Hey, this is Ben Bert from Exeter, New Hampshire, and I play at Apple Hill golf Course.
This is Golf Smarter, episode nine hundred and fifty eight.
Everything's conceptualized and then this machine poops it out and we turned it into a putter. That's pretty sweet. The rest of this stuff is all actual production manufacturing. These machines right here are like eighty bitty tiny little versions of that. This is actually a five actiacy. And see, these little guys enabled us to go from when you first met Bill to actually being able to produce these
somewhat consistently. So I mean, you remember you were there in the early days, right when you get putters, and now they all kind of felt a little different, you know, even though they were supposed to basically be the same. And this one's heavy and this one's light whatever. Because where we located a hole, if you miss it by ten thousands of an inch, the putter's going to be twenty or thirty grams later or heavier, depending upon what
we need in order to get a balance. And we found these things and enabled us to drill holes precise enough to actually start making them consistently and fast. So that was a very very big deal for us.
Lab Golf DF three broomstick putter tutorial and factory tour with CEO Samhn.
This is golf Smarter sharing stories, tips and insights from great golf minds to help you lower your score and raise your golf IQ.
Here's your host, Fred Green.
Well, let me make a quick setup for today's episode. What you're about to hear is the audio from two new videos that also live on our YouTube channel at golf Smarter. The first part of the episode, which is a standalone video, is Samhan, CEO of Lab Golf, the hottest putter company on the planet, giving me a tutorial on how to take full advantage of my new Lab
Golf DF three broomstick putter. Then we'll get into our second video, which is Sam giving us the full tour of the Lab Golf factory, which is in Creswell, Oregon, just south of Eugene. Joining us on the tour and on microphone is a fourteen year old competitive junior golfer who's been using a Lab putter for years, named zeb Perez. You'll learn a lot in this show, but what blew me away is when we first met Sam back in twenty twenty, he had about eighteen employees.
And now one hundred and fifty. Company is hot again. There are now two videos on YouTube that show you this entire episode. So let's get started with Sam teaching me how to use my new putter.
I'm here with Sam Han, CEO of Lab Golf, and we are on the practice putting green today because I am now starting to use a DF three broomstick putter and I have no idea how to do it. Although it's a good idea for me to do this because one thing I have noticed in my putting, and it's improved vastly since I use the Lab Golf putter. My left hand gets in the way. If I'm pulling, i'm pushing, it's always my left hand.
Oh interesting, does the bad work?
So I thought, okay, if I can just eliminate my left hand and the broomstick would help that.
And so you're absolutely spot on and an apropos of that. I mean, I tell people my favorite thing about brooms is that it is it is a closer relationship to virtually every other kind of precise action that we do. You would never use your left hand to write if
you're if you're right handed. You know, you're never going to throw a dart with two hands, and a lot of these actions that we try, particularly in golf, where you do need to you know, both hands to you know, we have this illusion of needing both hands to steady the instrument. They're in conflict a lot of times. They think they work differently, they think differently. So broomsticking is beautiful because yes, your left hand is there to support,
you know, the top of the club. But other than that, this is this is ball rolling, right, you know, this is just rolling hand. Well, you can you can sign tattle this way, right, but you can't do it this way. Okay, you can't do it correct. Croquet, they were a little worried about Sam Sneed winning a couple couple of masters is into his fifty, so they outlawed that.
So let me ask you this, does it make you nervous at all that they're going to start winning on the professional tours and they're gonna go, yeah, you know what.
We can't do that.
I mean, it doesn't make me nervous. I mean, broomstick, we we probably sell more broomsticks than just about anybody else, but it's still not like this enormous.
Part of our your science behind it.
I wouldn't know how they I don't know what rule they could write. I mean, and we thought about it, you know, I mean like it would just be, yeah, it would be it would be an interesting rule. So no, I don't I don't have any concern about that because it's still putting, man. I mean, you still got to read the putt, you still got to pick a line, you still got to do all the stuff.
So we have a tea time coming up, so let's get a tutorial here. So as soon as I got this, I went out.
I have a practice putting green.
But I went to the local course and I went on the practice putting green there, trying different things, recognizing different things about my stroke, where my hands go, lef my hands go.
I don't know.
