer and

(18:12):
um, and so uh, and I, I get thefatigue, you know.
I I understand the frustration,like for people like you guys
who I'm sure have seen therevealer videos for seven
straight years now.
Um and um, and I get it.

(18:33):
I get that it's, it's tedious.
I understand the sentiment oflike well, we don't put with a
real, I understand all of it,but at the end of the day, we
have a technology that doesseparate itself from you know,
not including the last sixmonths, that was different than
anything that you know thatanybody had ever done, and we

(18:53):
needed a way to explain and itworks.
And there's something, there'san important piece I want people
to know about the Revealer.
The Revealer came first.
Like a lot of times, thecomments are like why do we care
about a device that somebodyinvented just to promote their
own product?

Speaker 5 (19:09):
The revealer is what gave birth to Ryan's imbalance,
not the other way around.

Speaker 2 (19:13):
When Bill was trying to figure the technology out, he
sort of like picked up a putterand noticed that it just
flopped.
And he's like, well, reallyright, do all putters just flop?
So he made a, he made arevealer out of a crutch with
some fishing wire and startedhanging putters in there to
figure out what putter satsquare, none of them did, and
that's what he used to start todevelop the technology.

(19:34):
So it's not as though this wassome device, you know,
retroactively created to make uslook good.
It was the device that was usedto create what is, you know,
whether it works for you or notis profound and different
technology than anything thathad come prior, including other
toe-up models that you know.
Other people say well, thisbutter was first, or this butter
was first.
Nobody actually did to the fullextent what Bill has.

(19:56):
You know, what Bill inventedwith this technology, and so,
but anyway, your post inspired,you know, we have a large
marketing team and we've, youknow, some people internally, a
bunch of marketing firms that wework with.

Speaker 1 (20:09):
Oh, I bet I'm their fanboys right now.
Huh, what's that I said?
I bet I'm number one on theirlist right now.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
Well, it inspired a lot of conversation about
revealer fatigue.
And how do we?
You know, like the world knowsnow, like for the most part, not
everybody, but a lot of peoplehave seen it what can we talk
about?
You know differently about thetech.
How can we, how can we helppeople understand the purpose of
the revealer, what else therevealer is doing other than
just marketing our product?

(20:37):
And so you know, to that extentI thank you guys.
I mean, and I think everyone onsocial media that's giving us
shit I sort through the, youknow the, the vitriol and and
try to find the nuggets of youknow that help me understand
what the consumer is thinking Ibelieve for him yeah, I believe,
and that's that's what'sfantastic about your brand you

(20:57):
are taking the feedback andtrying to make it better, and a
lot of people don't do that.

Speaker 5 (21:03):
A lot of people don't do that.
A lot of people don't do that.
You know TaylorMade is notlistening to their customers
like you.
Like you know I'm not going tosay the C word, but you know
there's a company man on thecall, but you know there's
there's other brands that arenot going to take the feedback
as well as you and try andimplement it into their brand as

(21:24):
as lab, as as well as you'retaking it right, you're.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
You take it as we can make it better because of the
feedback and that's 100 becausewe're listening and and and I'm
no different than the peoplethat founded all the companies
that you're talking about, and Ithink that there's just simply
a different mentality, um, whenyou're, when you're a founder,
versus when you're, you know,three, four generations removed

(21:48):
from the, the core values thatmade the brand what it is.
I'm now, you know, dealing withum pnls.

Speaker 5 (21:58):
Oh well, I mean that.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
Yeah, I know, but just yeah just the mass the, the
mass demand.
Definitely I understand how,how, how people end up where
they do.
I understand how brands end upfrankly resenting their
customers.
I understand.

Speaker 5 (22:13):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
How brands end up taking the easy way out.
I see that decision.
We're not making it.
We still make the good decisionand it's not that hard to make
the good decision and to makethe decision that is, you know,
consumer, um, consumer, positive, but, um, but I get it, you
know, and, um, and yeah, I meanwe, we, we, we absolutely listen
.
And you know my, my personalsensitivity is, like you know,

(22:37):
internally fucking sucks.
I'm an anxious wreck all thetime, but it serves the brand
really well because, like I, Ihate when people don't like our
stuff, I hate when we'remisunderstood, I hate when
people are, you know, speakingthings that aren't true.
Um, uh, and so, you know,social media has, you know,
provided an opportunity for um,me to be a sensitive little

(22:59):
bitch and actually, you know,engage with, uh, with a lot of
the folks that have the opinionsthat they do.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
Yeah, you got snarky with me.
I was like, wow, okay, let's dothis.
It was funny because it tookthat meme where the guy gets
caught looking at the girl andhis wife sees him and he just
drives off the cliff.
It took a right turn reallyfast and I like real quick, whoa
.
I said okay, hang on a secondand then, then, you know you're

(23:32):
like, hey, I'm sorry that wasn't, that wasn't cool, let's, let's
have a conversation, so, um,but I, what a lot of people.
This is the.
The sad part about social mediais, you know, you didn't know
any of my backstory, none of it.
And and when we talked and youlearned a lot about my backstory
, it's like, okay, you're,you're not just an idiot on on

(23:56):
instagram.
Well, I mean, I am sometimes,but you're not just an idiot on
instagram that doesn't know whatthe fuck talking about.
You have some actual input inthis and you know I've I never
said in that video that youshouldn't play a lab putter.
I didn't say the lab putterssuck.
I didn't say it's not going tohelp your game.
I, I just my beef with it isthe revealer and my beef is not

(24:20):
with your putter in the revealer, it's with other putters being
showcased in the revealer, andthat that is.
That is what was the.
You know, the.
The metamorphosis of that videowas I got hit with an ad from
club champion and it just likeit was.

(24:40):
I was on the putting green, Itook a break to scroll through
some Instagram and I saw it, andit's like the world came
together and went go make thisvideo.
And so I just and that's whatit was, I didn't, I didn't sit
down and plot it out, I didn'tscript it.
I grabbed my phone, put it onehanded and just was having some

(25:01):
fun with it, cause I was like,okay, enough of everybody else's
putter spinning around in arevealer, because I I'm I'm
pretty sure, based on myknowledge of putters and putter
manufacturers, I don't think anyof those guys care what their
putters are doing in yourrepealer.
I just, I just don't the othermanufacturers yeah I, I mean, I

(25:22):
care.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
That's why they're making ones that work in the
revealer.

Speaker 1 (25:26):
But they're making a different putter, not the ones
that are in the revealer.
Scotty Cameron and his Newport1.5,.
I don't think he gives a rat'sass what his putter does in the
revealer, because it has nobearing on.

Speaker 2 (25:44):
I can tell you that I'm not trying to flex, but I
know for a fact that he oh no,no, you know he, I know
internally there was a couplepeople on his staff who actually
told him five years ago, whenthey showed him the lab, that
this was going to be a problemand he said no, it's not, don't
worry about it.
And now, as you see, they'vegot a zero torque or tow up you

(26:05):
know version of their Phantom.
I just saw a tow up version ofthe Fastback that they're making
.
I have no idea if they'll go tomarket, but I think they care
and I think that you know thisis one of the things that you
and I talked about on the threatand one of the purposes of the
revealer, one of the things thatthe revealer has done that I

(26:28):
wish.
There's times where I wish Iwasn't attached to the company
so that I could, you know kindof more, have what I talk about
be received in more of anunbiased way.
But like the biggest revelationto me about the revealer, like
the first time I saw it and thefirst time Bob showed me, you
know what it did and what youknow lab were at the time it

(26:49):
directed force putter did versusother putters.
I was kind of like you know,okay, whatever.
The thing that actually blew mymind personally with the
demonstration was the off centerstrikes in the, in the, in the
revealer, and I was like whoa,that's impressive.
But then the more time I spentwith the revealer, with other
putters, not with ours that'swhere my education and
understanding and all of thelight bulbs and all of the
questions that I could neveranswer about my journey with
other putters actually began,starting with toe hang.

(27:12):
So I know I knew from my ownpersonal experience that my
strokes with the shallowest arcand the smallest face-to-path
ratio took place with a toe hangputter, like 8802s, like full
toe hang putters.
And then as soon as I grabbed aface balance putter which was

(27:35):
supposed to, at least accordingto the narrative that all
fitters use as far as how aputter should be fit and what
it's supposed to do for stroketypes or whatever to the exact
opposite.
That's when I started gatingand you know the path got all
fucked up and whatever.
So the narrative that I wastold was supposed to be
happening around toe flow um,just didn't check out.

(27:56):
And then when I saw a revealer,I understood why the toe flow
putter actually shuts in in inthe takeaway and then it opens
in transition.
It's going heel first in in ineach direction.
Now, I'm sure this could havebeen explained to me by somebody
who knew more, but I went toAdele fittings multiple times.
I went to you know differentfancy fitters and all this stuff

(28:16):
and they would, you know, seeme with my putter, see that it
had some depth of arc and or, atthe time, if the arc was
shallow, they'd hand me thisputter or that putter or
whatever.
And there was no relationshipbetween the way that I was
stroking the putter and thetorque profile that they were
handing me.
And the revealer shows you why.
It shows you that thisnarrative that nobody bothered

(28:37):
to test why it doesn't work, aswell as the algorithms that
different fitting you knowplatforms would have you believe
that it does.
And if you think about it, it'snot different than track man.
Like Matt when you grew up, youknow I'm sure that you were
told in order to hit a fade, youaim the club face at the target
and in your body a little leftof it, and you know the ball,

(29:02):
over and over again, started atyour target and faded away from
it rather than starting left ofit and, you know, going over it
wasn't until we saw a drag man.
Actually, the face is shutrelative to the target in order
to produce a fade that weactually knew the rules.
This is it's kind of that samething where we just have
information that we didn't have.
I'm not saying anybody wastrying to fool anybody.
I think that people thoughtthat they misunderstood.

(29:23):
Yeah, totally so.
The.
I think that people thoughtthat they misunderstood.
Yeah, totally so.
The revealer is very impressivein that regard and it really
helps open up a a lot of eyes asfar as what torque profiles do.
We're excited soon to beintroducing a torque meter where
we can actually measure it witha, with a numeric value, as far
as how much torque in eitherdirection, you know, in the
takeaway and in the change ofdirection, all that stuff, and I
think that will help some folksthat will.

(29:45):
But yeah, the revealer has alot of good purposes beyond just
marketing our kick-ass putters.

Speaker 5 (29:51):
Hey shout out the Greg Norman book how to Hit a
Golf Shot.
I got it in the bathroom rightnow.
You know.
He said exactly what Sam saidand I guess he was wrong.
Yeah, what sam said and right,I guess in the face but I would
like to go back to where yousaid that they care about the

(30:12):
revealer.
I'm curious do you think theycare about the revealer?
Or do you think that they carehow hot lab is because of the
use of the revealer?

Speaker 2 (30:26):
I mean a little of both.
I mean I know a little of both.
I mean the industry isunfortunately very small and
incestuous and weird andeverybody talks and so I know
what you know to some extentwhat's going on in these R&D
rooms, I mean you made it hot.

Speaker 5 (30:45):
What's that?
I mean?
You made it hot.
It's the Kendrick Lamar.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
oh for sure I mean, there's no question, but that
they're responding to marketshare reports, and you know
exactly any amount of stuff thatwe're taking up.
But you know you got to givethese guys a little credit, like
they don't just respond tomarket share reports, like it.
You know the right and themarket.
You know like and this is oneof the points I made to you that

(31:10):
you know I make all the timearound the revealer and the
marketing in general, Like ifyou have really good marketing.
You can do really good marketingwith a product that doesn't
work.
You can do one run.
That's what infomercials are,that's what you know look really
good.
You know, if you explain thetechnology without having to

(31:30):
validate it, you can set it andforget it, shout out Ron.

Speaker 5 (31:34):
Papil, you know yeah they do.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
They do one run.
They sell a million of them andyou never hear from them again
because everybody buys the thingand realize it's garbage and it
doesn't work.
You cannot market your wear towear we've gotten to.
The product has to work Like.
There has to be enough peopleout there playing with their
friends saying I'm puttingbetter with this lab.
Otherwise you could do all themarketing in the world and it
ain't gonna.
It ain't gonna get you to um,to the market share that we've

(31:57):
got.
So it's a, it's a, it's adouble.
You know, they the a, I thinkthey're seeing that the tech
works, um, b, they're um, uh,you know, responding to some
market share stuff.
You know, I remember early on Iwish I could name him, but out
of respect for him I won't.
But a tour rep that worked for,you know, one of the three

(32:20):
biggest manufacturers in theworld one of my first weeks out
on tour, grabbed it, called thehead of R&D and said we have a
problem, this thing's a problem,it's going to be an issue
because this thing really works.
They're one of the companiesthat have issued a, put out a

(32:41):
competitive product here.
It's both.
They're responding to themarket.
I think that they were hopingthat it didn't take off so that
they wouldn't have to respond,that they were hoping that it
didn't take off so that theywouldn't have to respond, and
that's one of the really sadthings I've learned about the
industry is the number oftechnologies that are acquired
by these companies and then putin a drawer.
There's so much cool shit outthere, there are so many great
inventions that simply do nothave what's that?

Speaker 1 (33:04):
JP wedges Title is great, Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
And there's, there's a I mean tons of really awesome
stuff that will never see thelight of day, because these
companies bought the ip just toput it in the drawer, just so
that they wouldn't have to worktoo much harder and divert too
much from what they already do.
Um, I think there's probably afew companies that are kicking
themselves that they didn't dothat with us, because they
certainly all had theopportunity, and I think they

(33:32):
just thought it wasn't going totake and it did, and it did.
And it's going right now.

Speaker 1 (33:41):
So here this is kind of off topic, but our buddy,
chris Torres, wants to know whatwine are you sipping on?
That's a good question.

Speaker 2 (33:49):
I'm not even that much of a wine guy.
I was uh shout out the worldfamous I was, uh, I was having a
shitty day and I was like jesus, I have to do a podcast right
now.
Maybe it is spring valley,spring valley.
She looks like a nice lady.
Spring Valley.
Spring Valley.

Speaker 1 (34:07):
She looks like a nice lady, the Willamette wine
country is amazing.

Speaker 2 (34:11):
Willamette wine is real.
I'm going to actually haveanother glass.
Best pinots in the world, in myopinion.

Speaker 1 (34:19):
So I'm told Okay, joe , did you want to get into some
Q&As now, jeremy, you've beenquiet, I'm sure you have a
question you guys have both beenvery quiet.

Speaker 2 (34:31):
It's honestly a little creepy.
They're usually pretty quiet.

Speaker 1 (34:34):
Joe and I are the talkers.
We needed to force them.
So we found two good handicapsto help us in scramble events.

Speaker 2 (34:41):
You guys look like enforcers.
I can't tell you, you guys arebig.
You guys both look kind of likethey're in security.

Speaker 3 (34:50):
We're too famous on yeah like security.
Yeah, no, I do have a question.
Has jordan spieth?

Speaker 5 (34:55):
reached out to you about getting a lab putter I
knew it um no, uh he

Speaker 2 (35:01):
has not reached out and in fact and I'm certain that
that'll never happen, because Icompletely fucking blew it with
Cameron McCormick.
Cameron, I met him.
He's a nice guy and very, veryhard worker and he was working

(35:26):
with Jimmy Walker who was usingour stuff kind of off and on for
a while and in the relationshipwith him Jimmy was pretty
short-lived.
I had been working with jimmyfor a year and a half before he
started working with um, withcameron and then, um, uh, again
actually at the honda.
Um, you know, he got into one ofour putters and like I I mean
it was a catastrophe.
Like I mean I think he lostlike five shots in a round to

(35:49):
the field putting.
And I'm looking at these videosand I knew that he'd been
working with Cameron on thestroke a little bit, and so I
texted Cam and I was just like,looks like he's crowding the
ball and I don't know.
I mean we got to and he was,you know, basically, just like
who the fuck are you Like fuckoff and or you like fuck off and

(36:11):
so, um, my guess, is uh, hewould um much sooner be grabbing
.
If he was interested in thetechnology, I imagine he'd
probably be grabbing it fromcameron or somebody else yeah,
jeremy.

Speaker 1 (36:17):
Uh, we have.
We have a bet with jeremy thatif he has to get a lab, putter
if jordan speith was one in hisbag, so he he's more looking out
for himself with that questionyeah, yeah, for sure, definitely
you're good, not saying Iwouldn't get a lab putter, but
jeremy is like his whole journeywith putters, like where people
are.

Speaker 2 (36:36):
You know, I understand the.
I mean, I used to.
I used to to intentionally justride honeymoons with my putting
that like I would switchputters every round, even if I
putted well the round before,just because I believed in the
power of honeymoon.
Look at what he's doing.
I mean he's got that last WRXpost.
He got 15 of the exact samefucking putter.
Like what are you doing?

Speaker 3 (36:56):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (36:58):
Dan, you got anything .

Speaker 4 (37:01):
I'm just curious on if you have any plans or
anything like that with R&Dright now on maybe experimenting
with different metals likecarbon steels or different metal
type inserts or anything likethat in the future.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
For sure, yeah, the insert thing, for sure Carbon.
I love carbon.

Speaker 5 (37:20):
I'm a carbon steel freak.

Speaker 2 (37:21):
The best, it's the best, the link that I have that
I use every once in a while iscarbon.
And the problem with carbon isit arrests.
And you know there arecertainly certain customers
we're actually just talkingabout this.
We were considering doing adirect-to-consumer-only carbon

(37:43):
release so that we could handlethe customer service about it,
because that's the biggest issue.
If people are buying carbon offthe rack at Superstore, they
don't read the stickers, theydon't read the stuff and then
they'll go out to, you know,abandoned dunes or whatever,
stick the putter in a head cover, wake up the next morning and
it's orange and they get prettypissed off.
So I love dealing with peoplethat like of course everybody on

(38:10):
this thread, and probably thepeople listening to it, love a
nice patina.
Joe Blow plays 15 times a yearand leaves his wet putter in his
head cover at the country club.
Not so much.
So I love carving and we'llexperiment with that for sure.
The reason we use aluminum somuch, particularly with the
mallets, is because our wholething is moving the CG around.
Being able to manipulate the CGper lie, angle, per swing,

(38:32):
weight, per length, per grip,per everything All of these
things factor into how webalance the putter.
Aluminum, being so light, givesus maximum flexibility with
which to do that.
So we'll probably startexperimenting with some carbon
fiber, you know, to do much thesame where you know, gives us
the headroom to be able to movethe CG around a little bit.

(38:55):
I would love to start messingwith titanium, just because I
think it would be cool to make atitanium putter, but just so
expensive, I mean, it's just sodifficult to machine and the
materials expensive, that's alot of time, and so you know,
and we like we talked about itone time and you know you have
to think about like, well, likewe're, we're very committed to

(39:16):
no bs, you know, like we're notgoing to customers and we're not
going to you know, start totell people that materials or
this or that does things thatit's not going to do.
So we were talking abouttitanium.
We were like, okay, okay, well,what's the story?
What's better about titanium?
Nobody could come up with ananswer other than that it was
really cool to use titanium.

Speaker 1 (39:34):
It's a great PR segment.

Speaker 5 (39:37):
Yeah, I did have a question come through.