So I was just hoping, yeah, should absolutely So.
The kind of the good starting place, in my opinion, is kind of seeing the spectrum between what I what I consider to be the two you know, kind of opposite ends of it. Bernhard Langer one end, Adam Scott at the other. So these guys are both prolific, you know putters with their broomstick putters. Bernhard is about five foot eight uses a forty seven inch putter sometimes forty eight inch putter. Stands virtually straight up. This arm is pretty close to his body. The forearm can't touch the
ribs right, that's part of the anchoring. So he's close, but not that close. And then his whole stroke is driven just by the right arm. And yeah, his shoulders will move, but he's not moving them, if that makes sense.
They're along for the ride. On the other side of the spectrum, you've got Adam who's you know, bent over quite a bit, really framed up, elbow out to the target, and he's using his back and his core to move the putter and so and then you know, I'm kind of somewhere right in between personally, and so messing around
with both sides of that equation is important. Given what you said about your left hand kind of causing you some problems, I kind of like the idea of going a little bit more sort of the Burnhard Langer, and so what we're gonna want to do. First thing with the left hand. You can put your thumb on top. Most people do. Some people do it like this one of our cgo Ryan, who you met, you know, he
does it like this. However, what's really important is that these three fingers stay pretty relaxed, the bottom ones, so we really it's like this, okay, because we don't want to have to move. We don't want the wrist and forum and all that to have to move with it. We want kind of just a single access point here. So it's nice and light with nice and light with the three fingers exactly exactly. And then generally the top of the grip should be at the sternum or slightly
towards the target if anything. Okay, yep, ball position is going to be forward because of the onset head there.
And I'm used to the forward press since I've been using your putters for four sures now, but this isn't relevant, yeah.
Correct, okay. And and then the next thing you got to figure out is that is that left hand. Let's make sure, Yeah, like I said, let's make sure we get this hand either on that plaque or this side of it. We don't want it back okay here, yeah, exactly. So you can screwt your ball forward too, will probably help you get there, okay.
And I was finding them when I was practicing that they unlike what I was doing with my regular sized DF three that the ball was just inside my foot.
Yeah you get I mean as far forward as your company Okay, yep, yeah, that looks pretty good there. Let's get that. Yep, there you go, get that uh hand forward as if your MIC's in the way, we should probably move it so you can put properly here for you, probably because it looks like you have some tendency to get it too far back. So yeah, let's feel like
it's on the low. Go your shirt almost, okay, and then and then the next piece is the right hand, and it's and it's there's there's no rules here, there's no curriculum around any of this stuff.
And so I found if I just let it hang and just kind of hold it from there, yep. And then of course, don't sold the putter, just have it off the ground a quarter inch, because when I sold it, I felt a drag and then it turns.
So the reason that was happening is because of that top hand, which again is creeping all the way back behind the other side. So because if you think about it, you're leading the shaft back. The putter wants to go down into the ground. The putter's forward, it's going to come off the ground. So yeah, that's that's going to be key for you. And we might want to get you a little shorter one. I think that's going to make it easier. So this one's a little shorter, we can figure that out.
Yeah, Well, interesting is you get that?
When I look the video online about about fitting for the broomstick, you were like, it's not a who lot.
You don't send us a video.
No, you're just trying to pick a comfortable length. So then so if you're if if your hand is hanging, you know, kind of how you're saying, and then you just put it on, I might encourage you to try this, Yeah, exactly. Yeah, And that way the palm is kind of in line with the face there, and now all you're gonna do is just gonna push your palm at the hole. How there you go?
Yeah, And the first thing I noticed is the weight difference.
Yeah, they're significantly heavier and so significantly Yeah, so at first people tend to sort of because of the weight, they end up kind of falling inside, you know, the weight of it just falls this way. So at first I tell people to kind of almost feel like the putter moves outside and shut like, you know, feel like you're kind of doing that at first, and you won't be, but that's kind of the that's kind of the early feel.
I need to do is get my left hand a little farther.
Forward, Yes, much further forward, much further forward. Yep, yeah for you. I mean I see, because I could have just been seeing New Year all the way over here. I think that that was a product this putter just being a little long for you. There you go, that's much better good.