Speaker 2 (39:42):
With inserts you were asking about inserts like the,
you know, the Oz.
There's no question, one of thebiggest, you know, complaints
that we get about our stuff isball speed, um, and that's for
two reasons number one, thegroove pattern that we usually
use.
Number two, yeah, three reasons, uh.
Number two, aluminum is prettysoft.
It's not a, it's not a terriblyfirm material, so the you know

(40:03):
deflection isn't quite as hard.
And then three, the center ofgravity's relationship with the
face has a big impact.
So the closer the CG is to theface, the faster the ball comes
off.
And so that's why, with, like,our biggest one, the DF 2.1,
that's the slowest putter wehave because the CG is so far

(40:26):
behind the face.
That's the slowest putter wehave because the cg is so far
behind the face.
Um, so, uh, that's so.
We've made the odds with thespecific intent of solving for
that issue and we, you know,offer that that stainless insert
, and that was kind of a doublewhammy.
So we had the stainless insertand we moved the cg closer to
the face than any of any othermallets that we've made so far.
Um, it's been a hit and peopleare really stoked and it's

(40:48):
solving the problem that a lotof people had.
So people are like when's thedf3i coming out and when's the
2.1i coming out and all that,and it's just it's.
It's very difficult to explainthe engineering feat that adding
that much weight to the frontof the putter is while still
allowing us to balance at 28 to48 inches and 63 degrees to 79.5

(41:14):
degrees.
It's really hard.
So it'll be a minute before wehave those options, but the
demand is clear, the customershave spoken and we'll do it.
It's just a matter of you knowhow much time it's going to take
Gotchacha how much?

Speaker 1 (41:28):
how much weight difference is going to be
between a carbon, df2, and a, analuminum?
Have you guys looked at that?

Speaker 2 (41:35):
oh, a carbon df2 is a non-starter.
I mean that would be 500 grams.
I mean yeah, it's not, it's notpossible, uh, possible no and
none and none of the malletputters that you see are are
just billet, you know, like likea spider or a two ball.
Oh no, none of them are that.

Speaker 5 (41:53):
That's cast very rare , yeah, yeah yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:57):
so yes, it's steel but it's cast, so it's much more
porous, like there's a lot ofair in the material itself, that
that enables it to be so light.
And then a lot of them arehollow, you know, like a.
You know I don't think that,I'm sure you guys know, but the
general consumer might not beaware that like you unscrew a
spider, like it's hollow in themiddle, it's just, yeah, it's
two pieces of cast steel thatyou know we're screwed together

(42:18):
and it's a driver.
At that point, yeah, basically.
All right.
So you guys all see the aprilfool's joke from yeah, my golf,
yeah, yeah, I had multiple tourplayers.
I had multiple tour playersreach out bro, you got to keep

(42:40):
your head on a swivel on april1st like you.

Speaker 1 (42:43):
Oh, I got got bad.

Speaker 5 (42:45):
Oh, yes, he did.
I got, I got bad.

Speaker 2 (42:49):
I'll save his name because I love him dearly, but a
broadcaster.
One of the broadcasters textedme this morning asking anybody
in the masters was going to beusing our new driver.

Speaker 5 (43:02):
Dude, I like even to this today.
I'm like I see something Idon't believe.
I'm like how, how many days agowas that posted?
Because I got to check.
I get my head on a swivel man.

Speaker 1 (43:14):
Too funny Too funny.
So you guys are sticking withputters, no desire to go to
anything else, correct?

Speaker 2 (43:24):
No, I definitely have a desire.
I would love to do it and maybeone day.
There isn't specific, there'snothing specifically in the
works.
I do have, you know, certaintechnologies that I've seen out
there that only we could do, andthat's one of the cool things
that you know, our brand hasestablished is like, if we do

(43:45):
get into other products, um, youknow the confines of
palatability of the consumer,drive most manufacturers, you
know it's like they might havethis incredible technology, but
if it looks too weird they'rejust not going to do it.
Look at square drivers right,like there was merit to that
technology.
Those things were stable asshit and they were really,

(44:07):
really good golf clubs and theyjust took so much shit because,
you know, the Callaway customerwas used to a nice pear-shaped
driver and they were upset thatyou know there was a divergence
from that, whereas with Lab,people are expecting us to do
weird shit.
So if there's technology outthere that works, I think that
we've built the consumer trustthat we're not going to put

(44:28):
something out there just for thesake of put something out there
.
We're gonna.
We're gonna make sure that itworks and and, and you know,
have the, the science and the,the physics to, to to support
that claim.
Um, so yeah, one day, but notanytime.
That's nice though.

Speaker 1 (44:43):
That's nice, though, that you, if they bring you
something and you go, what thefuck, let's do it right, let's
do it yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:47):
That, if they bring you something and you go, what
the fuck, let's do it Right,let's do it yeah exactly If a
major manufacturer puts it outthere like oh, they're just, you
know, looking for marketing andlooking for collection.

Speaker 3 (44:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:56):
If Lab does it, it's like maybe worth trying.

Speaker 5 (44:58):
Well that's very interesting right, because
you've bred yourself to morecreativity, you can be more
creative and take more risk.

Speaker 2 (45:11):
because you've built a base to where they expect
something new out of you andother other manufacturers aren't
going to do that no, you can'tmake anything great without
taking risk and the numbers likewe talked about before.
These companies, you know, arerun by folks that are risk
averse.
That's their whole job is tojust steady the ship.
And then I always think it's sofunny when people talk about
the way that our stuff looksbecause, like, tell me name a

(45:34):
single iconic golf product thathas ever entered the market, not
as the ugliest thing thatanybody had ever seen.
When the ping answer camearound, it was just like lab.
Just like lab.
He stood on the side of puttinggreens for two years with
people saying I will soonerthree putt 15 times before I

(45:54):
would put that ugly thing in mybag.
Fast forward 60 years.
It's the standard of beauty.
The big Bertha came out.
God knows how many people weresaying what is that?
God awful monstrosity.
It's a gimmick.
I hate it.
Take it away from me.
Yeah, it gave birth to the.
You know the modern driver, soyou know people, I, I, I get it.
I get why people are afraid to.
You know, put themselves outthere like that because you have

(46:17):
to deal with the.
You know idiots like matttalking shit online and shots
fired.

Speaker 1 (46:29):
Okay, um, a couple questions.
Shoot.
What for people that are buyinglab putters used uh, yard sales
, trade-in stores, ebay, thatthey weren't fit to it and
they're gaming it?
What?
What?

(46:49):
Tell them what they need to do?

Speaker 2 (46:52):
I, uh, you know, unfortunately, because of the
way that we manufacture them andbecause of the nature of the
technology, there isn't much youcan do retroactively without
sending it back to us.
The lie angles can't beadjusted.
No matter what we bore the, webore the lie right into the head
and so it's not like a bendinga spud or something like that.
Um, but I, I tell people not tooverthink it.

(47:13):
Like if the, if the, if you laythe putter down and it sits
flush on the ground without afight, you're fine, like you
know, if you aim it, good and it, and you're not like forcing
yourself to raise or lower yourhands in order to get the putter
to sit flush, get it, see if itworks.
If you get it and it works,kind of, but you feel like

(47:34):
there's something missing, go tothe remote fitting and see.
You know how different yourspec might be.
And if it's vastly differentthan the one you have, throw
that one up on eBay, check outour outlet store, check out eBay
or whatever, and you'll findone in your spec.
So you don't have to go drop650 bucks on a new one.
You know, until you're figuredout.
But, like you know, I think thatyou know and I've said this

(47:54):
before in other podcasts andstuff I think that a lot of
modern putter fitting is alittle over complicating.
You know, for us kind ofcomfort is king, like most of
modern putter.
Most of modern putter fittingis about determining the torque
profile.
Right, should you have toe hang?
Should you be face balanced?
How much toe hang should youhave?

(48:15):
All that?
Well, you know.

Speaker 3 (48:17):
A.

Speaker 2 (48:18):
I think a lot of that narrative is kind of BS and B.
We only make one torque profile, so that part of it's already
you know fit.
If you're coming to try out alab, you already know, you know
what the torque profile is.
So then it's about choosing ashape, um, that you like looking
at, or um, or gives youconfidence or whatever Um, and

(48:40):
then after that our wholefitting philosophy is comfort is
King, that's it.
Like we just want youcomfortable and want you
comfortable and and um.
And one of the things I'm soproud of that we do is like
everybody has somebody that theyplay with.
That's got the toe or the heel,you know way in the air.
You know that they just there'sa way that they want to stand

(49:01):
over the putter that a stockputter simply doesn't
accommodate um and and we doanything anything A 63-degree
putter if you've ever grabbedone is psychotically flat and it
would just feel so crazy to youto hold on to that thing.
And those are the happiestcustomers we have.
Those are the guys that reallyjust start to have incredible

(49:27):
results because they can finallyjust stand over the putter.
That, the way that they want tostand over the putter, I I'll
I'll try and cruise this throughthis story really quickly, but
there was there's a course up inin bend called broken top and I
got a call from the pro.
This is years ago.
This is when we kind of werefirst starting out and um, and

(49:48):
the guy uh said you know, I'vegot this member who's just an
absolute golf tragic.
He just loves the game he playsevery day.
He's in his mid-70s, um, andI've given him god knows how
many putting lessons he I'vebent his uh, he had a ping
putter.
He's like I've bent it as flatas I'm comfortable bending it
without it breaking.

(50:08):
Um, he's still got the the toeof the putter.
He's like I bent it as flat asI'm comfortable bending it
without it breaking.
He's still got the toe of theputter two inches in the air,
like it's just you know and Iheard.
I heard that you guys can makeanything.
So we go up and we fit them andthe dude came out.
He actually came out to 59degrees, which is which at the
time we only had the DF 2.1 andthe, the.

(50:28):
The shafting platform on it wassmaller than it is now,
shallower than it is now, sothere wasn't enough room to us
for us to go into that angle andhave enough material for the
shaft to hold onto.
So I was like, you know, Ithink the best we can do is 61
degrees.
And so we, we, we made him aputter at 61 degrees.

(50:49):
Dude had never broken 90 in hisentire life and he broke 84
times that summer.
And wow, and like, what otherputter could that guy use?
You know like it was.
It was so cool, it was so coolto be able to do that and that
and so and and look, you know hedoesn't go to putting.
He doesn't get putting lessonsanymore.
You know, like, not becausethey didn't work, but because,
like, if that's how he wanted tostand, there was no instructor
in the world that was going tobe like, okay, let's work with
that.
You know they, they change hisgrip and they change this and

(51:12):
they're trying to get him to dowhat isn't comfortable, and so,
you know, putting in a lot ofways, ain't that freaking hard
man?
We're just trying to roll theball into a hole and um, and one
of the real, you know, easyways to make that happen is to
be comfortable when you'restanding over the ball yep,
would agree with that.

Speaker 1 (51:29):
100, okay.
So the guys on tour how arethey getting fit?
What are you directly workingwith them?
Are you having them stand inthe doorway and and do that?
Is that?

Speaker 2 (51:42):
yeah, a lot of times.
Um, uh, I mean, for for themost part they know what lie
they're normally comfortablewith.
What a lot of the tour playersdon't account for is how flat
the sole of our putter is, sothey're used to a little bit of
camber.
So you know, occasionally we'llget a tour player that says you
know, I've always used 70degrees so make me a 70 and then

(52:03):
I'll go check out some video tosee if they're actually setting
it up at 70, which which is,you know, most of the time
probably, but there's plenty oftimes when that's not the case,
and so we'll take a stab in thedark.
We absolutely do remotefittings for pros all the time
and it's incredibly accurate,especially with them, because
they know exactly how they wantto stand and how they do what

(52:24):
they do.
So, um, uh, but yeah, we, we doremote fittings, um, uh and or
or we just kind of hear whatthey have to say.
Um, we also, you know, we, wetry to assuming they're open to
it and don't want to get, youknow, kind of over complicated
we'll send them a bunch of shit,you know, and they can, you

(52:44):
know, figure out what, what laysdown the best, and yeah, the,
the.
The trickiest thing with tourpros is usually finding the
appropriate cocktail for shaft,lean and press grip and then
swing weight.
You know the swing weights thatthose guys use are generally
quite a bit lighter than thegeneral public would like.

(53:06):
And then, you know, swingweight with our stuff is a bit
more complicated than justadding weight to the handle or
whatever.
You know, we have to do somefancy stuff in there.
But besides that it's reallynot different than you or me,
you know, we obviously just takea little bit more time with
them and go back and forth a fewmore times.

(53:27):
One of the ways that we hope toinnovate fitting is.
The biggest flaw and it's afatal flaw in putter fitting is
what happens two weeks later.
You go into these fittings andthey spit out a spec and that
spec is based on how you wereputting that day and how you
were seeing putts that day on astraight 10 foot putt, with some

(53:49):
dude sitting there judging youwith a generally a 70 gram clip
on your shaft, telling youinformation that you don't know
anything about, and um, and thenyou get your putter and it
works great, because everybody'snew putter always works great
on a honeymoon.
But what happens two weekslater?
And then?
So with the tour guys,obviously we have the
opportunity to rectify whathappens two weeks later and they

(54:11):
you know, as long as they'rethey're open and communicative
and give us the feedback.
we can, you know, dial it inperfect, and we try to do the
same for our customers to theextent possible.

Speaker 5 (54:20):
I'm a.
So you, you hang on, Joe, Joe,one sec, hang on one sec.

Speaker 1 (54:29):
I know that's my job.
That's my job.
Uh, steven jackson just hoppedin the chat on instagram.
Sam I, I would like you to togive a warm, heartfelt thank you
to mr jackson.

Speaker 5 (54:38):
He has, I think, 14 lab putters uh you were on that
if you're on that app, wherewhere you like, ask for people
to say happy birthday to you?
I forget the name of the app.
Like he's one of your customersfor sure?

Speaker 1 (54:51):
yes so he is the probably your your leading
customer in in the nevada region.
Um, he's a huge fan of yoursloves the, loves the putters,
he's a buddy of ours and uh, sohe's in the chat.

Speaker 2 (55:08):
I appreciate you.
My friend Matt put me in touchwith Mr Stephen after this
podcast.

Speaker 3 (55:14):
Absolutely.
He bought the green Oz, hebought the regular Oz Every week
.

Speaker 2 (55:21):
Did he get the Master's Special release this
morning?

Speaker 3 (55:24):
I'm sure he did.

Speaker 1 (55:26):
I'm sure he did.

Speaker 2 (55:28):
It went pretty quick.
It went about 28 minutes.

Speaker 1 (55:30):
I think they were gone he was probably up right
when it loaded.
Yeah, he's a fiend he is afiend he was at Banner with us.
Alright, joe, what were yougoing to say?

Speaker 2 (55:44):
I forgot you forgot see, that's why I said so.
You mentioned bands.
As you said, you've done thesolstice thing a few times.

Speaker 1 (55:52):
Has been an annual uh well, we try we try, yeah try,
but so next time, next time youdo it like let's do a thing,
let's give you guys the big tour, let's get some cameras going
put it on your podcast, I wouldlove to host you guys I tried to
get these guys to go to emeraldValley when we went in August,
but they wanted to go to Bar Runinstead.
Bar.

Speaker 5 (56:12):
Run's sick.

Speaker 2 (56:14):
Oh, bar Run's sick though it's cool, but it's not
Emerald Valley.

Speaker 5 (56:18):
You don't like Dan Hickson.
You don't like Dan.
You don't like Dan Hickson.
I love Dan.

Speaker 2 (56:21):
Hickson and I play with his brother all the time.
Dan's an incredible designer.
I was just a standard piece ofproperty I had to work with and,
to his credit, he did anincredible job.
I love Bar Run.
I'll tell you a quick storyabout Bar Run.
So what is the name of the holethat he mimicked with the

(56:42):
concrete wall?
Oh, Prestwick?

Speaker 5 (56:46):
No, it's not Prestwick, it's North.
Barrack, but the name of theirname, the name of the hole is
yeah, I forget, see.
Anyway, I love, let's figure itout.

Speaker 2 (56:56):
I played that hole the first time and I was like I
heard the story that it was likemimicking some hole in scott
and I'm like this is someseriously stupid, what the on
wall doing in the middle of thisgolf course.
And then I played north Berwicklast summer and I was like that
hole's badass and Dan Hickson'sthe man, it's super, super cool

(57:16):
.
Well anyway, yeah, definitelycome down to band and when or
come, come to Amarillo when youguys come through next, we'll
take you out and have a goodtime.

Speaker 1 (57:24):
Yeah, I was my buddy, Andrew and I.
We did it.
We did it twice and I did itonce with joe.
We tried to get on the list forlike five years, finally got on
the list.
We played it once.
We got in the second time andthen they changed it to okay if
your grandfather didn't knowmore, because they wanted to
open and I got it.
I understood they want to havemore people experience it called

(57:44):
the pit, the pit okay, the samepeople every year at home
that's right.
And then so joe and I uh got inon not the lottery, but just
signing up.
You know when it sold out in 12minutes, and so then we did it,
and then we try to go, eachevery, we try to go, you know,
every year, every year and ahalf, um, and but now that they
got this lottery thing, thatit's just, it's crazy it's tough

(58:06):
.

Speaker 2 (58:07):
Well, I, the invite is is and I would love to host
you guys.
That would be awesome.

Speaker 1 (58:11):
I want these guys to play Emerald Valley so bad,
because it is such a fun golfcourse.
Well, todd Haas.

Speaker 5 (58:18):
You're going to have to book Bannon for us.
You're going to figure out away.

Speaker 2 (58:22):
You know I'm down, I can get you guys some time.

Speaker 5 (58:25):
Well, so we're planning on coming in January 26
.
So January birthday trip everyyear Very cold, that's not a fun
time to play Emerald Valleyeither.
It's San Diego, bro, san Diego.

Speaker 1 (58:43):
You know a friend of ours, todd Haas.

Speaker 2 (58:44):
He's out there.

Speaker 1 (58:46):
And you know Ryan Hardenbrook.

Speaker 2 (58:49):
I'm sure I'm not great with names.

Speaker 5 (58:51):
Okay, Ryan he used to be in Eugene.
Yeah, yeah, the cigar don, thecigar don.

Speaker 1 (58:56):
Yeah, ryan and I actually started this podcast
way back five years ago.
It was me and him that startedthis, but yeah, we love that
area, I love that area, I lovethat, I love playing golf up
there.

Speaker 2 (59:08):
So, um, we'll do you want to know, uh, you want to
know how I met todd we, we, uh,we were.
I don't even know how the salecame about, but we met in a in a
toyota car dealership parkinglot because I was selling him
some hybrids um long before Ihad anything to do with the golf
business and then fast forwardprobably five years, we end up

(59:36):
playing together.
I think I just ran into hisgroup or something like that and
we played a game.
He said he was an eighthandicap and like I'm making
this up, but I think he mighthave shot.
You know, I think we hooked uplike on the third hole or

(59:57):
something like that, and I thinkhe might have shot three over
for the round and he was sayinghe was an eight.
I'm like you're a fuckingsandbagger.
This is bullshit, fucking Todd.
And so then, at the end of the,at the end of the round, like
we're exchanging numbers, and Iput him in my phone as todd
asian eight and um and then, umand then and then, when I um,

(01:00:23):
when I was like, and then so Iput that in as the name, and
then I, when I put in the number, it popped up that I already
had the contact and I lookedthrough the text and I realized
that he was the dude I'd soldthose hybrids to.
We both knew that he wassomebody that I recognized.

Speaker 1 (01:00:36):
That's hilarious.

Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
But then I actually texted him to fill in for us for
League one night and he provedthat indeed he is an A to
handicap.

Speaker 3 (01:00:48):
I love that, that man , I have some fun conversations
with him.

Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
Good dude.
All right, joe, let's do theQ&A.
We got a bunch of questions andthen we'll do the giveaway.
Here I'll show everybody.
We got 109 names in thegiveaway.

Speaker 5 (01:01:07):
Some of these.
I think you kind of uhgenerally answered.
But um uh, someone asked whatdo you do for qc?
Is there a tour issue?