Bought uh Mes one for a friend for his birthday a couple of years ago. He absolutely loves it and changed his game dramatically. But I'm really partial to the DF three.
Oh it's a great putter.
It's a great It feels so much different than the two point one.
Oh yeah.
So it was immediate and I know how you feel. But as one guy on YouTube, an Englishman, I need to call it.
A gimme grabber. Yeah, it's like I'm.
In this is it's pretty nice.
Cool, it's so cool all right up left here and so this is a little.
Shorter, really good, and so you know, and I would experiment more with the right hand. I'd also experiment with how far down here you know you're putting it. Some people want to really stretched out, some people like a little bit more leverage in there. And then also kind of where the hand goes so the you know, again just going to the way that you know, I've seen other people do it really get stroke there. It's just dart and right right at the bottom there, So I like,
I don't take it personally. I mean, they're starting with your point and that's the only that's the only thing we're in charge of, right And.
That's the greatest thing about the lab golf putters is all you need to do is focus on your distance once you get your line set up exactly.
So I do it like this, so I'm kind of pinching underneath. This is how Adam does it as well. And then there's some guys who will kind of go straight on this way, so their hands kind of almost at about a forty five degree angle, and then some guys are straight on top this way. Ultimately, all we're trying to do is figure out whatever is the most natural way for you to keep the putter on plane, Okay, And for me, I know that if I start doing this number putter starts going that.
Way, I've noticed, and then even pushing out when I.
Make contact correct, and so a lot of that, you know, elbow position and shoulders, arms, and you just have to experiment to figure out what's best for you. Ultimately, even though this is almost like a little uncomfortable for me, I have to fight to kind of keep that elbow in there and do it that way. That's the way that for me, I'm able to take the putter straight back and pull it off to the left just like I did there.
But you get the idea, Okay, but you're saying the one that I have is probably too long for me.
I think so, yeah, oh boy, get that left hand yeah good, yeah, good, Get that ball position just a little bit more forward to a little more forward, just a.
Little bit.
In my stands.
Yeah, that will help with the top hand position as well, getting it, you know, closer to there you go. That looks great, Fred, of course that one forgot to break. That was a great putt. That's a great stroke.
Thank you.
Really good point.
Also, the distance control when I was practicing with it, yeah, sure it took a couple but it didn't matter because the line was so true. And if it stopped three inches short, oh that's frustrating, but it was three inches longer.
It's in the hole.
I mean, I've actually what's funny is like there's you know, because it was only yippers generally that were switching to brooms. You know, they were really heavy and there wasn't that many people that actually tried them or use them, so there wasn't any real curriculum about them, and there wasn't any actual data as to what is good and bad about it, and the stigma would be it's bad for
lag putting, they're bad for short nuanced puts. My experience and watching people go into them is the exact opposite. Their speed is the first thing to improve. And that's because now this method is a like we were talking about before, a one handed motion where were you like you don't have to you wouldn't have to think about how hard to toss this ball to get it to go near the hole.
And how many.
Times have I not only shared it because what I've learned on the podcast, but do it myself.
But I'm chipping standing there going what does that feel like?
And and you need to bring to the shot correct and and and with a broomstick it mirrors that more uh more than with a conventional putter. So yeah, speed is not a thing, and the weight of the head controls it for you, and it's nice and easy. Well, you gotta get used to the slick Emerald Valley greens. They're nasty, Tim Tucker.
I usually walk my putts out yea to measure, so it's like, okay, yeah, I know it's all feel but.
You can play in under five hours?
Yes I can, but I can't. I need to know what my distances. I walk it off in.
Someone else's puttings. That wasn't nice.
There you go, good speed there? All right? Are you ready to dominate it? Thank you.
I really appreciated tutorial and the time and the tour.