Speaker 2 (01:01:19):
uh, that's a great question.
So, uh, um, yeah, total,totally total, full disclosure.
The components um are all thesame for the tour as they would
be for anybody else.
Um, occasionally we will dosome fancy drilling and some
things like that, for you knowvery, very specific shaft leans

(01:01:41):
or very specific lie angles, um,but other than that, it's the
same product and and to that end, about three months ago, our
president, robert Johnson,floated the idea, you know, like
you know, I mean, we're all,we're everybody, we're all
fucking golf fans, and most ofus were just consumers, not that
many years ago, and we love thecircle t shit, you know.
And so we were like, oh sweet,let's put a lab tour stamp on

(01:02:02):
our stuff.
And we were doing it for aminute only if it was going out
to a tour pro um.
And then our our, our presidentrobert, was like is it tour
issue though?
Is it?
Is it actually anythingdifferent?
So we actually killed it.
We don't put any tour markingson any putters anymore, because
there's no need.
It's the same stuff and justseems silly to like give
somebody an opportunity to sellit on ebay for 1500 bucks yeah

(01:02:25):
because500?
because it is the same thing.
Our QC process is nuts.
One of the things that we dothat other companies don't are
all these custom options.
The reason that companies don'tdo these other options, all the
custom options, is because theyare a massive pain in the ass,
fortunately for us.
It's all we know.

(01:02:46):
We've always manufacturedputters with 15 different
options for everything sightline, shaft, lean, lie, locked, um,
different grips, differenteverything.
And so, um, there's, you know,with that many options, there's
a lot to screw up.
So, um, our qc.
So a single putter is going totouch anywhere from eight to 10

(01:03:07):
hands and there's effectively aQC checkpoint at each one of
those hands, and when the putteris absolutely complete, it then
goes through the QC gauntlet,which is a group of these days,
I think, probably close to 12,12 plus people whose only jobs
is to go through every singlespec on the putter, make sure

(01:03:29):
that we got all the optionssorted out, and then all the
regular stuff.
They hit it for sound, theyinspect it literally with a
magnifying glass to make sure wedon't have blemishes on there.
They check grips and we screwup, and there's no question.
But we stand by.
If we do screw up, we try tomake it right.
It's a hard job these folkshave.

(01:03:51):
Very recently, you guys knowabout this Facebook page, the
Lab Rats Facebook page.
That's not us, that's somebodyelse started that.
It's got about 30,000 membersand these are full-on Lab fans.
It is a blessing because of thereal-time feedback that we get.
It's incredible.
I mean, these guys literallylike when we have special
releases and they'll see aglitch in the website.

(01:04:12):
We know about it like that,because you know somebody's
monitoring that page.
It's really, really good.
The downside of it is is thatwhen we screw up, um, somebody
takes you, but no everybodyknows about it so you know we
had a, we had a couple ofcrooked grips grow out, and you
know.
And then the 30,000 members areall like.

Speaker 3 (01:04:31):
I don't know.
I think it's crooked Zoom inzoom in.

Speaker 2 (01:04:36):
We do the best we can .
You know, I'm sure that by theend of an eight-hour shift the
same person looking at the sametype of putter, you know, for
eight hours straight.
You know, I know it gets toughand we do our best to kind of
keep their experience varied sothat they don't get burnt out.
But we're very, very proud ofour QC process.
Yeah, people get tired.

Speaker 1 (01:04:56):
Here's a YouTube question from our friend Julian.
I used to figure players atClub Champion here in Vegas.
How did you get connected withNick Sherburn?

Speaker 2 (01:05:05):
Yeah, nick's the CEO at Club Champion and it's a
pretty distant story, honestly.
So when I first partnered withBill, I grew up in Chicago and
out here in Oregon there's not alot of golf courses.
It's actually one of the lowestrounds per state of any state in

(01:05:26):
the country Fourth, I think, in2023, and that includes Bandon.
So nobody really golfs out hereand we needed to open up some
accounts.
So I posted up at my folks'place for about a month and a
half, because there's so muchgolf in Chicago, there's a ton
of golf courses, a ton ofbusinesses, a ton of golf
activity and including clubchampions.

(01:05:47):
So I was opening up accountsand then our you know big sort
of end of the trip thing was wewere going to go, you know,
pitch Nick Sherbert on theputter, and this is 20, this is
very early summer 2018.
I met with Nick and you know itwent really well.
He liked the putter, the otherguys liked the putter and they

(01:06:08):
were going to bring it in.
Then he was like cool, justsend us the demos.
We're like what do you mean?
Send you the demos?
You're not going to buy thedemos.
No, you don't buy the demos,bro, I was like yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:06:26):
How many stores?

Speaker 2 (01:06:31):
Exactly, we literally couldn't afford to, you know,
to put them in there and a fewother op, you know, issues with
our operation and so, uh, um, Iwas pumped, you know, because I
thought, you know, when I leftthere I thought we had locked
down a deal and I was stoked andthen, when I let you know, a
weeks later, I found out itwasn't going to go through.
And I don't think we, I think itwas like gosh, two plus years

(01:06:56):
later that ultimately we were,we were in a position where we
could, you know, front the front, the demos, to all the stores,
and at that time we had multiplemodels.
So it was a big deal andthey're, you know, one of one of
our best customers, for sure.
And, um, you know, they're acool business.

(01:07:16):
They it's it's custom fittingbut accessible, you know.
And, um, it's definitely alittle bit expensive, but it's
less expensive than a lot of thereally hoity toity kind of of,
you know, upscale fitters andstuff and, um, yeah, it's been
good, okay, I got like I gotlike seven questions, okay, true

(01:07:38):
, okay, let's try and bang theseout.

Speaker 5 (01:07:40):
And then, um, uh, I did get a question from Miles,
which I think would be decent.
At the end we had somebodycomment that they were out at.
It's a buddy from Oregon inBend, the homie Josh.
He said he saw some juniorplayers playing lap golf putters

(01:08:04):
and somebody, before he evencommented, said well, you make a
junior model or is are.
Are those guys just playing cutcut down or you know how does
that work?

Speaker 2 (01:08:17):
yeah, we don't have like a junior specific thing.
I mean, as far as we'reconcerned, every putter is, and
if you enter the custom portal,every putter is a custom and
doesn't matter how short or tallyou are.
We can make it.
Um, okay, what we do do forjuniors sometimes, um, you know
how many listeners you generallyget I don't want to advertise
this a million a million, easily37.

(01:08:40):
We tell people that we tellpeople to to email the um, the
outlet store, and a lot of timeswe'll get blemished parts and
scratched shafts or scratchedheads.
Where you can get your kid aputter for less than the custom
price of a new lab, that's agood way to go.

Speaker 1 (01:09:01):
We do make them, and we swing, weight them
appropriately and we do all thestuff.
Steven Jackson's calling allthe outlet stores tomorrow.

Speaker 3 (01:09:11):
Just to comment on that, because I was actually
gonna ask juniors, because I gota junior and I will admit he
does want a lab putter.

Speaker 5 (01:09:19):
Yeah, I was gonna say this earlier too, because I'm
like, just because I like ablade putter doesn, it doesn't
mean my son has to like a bladeputter.

Speaker 3 (01:09:27):
You know what I?

Speaker 4 (01:09:28):
mean we make a blade putter.
Oh, I know I know, I know Iknow.

Speaker 5 (01:09:32):
I know about the blade, I know about the blade.

Speaker 3 (01:09:39):
So let's say, let's say he did get a lab putter and
as he grows taller and whateverhis, his fit's going to change,
do you adjust the putters, yousend them in and you refit like
every.
Okay, do you adjust the puttersyou?
Send them in and you refitAbsolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:09:48):
Okay, absolutely.
I mean it depends upon likewhich areas grow and stuff like
that, and also depending uponthe model.
Like a lot of times the kidsend up pretty flat.
You know they're short andtheir hands are low and you know
whatever, and so if the lieangle changes, it's a new putter
.
We do our best, manno-transcript.

Speaker 5 (01:10:35):
Are the influencers of the world getting the putters
before people that have alreadyordered them?
At least that's how people feelit's so funny.

Speaker 2 (01:10:45):
The influencers of the world get the putters before
you do, because they're theones selling our product for us.
Obviously we need them.
They're the people out theretelling the story.
We need to advertise theproduct.
We don't have big-timemarketing budgets like these
companies that sell drivers andgolf balls and all the other
stuff.
We sell putters and puttersonly and, despite what people

(01:11:07):
might think, given the price ofour putters, we actually don't
have a very big margin.
Our putters are incrediblyexpensive to make.
We do the best that we can tokeep the price down and so, yeah
, we got to get the word out and, to be clear, we're talking
about 25 putters.

(01:11:30):
We're talking about probably 25putters that you know go out a
bit in advance, and it's alsothey go out not just to get them
in their hands, for advertisingand for all that stuff.
Those guys are the ones givingus the feedback, like we do when
we're releasing a product, likewe test the whole system.
It's not just the putter, butlike the ordering process and

(01:11:51):
the way that it's subtractingfrom inventory and the whole
backend, everything like.
So there's, you know, tourplayers, influencers, vips,
board members, you know,investors all these people.
There's a giant group of, say,a little over a hundred that
generally kind of get the firstof each thing.
That helped to make it so thatwe can test the entire process,

(01:12:12):
test the entire putter beforeit's, you know, released to the
general public.
Lead times currently, I think,are about six weeks, one of the,
I mean, we fuck it up everyyear, man, we, we have our
budget meetings in October,november and and try to forecast
the best we can.
And every year I go in thereand I'm like guys, I'm telling

(01:12:34):
you it's going to be like this,and then I have to last few
years.
They believe me.
And then the last few yearsI've been wrong and it's just,
you know so many more than thanwe thought.
The, the retail stores, inparticular this year, um, are
what's hammering us.
They're, they're just going soquickly at at the retail

(01:12:55):
locations and and keeping upwith those guys is is really,
really hard.
Um, so for a minute there we um,we actually had a meeting about
this today.
For a minute there, we actuallyhad a meeting about this today.
For a minute.
We separated the lead times, sowe were doing this lead time
for direct-to-consumer peopleand this lead time for

(01:13:15):
wholesalers.
And then the wholesalers gotsuper pissed off that the D2C
folks were getting them pissed.
So you end up pissing everybodysomebody off, no matter what
you do.
So we're doing our best.
You know you end up pissingeverybody somebody off, no
matter what you do.
So we're doing our best.
Um, we are, uh, we, we hadforecast and designed, um a
production line to accommodateour forecast, which was off by

(01:13:35):
about a hundred percent.
Um, and so, uh, we're now, youknow, hiring into that and
training.
But like training on buildingour stuff is not a just hire
some club builder off the street, like it's a process, you know
it's.
It's fully three months beforeyou're actually capable of
properly balancing putters andyou got to go through the whole

(01:13:56):
you know process and everything.
So it takes a minute.
I'm absolutely confident.
By the time you know, summerrolls around, we're going to be
down to, you know, two to fourweeks, like we used to.