It's been awesome. Let's go play a team, Let's go play some golf. Cool, let's do this then, all right? So yeah, this is all admin stuff over here in this bay, so you still have more room to grow. So actually, as a very recently, we just as signed the least for the whole building. So I'm taking in there and starting like a giant ballroom. We're gonna be able to turn into a big putting studio. See if it's open right now. So, oh you're kidding, No, I
mean how cool it is. This whole whole thing is going to be able to be you know, retail giant putting green, all the fitting equipment, all the everything, state of the art and totally. Yeah, absolutely finally, like we used to have. We used to have an all hands meeting of morning I'm sorry, every week and uh, you know, Monday morning when we first moved to Eugene, there was twelve employees at our at our first spot in a
different neighborhood in Eugene. Monday morning, we all stand up and tell everybody what's going on or whatever, and then then there was thirty and it was a little tedious. So it was every couple of weeks and we'd all jam into a hallway and you know whatever, and then
you know, the massive explosion and employments. You know, over the last six months we were doing it all hands, and we used to just do it in that hallway and it got to a point where I couldn't see ayody like like, so it's so now we need this whole room for currently for all of our all hands meetings.
So this ladder is actually for you to stand on to see everybody.
I stand at the podium, they give me a microphone. Now, oh my god, I never use.
It, but yeah, I can't imagine you would.
But yes, wait, is this your new secret weapon, Potter that you're designing.
This is Gavin Handles, Uh basically, Uh, Handle's maintenance for the whole Green Fred and Z who's been using since he was. Gavin and I've actually known each other for close to fifteen years twelve thirteen, fifteen years. Now I have another business hand a bar in Eugene that's like a pinball arcade and was that you still have it? I do? Unfortunately you want.
To buy it looking for that market.
And Gavin, in addition to being probably the best pinball player you've ever met in your life, also used to work on him. So he and I uh opened that place up together. Wow. Taking away from that, Yeah, so.
You must be able to read me read Greens really well if you're good at pimballing.
Yeah, it's all English and spin.
Yeah exactly.
If Greens had schematics, then yes.
They do, they do. They do. There's Green books now yep. But you know how like the rest of us play pinball, and it's like the whole object is just not to let it go down the hole. We don't actually consider that you can hit a target intentionally, you know with a pinball.
Wait, you're talking about golfer golf.
We were able to actually build a community, you know, beyond just being a bar. There's a local community, but also a larger pinball community at hand to players and it goes on to national, international championships and stuff.
So the beauty of being in a college town.
He was the only one that can. Very few people in the world can still repair the old electro mechanical ones like the actual scoring reels and stuff like that. You wouldn't know anything about this, but he probably does. And exactly so we have all those games still and consequently people come from all over the country to check them out and everything. There is just more office space.
That's that's where the whole customer service team, all the remote fitters, all the folks that you know, face to face deal with the company are all stacked up in there for now. But yeah, we're going to start building out this whole hallway and stuff with with offices and that we just signed included rights to that lot over there. So with the growth plan, at some point we'll start building construction. About a year, we'll start building a new building.
Okay, So a lot of.
People I saw on the live tourn PGLF.
We had sixteen putters and play at the US Senior US. Please meet Fred Green and Zebby Perez. She's made, She's made plenty of yours. She's been with us since Reno. She's been with us.
Since five years ago.
Yes, yes, finally, Oh wonderful, excited to be out here.
It's awesome.
He just played in a tournament up at the tournament up. I've shrunk just but yeah, she's been with us forever. When yeah, we were struggling to kind of figure out how it was all going to work and Reno and everything, and ultimately just at twenty one years old, got a call being like, hey, so would you mind running the company? She was like, okay, so, I mean she really call me. Everything moving for for a while down there and Reno and you know you run before after Kevin Kevin hired you right.
Right, okay, twenty years old, Yeah, your story straight unbelievable.
Now she's got fifty people working for her.
Good to me too.
So the place was a was a fitness center.
This was the worst one.
This was the lady's locker room and is now our R and D s.
Then this is where the design work gets done.
This is this is all the design works. So in this room is both design and tour, R and D and tour. So so these are the ones we're working on for Adam Scott's new Putter, new prototype here and we'll have it in a you know, regular shorter configuration too. But it's pretty cool, very nice. Well, so you making most of them without the hope.
Without the hope now that was the original designment, and then so this this would have been like I think we ended up with eighty different versions before we ultimately settled on the one that we released. This would have been let's see, actually, wow, let's see Kevin zin.
Hi, Fred, it's great, me too, after hearing your voice so much on the the podcast with Fire Pit with Matt Janella, Yeah, yeah, it was so much fun. We just drove up from Northern California yesterday and listened to the entire series the whole time.