Speaker 5 (01:14:04):
Okay, hang on hang on , hang on, hang on always oh,
like I told you, always cuts meoff hey, we're gonna go back and
forth here.

Speaker 1 (01:14:12):
He says how much more technology or engineering does
lab have to explore, keeprefining existing models or
continue to look for new designs?
What does the future hold?
I think you talked a little bitabout that with.

Speaker 2 (01:14:21):
You know different materials, but if you wanted to
pinpoint anything on that, yeah,I think that you know, I used
to say for a long time, I usedto say lab was in its infancy.
I would definitely say it's inits adolescence now you know
it's an unruly teenager there'sabsolutely potential for what we

(01:14:46):
can do, from whether it'sadjustability, you know, at home
customizations that you canmake, is, you know, an area in
which I'd like to move into.
I'd love for them to be moremodular so that people can try
more things without having tobuy a whole new putter every
time they want to try a new faceor a new lean or a new, you
know lie or anything like that.
And you know, I one of theareas that I personally struggle

(01:15:13):
with, like sort of the progressand the advancement of what you
know is possible with our tech.
And I actually had a reallylong conversation, a couple long
conversations, with the guy whoI guess you know, mattid fritch
from goodwood.
Good, yeah, yeah and uh, youknow, like I don't know if my pr

(01:15:33):
teams would be mad at me forsaying this like I accept that
lab.
Might you know that ourspecific tour profile might not
be best for everyone.
Um, mostly what I see whenpeople are struggling with it.
Give me 10 minutes with themand they aren't going to
struggle with it anymore.
I think it's, you know,sometimes it's just hard to kind

(01:15:54):
of shake off.
You know, the, the, the, thetorque hangover yeah, old feels
and all the stuff, um, but Iknow a couple of good players
you know with for who have givenme the time and, you know,
tried all the stuff and itdidn't work for, and so I would
love to find a testing andfitting protocol that that would

(01:16:17):
accommodate the fluidity thatis people's relationships with
their putters.
You know, like that wouldaccommodate the reality that one
day we show up and it feelsthis way and the next the
fluidity that is people'srelationships with their putters
, you know, like that wouldaccommodate the reality that one
day we show up and it feelsthis way and the next day we
show up that way.

Speaker 1 (01:16:32):
What does that actually look like?
You know, mental heads, yeah.
What's that?
I said we're schizophrenic,mental psychotics, you know
yippy boys, yippy boys.

Speaker 2 (01:16:44):
Yeah, Like you know, like I'm not yippie, but I'm
fucking chaotic.
You know, like every day.
I, I have a you know experience, something new you know on the
green, and I want to see ifthere's something that can
accentuate that you know newexperience or, um, or avoid that
new experience if it wasn'tpleasant, and I would love it if
my putter could just do thatwithout having to go into the

(01:17:05):
build room to get a whole newputter.

Speaker 5 (01:17:08):
I mean, people don't change their batteries in their
putters, you know, and maybe weneed a battery powder powered
putter, you know, maybe that'llhelp who knows, change the
putter, the putter juice.
Who knows?

Speaker 3 (01:17:21):
Solar.

Speaker 5 (01:17:22):
Joe, it's solar.

Speaker 3 (01:17:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:17:24):
Throw a solar panel on top.

Speaker 2 (01:17:32):
What's the next question?
I would love the fucking postthat matt would make about us.

Speaker 5 (01:17:35):
You know putting out, oh fuck people would call him
an even older man.
He's like you are.
You're cooked, oh my lord uh, Ihave a.
I have a couple personalquestions after this one, but
people wanted to get a littlepersonal with you, so they asked
do you have any hobbies outsideof golf and do you play

(01:17:58):
different lies on your putters?

Speaker 2 (01:18:02):
those are all good questions.
Do I have any hobbies outsideof golf?
No, if I'm totally honest, Ireally don't.
I um, I have things that I liketo do.
Um, I love playing chess, uhand uh.
It's uh tough to um get inenough chess time.
I enjoy playing chess.
I've got a partner who is sheis just the coolest woman on

(01:18:31):
planet earth, and whenever I can, I just like hanging out with
her.
She's a shrink and brilliant,and so listening to her talk is
pretty much a pleasing hobby ofmine.
I got a couple of kids kids too, 17 and 15 so I spend spend

(01:18:52):
time with them when I can, butsometimes I wish I had another
hobby.
Um, but no, it's hard.

Speaker 5 (01:18:58):
It's hard when you're in golf, man.
It really is hard.

Speaker 2 (01:19:00):
It grabs you all golf , all the time and then what was
the other half?
of that question oh, yeah, yeah,so I my my you know, if I was
going to go play a you know atournament tomorrow, I'm
grabbing a 35 inch 67 degreeputter.
Um, we prototype um at 69generally.

(01:19:21):
Um, and you know, we, we justbuilt this beautiful fitting
studio.
I can't wait to show peoplepictures of it.
4 500 square foot putting greenindoors, um, and there's like a
bazillion.
You know virtually everycombination of length, lie,
shaft, weight and everythingthat you could think of, um, and
so, yeah, I'm in there all thetime and messing around with

(01:19:43):
anyone.
I can putt with anything I puttand like, statistically, I'm not
really that much better puttingwith my preferred spec than you
know with the other stuff.
I don't know that I've everplayed around with anything over
72.
But you know, I spend a lot oftime looking at people's strokes

(01:20:04):
and, like, one of my favoritethings to do in my job is to
mimic strokes and um, it helpsme learn.
And so when I, when I seesomebody, um being successful,
um, you know, even though mybody type might not be the same
and the you know relationshipwith my elbows, arms, shoulders,
all that kind of stuff might bea little different, I still do
my best to try and just getinside so I can understand, you

(01:20:25):
know, what somebody's puttingexperience is like, because it
helps me be a better fitter anda you know um and all that.
So, um, and it's frankly adetriment to my putting that I'm
always around with stuff youknow and um, you know,
especially in the winter, likewhen we're prototyping a lot and
there isn't real golf to beplayed, I'll end up like right

(01:20:46):
now, like right, this, thisperiod, you know, april is where
I'm like, fuck, how do I do itagain?
Like what's my actual strokeway.
I don't even remember anymore,so I'll spend most of may
reacquainting myself with how Iwant to putt.

Speaker 5 (01:20:59):
But yeah, for the most part, I try to keep my
gamers right around 67 68,depending upon the model and
some other factors yeah, um, myother personal question is is
since you are such a golf nerd,golf freak, golf lover, um, what

(01:21:20):
are some of your favoritebrands outside of the major
manufacturers, or brands thatpeople can find in a store, like
mine, like I love cousin clubs,I love, you know, olsen, like
are there any up-and-comingbrands that you love and you see
that they are doing someawesome stuff that people don't

(01:21:43):
know about?

Speaker 3 (01:21:45):
um, yeah, uh, awesome stuff that people don't know
about.

Speaker 2 (01:21:50):
Um, yeah, uh, um.
I've had a few conversationswith recently who I really like,
um, and he actually recently ummade a Torclas way.
He calls it Torclas.
Um, uh, skylar, I think, iswhat it's called.
Um, uh, it's Jamie Coghlan.
Yeah, and I mean the dude makesbeautiful stuff and it's really

(01:22:13):
interesting stuff, and Iactually recently just got a set
of irons from him specificallyfor Bandon.
I have always had it in my headthat I would play better at
Bandon with eight clubs, and soI had him make me kind of a half
set where the irons areseparated.
The ghost he was very sensitiveto the fact that I'm a lab guy.
He's like do you?

(01:22:33):
Mind if I put a tiny littleghost in the corner.

Speaker 1 (01:22:38):
I'm like yeah go nuts dude.

Speaker 2 (01:22:41):
Yeah, his irons are beautiful.
I think they're Kioi heads, buthe puts his own kind of spin on
them and rides them aparticular way.
So they're all separated by sixdegrees, and those are great.
Who else do I love?
You know, I wasn't really abusinessman before all this

(01:23:02):
happened and now that I'm kindof more business minded, um, I
appreciate some of the, the, thebusiness brands.
Uh, like, there's a dudeactually in your neck of the
woods, I think he's in vegas,who's fucking brilliant and he's
buying up, um the naming rightsto like every nostalgic brand

(01:23:23):
from the 90s, so I think he ownsZebra, snake Eyes, mcgregor yes
.

Speaker 1 (01:23:29):
They're in Henderson.

Speaker 2 (01:23:33):
It's good stuff.
He sent me a set of thoseMcGregor Eyer's.
They're freaking great.

Speaker 1 (01:23:38):
They look, fantastic, they look fantastic.

Speaker 2 (01:23:40):
They feel really good .
I was very impressed.
I liked his stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:23:49):
So glad you didn't say Matt Plummer.
What's that I said?
I'm so glad you didn't say ourfriend Matt Plummer.
That's a brilliant guy in Vegasis doing something amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:23:59):
And then there's I really appreciate technology.
There's a guy in michigan uh,named bruce sizemore and bruce
is worth googling.
I mean he uh effectivelyinvented super stroke and uh,
any number of other patents outthere that, um, he's got his
name on and he's got a set ofirons.
That, um, bruce, if you'relistening, I'm, you're welcome

(01:24:26):
and I'm sorry, all at the sametime.
They are 50 fuckingmind-blowing like.
They're so brilliant in the waythat they were designed and
solved for so many issues, um,with irons.
And then they're also 50completely underdeveloped and
not horribly playable, but themod one irons that more golf
makes are are just brilliant.

(01:24:48):
And the way that he puts thosetogether, um, you mentioned jp
earlier um, I mean, that's somereally cool stuff.
I uh brilliant guy he's.
He's brilliant and I'm bummed tohear that you know, jp I think
is no longer a thing.
Um he, uh, I think is workingfor somebody else now.

(01:25:09):
The JP brand, I think is stillowned by somebody in Korea, but
those wedges were absolutelygorgeous.
I personally had some issuesusing his technology with the,
you know, uber leading edgebounce for the lob wedge but for
everything else for full swingsbest ball flight I've ever seen
out of a wedge.

(01:25:30):
There's another guy, terryKaler, who he's the fellow who
brought Ben Hogan kind of backfrom the dead.

Speaker 1 (01:25:43):
Yeah, edison, but before that it was.

Speaker 2 (01:25:46):
Score.
Yeah, score, wed.
But before that it was uh, Ihave some score, score, score,
wedges.
Everything was law.

Speaker 1 (01:25:50):
Yeah, exactly, he did score and um he had a great
blog for a long time too.
He's an incredible writer, dude.

Speaker 2 (01:25:57):
He is a really, really, really wise, wise man.
Um, he's super smart.
We, um.
We've had a lot of greatconversations.
I like Terry a lot, but, yeah,edison Wedges is his brand now
and they're absolutely worthchecking out.
I think a lot of the majormanufacturers caught on to what
he was doing and they're tryingto mimic it, but haven't done so

(01:26:18):
as well.
But he's legitimately developeda wedge that launches lower,
spins more and lands at a morevertical landing angle, which is
kind of the holy grail of whatyou're looking for.
Those score wedges are good.
Score wedges are great.
You know, I think there's somany products out there that,
like you know, I'm not aninventor, I'm not a.
You know, I'm good at productdevelopment.

(01:26:40):
I'm good at helping to developproducts that you know are
ultimately going to be palatableby the general consumer.
But you know, there's a lot ofgreat, great products out there
that never made it to themainstream just because they
weren't marketed properly.

Speaker 5 (01:26:56):
I mean, I'm a somewhat newer golfer and I love
to see the rebranding of olderbrands.
Like you mentioned, mcgregorand and power built is doing
some of the dopest irons I'veseen.
I mean, those things are clean,you know what I mean like sick
so and I, I do like I have apersimmon and I I play it when

(01:27:20):
it's not tournament time, butyou know, it's just, it's it's
good to be a golf nerd.

Speaker 1 (01:27:25):
Joe is our resident soul golfer.
He doesn't play for score, heplays for the moments.
Love it but he also refuses totake a 60 degree out of the bag
when he plays badminton.
When they go low, we go high.

Speaker 5 (01:27:42):
When they go low, we go high.

Speaker 2 (01:27:51):
That's me.
I gotta call out my new buddy,uh that I mentioned before,
david from from goodwood.
He made, uh he made a malletshape, that um, kind of in that
low torque category.
That I thought was reallyreally cool looking.

Speaker 1 (01:28:04):
Yeah, all right, somebody asked uh, let's see
where's that.
Uh, what percent of the mastersfield are gaming labs?

Speaker 2 (01:28:14):
uh, I don't know how many people are in the masters
um, but somebody actually askedme um just a moment ago.
I believe we've got LucasGlover, ben Onn, jj Spahn,
michael Kim, adam Scott, charlesSchwartzel, will Zalatouris and

(01:28:37):
Johnny Vegas, and maybe MikeWeir I know Mike Weir was using
him.

Speaker 1 (01:28:45):
He's a contender this year.

Speaker 2 (01:28:46):
Mark my words.

Speaker 1 (01:28:47):
Yeah, no, no, no.

Speaker 2 (01:28:52):
He's really old and wasn't long to begin with.

Speaker 1 (01:28:53):
Yeah, bernard said the same thing.
It's why his last Masters isthis one.
He said I just can't play at7,600 yards anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:29:01):
It's ridiculous.
But no, mike's a brilliant dude, he's a really really great guy
and he's a really really greatguy and he's been on and off
with our stuff for a few yearsnow.
So so that's the roster.
I don't know what percentagethat is, but, um, but we've got
a few.
I was.
I was bummed that phil's notusing it right now.
Um, I was really hoping, uh, itmight make it into the bag

(01:29:22):
because he's um, rest of hisgame is really rounding into
shape.
He's actually been playing somekick-ass golf.
I think he's actually going tobe a relevant contender this
year, but he has been absolutelyfilling it up with that old
8802 of his or whatever,whatever it's called.

Speaker 1 (01:29:43):
That, that.

Speaker 2 (01:29:43):
Thing that company with that funny squirrel he's
got.

Speaker 1 (01:29:49):
So the hosel on that thing looks like it's been ran
over by a semi-truck.

Speaker 2 (01:29:53):
It's hilarious dude, he's so awesome, he is the
coolest guy.
I mean I, I we're working withhim, like most of the time I'm
I'm, you know, I'm so in theweeds on just the, the realities
of running a business that.
I'm not complaining, but likeit's not fun stuff, you know, I
mean it's, it's hard.

(01:30:14):
You know, just 200 employeesand outward facing stuff, inward
facing stuff.
It's a bit of a grind andsometimes I forget to stop and
take a look around and see howcool all this shit is.
And sometimes I forget to stopand take a look around and see
how cool all this shit is.
And anytime Phil calls or textsor anything, it's very easy to
remember how amazing this is,because if you'd have told me,
you know, seven years ago, I'dhave Phil Mickelson's you know

(01:30:36):
cell phone and him texting merandomly about stupid stuff
right now or whatever, it's thecoolest and he's the coolest and
he's um.
He has the highest golf iq ofany person on the planet, period
, and he it's not, it's not hype, it's not talk like the dude,

(01:30:56):
just sees and knows that nobodyon the planet sees or knows that
one video of him talking withwith bones, about the grass.

Speaker 1 (01:31:04):
It's wet, it's at this angle.
The sun's over here.
That was a parody yeah and, andand like

Speaker 2 (01:31:10):
so so so I was out, um, I was in san diego and um,
uh, we were supposed to play buthe got tied up with something.
So I went out with a couple ofhis buddies and then he came out
.
Um, we were at the farms and,um, and he came out, you know,
just drove out there just tohang out for a little while and
say hi, and I'm like I have likea I don't know 85 yard wedge,

(01:31:32):
shot over some water to a, um, apin that had a little slope
over here and then a fall offover here or whatever.
And he did, he did that, he didthe ferrity thing like he just
went through it and he's likewell, here's what you can do
with this shot.
You know, followed athree-minute soliloquy on the
options here.
I'm like, bro, I'm hoping Idon't fucking lay the sod over
this thing and hit it in thewater.

(01:31:53):
Sure enough, I laid the sodover it and hit it in the water
after he told me the otheroptions that did not end up
hitting it in the water.
He's as nice as yeah, just agreat dude that's a great
comeback you have.

Speaker 1 (01:32:09):
Now.
If you get into one of theseyou know little uh social media
spats, you can just go.
Do you have phil mickelson'sphone number in your shit?

Speaker 5 (01:32:18):
shut the fuck up.

Speaker 2 (01:32:19):
Yeah, you could have told matt that he would have
shut the fuck up right thereyeah, I have there's been,
there's been times where, likeI've, I've absolutely wanted to
leverage, you know, some of therelationships with some of the
tour guys, where I've just likebeen like this close to texting
adam, being like, can youfucking text this motherfucker?
And just yeah, you don't knowwho you're talking to that's so

(01:32:46):
funny, awesome I had.

Speaker 1 (01:32:48):
I could completely off story, but I I used to work
at a car dealership and, uh,floyd mayweather came in to pick
up his girlfriend and it was.
It was like four months out ofthe pacquiao fight, the first
pacquiao fight, and a goodfriend of mine, huge pacquiao
fan, and I'm vegas big floydmayweather fan, and so I I went
out.
He's standing out there and Igo out.
I go hey, my buddy's a hugepacquiao fan.

(01:33:11):
If I call him right now, willyou talk shit?
He's like, get him on the phoneand I was like yes, and he
didn't answer.

Speaker 2 (01:33:17):
He didn't answer his phone, so I was like ah, so the
the only, the only story this is.
I love this story so much,that's, that's kind of similar.
So, um, there's a guy in myclub named wes st claire and wes
um is such a special dude, he'sa trucker.
Um, I think he's three or fourtime club champion at emerald

(01:33:40):
valley and you know, you guyshave played the course.
It's a strong golf course andin addition to being a strong
golf course, it has the mostrandom, you know, like deep
membership.
As far as skill is concerned, Imean, we got the Oregon Ducks
play out there.
At any moment you can pick up ascratch game with you know a
dozen guys.
There's really really goodplayers.

(01:34:02):
And Wes has a super fucked upgolf swing and the weirdest
short game and the strangetechnique and this putting
stroke where, like it's, theycall it the reverse cigar.
So it's like, uh, so, uh, youknow, trail hand on top and then
lead hand on the bottom.

(01:34:22):
I do this, uh, like that, andthat's how he putts.
Oh and, and the stroke is likeit's not graceful, I mean it's,
it's yippy as fuck and um, andthe dude makes a lot of putts
and he chips it close and doesall the things.
So he'd been asking me for along time will you make me a
maximum upright putter, you know, for a conventional length?

(01:34:44):
I'm like you're gonna fuckinghate it.
Like we can make him.
We can make you a 74, 75, we'llmake it.
But I promise you're you're notgonna like a full max.
You know upright putter andgive him the 74, he doesn't
quite like it.
And give him 76 he doesn'tquite like it, back to some
other putter he was using, andon and on.
Then one day I show up on asaturday um just looking game.

(01:35:04):
The putting green in EmeraldValley is pretty big.
I'm on one end of it and he'sall the way on the other end.
There's like 20 people on thegreen.
He's like, hey, sam, youlooking for a game.
I'm like, yeah, he's like I'mgoing to show you why you're a
shitty fitter.
I'm like, okay, he had goneback and asked one of the other

(01:35:30):
guys, if he you know, to makehim a max upright df 2.1.
So he had a 79.
So 30, 33 and a half inch, 79.5degree df 2.1.
It's like goofy ass.
You know cigar grip and thedude went around in 18 putts.
I've never seen it before.
I'm sure I've never evenactually heard of it.
He chipped in once, um, and hetwo putted once, and the two

(01:35:50):
putt was from easily 50 feet andhe caught a piece of the hole.
It was the most ridiculousround of putting I've ever seen
in my entire life by far.
And um, and then later thatevening, um, I was texting, uh,
I was texting with brad faxonabout something else, and um,
and I said you know I texted fax.

(01:36:11):
I'm just like, by the way, Iplayed with a dude that you know
I had 18 putts today.
You ever had 18 putts.
He's like, I've had 19 a fewtimes, but never 18.
What's his name?
You know nobody you'd everheard of and he's like what's
his name?
Shoot me his number.
I'm like his name is west stcla.
Here's his number.
So Brad puts us on a groupthread text Wes.
And Wes is, you know, just thiscurmudgeonly old fuck Like he's

(01:36:31):
just a bitter, you know, justsquatty little trucker guy
that's always just talking shit.
It's like you know, hi, Wes, myname's Brad Faxon, generally
pretty, you know, regarded as apretty good putter over my
career.
You know, I've never, uh, I'venever had 18 putts before.
I heard you had 18 putts today.

(01:36:52):
Congratulations, and uh, he'slike well, I missed a lot of
greens, thanks so he's like thegreatest putter in the history
of the world did he have anyidea?

Speaker 5 (01:37:08):
did he have any idea at all?
100 he just doesn't give a shitlike, he's just like wow, wow
he's the greatest dude.

Speaker 2 (01:37:18):
I've learned so much from wes, and I mean the dude's.
I think he's 65 at this point.
He kicks my ass half the timefrom the same tees and I'm out.
You know he's 65 at this point.
He kicks my ass half the timefrom the same teas and I'm out.
You know she's giving me 50yards off the tee and he still
mops the floor with me.
He's a player, yeah, shout outit was fucking a all right,
we're.

Speaker 1 (01:37:38):
We're like an hour 40 .
So, uh, people are alreadycommenting like hey, can we do
the giveaway?

Speaker 2 (01:37:42):
please Suckers you have to listen to all this
garbage.
Yeah, we're going to make youwait.

Speaker 5 (01:37:50):
Learn something today .
Learn something today Getyourself educated.

Speaker 1 (01:37:55):
So Sam has been gracious enough to offer up a
lab putter of your choice.

Speaker 2 (01:38:02):
Oh wait, what I thought you were buying it.

Speaker 1 (01:38:04):
Right, yeah, yeah, no , no it'll get to you.

Speaker 5 (01:38:08):
Somehow.

Speaker 1 (01:38:10):
We'll figure it out when jordan spears jordan spears
roll in a lab.
Jeremy will buy it and thenwe'll send you to you.
Sam's gonna do the virtualfitting for you.
Um so, sam, uh, to make sureeverybody knows that this isn't
rigged, we asked somebody,somebody to say how many times
they would like me to shufflethis.
So if you could give me anumber, and I will shuffle these

(01:38:31):
up that many times Me, give youa number.
Yep, give me a number between 1and 10.

Speaker 2 (01:38:37):
Usually 13 is my go-to, but let's go with 7.

Speaker 1 (01:38:40):
7, okay, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
Seven, all right, here we go.
Uh, we're gonna spin threetimes.
The first one is the winner.
As long as they meet all therequirements, they will be
chosen.
If they don't, then we'll go totwo and blah blah.
So here we go.
This is so exciting, soexciting did I win luke fuck at

(01:39:13):
luke underscore t-o-n-g-o-c-o.
All right, that is first, solet me remove that name and then
then this real quick, we'll dotwo more, just to like I said
just in case it's happened.

Speaker 2 (01:39:28):
It's happened.
What are the requirements?

Speaker 1 (01:39:32):
They had to follow the podcast.
How to follow you and leave acomment?
Got it.

Speaker 2 (01:39:38):
S-H-A-U-N-I-N-N-E-S.
John Innes 94.
Was he born in 94?

Speaker 5 (01:39:49):
Or did he graduate in 94?
That's what I want.
Yeah, those are the two things.

Speaker 1 (01:39:52):
Yeah, it's I graduated in 91 and julian's
handle is 1990 for for our blogand stuff, and I'm like, dude,
that's when you were born, huh.
He's like, yeah, oh, mygoodness, all right, that's
that's if the first person doesnot fulfill.
And then, lastly, we haveSteven Jackson.

(01:40:14):
Steven Jackson.
Tyler DeMews.
So thank you everybody for that.

Speaker 2 (01:40:24):
Thank you, sam, for doing that that yeah it is truly
my pleasure, awesome,absolutely my pleasure guys I'm
gonna bring up on here as Imentioned when I uh before we
actually started the broadcast,it's been a pretty fucking rough
couple of days, with uh tariffmadness and everything else that

(01:40:45):
has ensued since A littlestressful.

Speaker 1 (01:40:49):
Yeah, how's that going to affect you?

Speaker 2 (01:40:51):
guys, less so than virtually every other
manufacturer out there, becausewe're already, you know, major
components in the United States,but it's still just affecting
just a chain reaction ofeverything.
It's just a chain reaction ofeverything.
It's just a mess.
And but anyway, I was going tosay I was in a pretty sour mood
when I showed up tonight and acouple of glasses of wine and

(01:41:14):
some lovely conversation andkind gents like yourself, I'm in
a much better mood.
So thank you guys so much forhaving me on.

Speaker 1 (01:41:22):
I love hearing that I really appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (01:41:24):
Thanks for being a good supporter about the video.

Speaker 1 (01:41:30):
I've told these guys it blew me away that you reached
out, wasn't expecting it andI'm so glad that we got to have
those talks and that I know alittle bit more about you guys,
you know a little bit more aboutme, you know about us, had you
on the show.
You know, not everything is isbad.
Not everything is bad, eventhough I wrote down some of the

(01:41:53):
comments I was going to ask youabout, but I don't even know if
I want to get into them becauseyou're going to do it.

Speaker 2 (01:41:56):
Yeah, do it, do it, let's do it.

Speaker 1 (01:41:57):
Okay, well, he's an angry old man.
Like the the biggest, and thisis why I made that t-shirt like
the most common comment is justsay you can't afford one and
move on.

Speaker 3 (01:42:13):
It's like yeah, you know this is what I.

Speaker 1 (01:42:14):
This is what I don't understand.
Okay, so the the putter thatI'm using in the video, along
with the shaft combination, isnot a cheap putter and I'm
putting on my entire backyard.
That is a custom putting green.
That's not, you know, a $25roll at Lowe's.

Speaker 3 (01:42:32):
I can afford a lab putter, you fucks Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 (01:42:37):
And then then one guy said bro, opens and closes the
putter face.
Please let people know thateven with a lab putter, your
face is going to open and close.

Speaker 2 (01:42:50):
Nope, Stay square to the arc perfectly the whole time
.
It's like a gyroscope man.
It's like a fuckingheat-seeking missile With any
putter you know, I appreciate alot of the blatantly blind

(01:43:12):
support that uh people give usman, and then this.

Speaker 1 (01:43:15):
This last one was kind of along the same regards.
Uh, he goes, look your faceopens up on the backswing.

Speaker 4 (01:43:21):
The lab stays in the same position stays in the same
position, if you let it, if youlet it.

Speaker 2 (01:43:29):
That's the thing, Whereas your putter, if you let
it do its own thing it will actlike a drunken snake, like you
imitated in that video.
But if you let the lab do itsthing, yes, in my opinion, the
best chance of returning theputter face to square impact
than you do with any kind ofjail or Callaway nonsense.

Speaker 1 (01:43:58):
Sam, thank you so much for coming on the show.
We're looking forward to thenext time we're up in the PNW so
we can stop by and check outthe facility.
I get these fools on EmeraldValley so they can finally
understand what an amazing golfcourse it is.
And yeah, much success to youguys.
Congrats on all your successand we can't wait to see what

(01:44:19):
comes next from you.

Speaker 2 (01:44:20):
Thanks so much for having me and thanks for having
an open mind for having theconversation.
And just a out to everybodywho's was on that thread and is
listening to this podcast.
Folks, the internet, like wegot to learn how to behave
ourselves here.
It gets out of hand so quicklylike look at this conversation,
look at how lovely this was.
We are the same people that ata glance on a internet thread,

(01:44:43):
you would have thought that wewere sworn enemies.
But let's's try to remember.
It's just golf.
It's just golf.

Speaker 5 (01:44:49):
Greatest game ever.

Speaker 2 (01:44:52):
I need to remind myself the same thing.
It's just golf.

Speaker 1 (01:44:55):
It's just golf.
All right, Joe, wrap it up andlet's get out of here.

Speaker 5 (01:44:58):
Hey, shout out to everybody that tuned in this
evening Chase and Dale atPodcast.
We're here every singleTuesdayuesday night at 8 30 pm,
pacific standard time.
Live on youtube and instagram.
Shout out, sam.
I have so much more love forlab and sam as an individual.
Uh, hopefully we get to get outand play some golf one day.
Um, that was awesome, man.

(01:45:18):
That was awesome.
We are golf lovers and wecontinue to love golf and you
should too, and play what worksfor you and we'll see you on the
greens.
Keep hitting them Later, thankyou.

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