It's the second time I've listened to it. Now it's research.
I was just finance some informations and didbits for you hit right, that's it right.
No, the first time I had Sam on my podcast was two thousand and twenty or nineteen.
So I've been obsessed with the Putters.
I think.
Yeah, I think I just maybe just started working there when he was on it, because I remember.
When he told me about it.
Because when I was living in Australia before I came back in twenty eighteen, there wasn't many golf podcasts around. And I remember when I was a cabinet maker back in Australia weapons for my dad, and when I used to go install I listened to Golf Smarter.
Thank You, that was what I would do.
So when Thank You, when Sam reached out and was like, hey, i'd love.
You to look up with this guy, and I was just like, yeah, you.
Don't need to do you don't need to give me any introduction.
Oh my god.
It was really cool.
I'm flattered. Thank you so much. That's amazing. I'm still around many episodes now.
This week was nine hundred and fifty six of a weekly podcast.
Yeah. Yeah, I've got one thousand in sight.
Yeah, I mean it's just around the corner. Yeah.
Well, nineteen years of doing I started this year and a half before the iPhone came out.
That's what I mean. You're the only guy.
Back in the day, I really was the only one.
Podcast was cool.
Well they are cool now. It's pretty amazing people like podcast.
I've been doing that for a while.
I mean that's like the common thing.
What TV shows, what potcast you let's say, they say.
Exactly exactly, Well, thank you, thank you.
I'm just so excited.
You were a B two guy for a long time, weren't you. That was kind of cool. Huh. We made that for note to beget is.
That he's a two side putting.
That's what that's what these are.
Really is for switch hitters.
Ye wow, I left hand the be too. Ye that's him. That was signs. This is Liam Man. I don't know if you guys actually shok hands yet.
No, how you doing.
Delia's the one who's been building your puttersh for the last years, two years, year and a half, two years something like that. He handles all the tour guys, all the college kids and everything like that. So awesome, awesome. Once you get on the PGA tour, he's going to be who you get your cutters from sweet Still.
You have three is amazing, so thank you once again. Pretty good, it's pretty good. I've got used to like because I started doing like arm work like that and it's kind of tinkering between like you know, the standard armlock and kind of left handlone and stuff.
But the Potter rules.
Perfect, perfect, it's so stable like the greens. I played a pumpkin ridge so fast right, so I was able. I can either make a thirty foot like it's tapp ins or just lag it close to fun.
He was at uh at Pumpkin for the Underrated Tour. Steph Curry's got that's why he's here. So they played. They just played pumpkin vers last two days and sounds like T twenty. We'll take it.
We'll take it, We'll take it.
How many did you see any other labs up in the up in the field.
Yes, nice, about a couple people in the female division and the boys that is all using lab golf. A lot of the mes mez and the and the b, the link, the three and the link.
We had the start of amatags Itellian's going out out here. They had it last year. There was one kid that had one and then I don't know if you did you see any of the warm up this morning or whatever, there's like at least fifteen a lot if not more.
I mean so a lot of players these days like, oh, well, you guys are blowing up. This is so much great. It's like, it's so cool to see guys using it in the field. Like to me, it's not even the guys in the field but using it these days, it's the props. Right when I first started going out that we had zero punts ever in AM Like the first season, I think I saw two punters every time I saw when I go up to shake it, Thank you so much. And now these days it's twenty severy.
Pro Like the kids to train at my academy where I go to, all of them have either the MEZ or.
The link one.
So we have even the coaches to they mess around with the mess.
Well none of them have it. And then he started he brought the mes right, and then everybody, you know how kids for sure, let me see that thing you know about.
An incredible article. It shows that you guys are number five on the tour.
Now was consistently number five and then occasionally three and four, Oh is that right. Yeah, we've we've we've had numbers higher than Tailor made a handful of times on the Cornary team. The Cornberry Tour, we were the second most used putter at the Senior US. We were number two.
This one is nice the champions, you guys. So thats one of the Max.
Any any room that you see with that head on is.
A Max is a Max.
Okay, so the Max. That's how the Max happened. Actually, so it was Liam's fault. We uh so we made the MESU. I'm Scott liked the look of it, but the chassis for the original mes one wasn't big enough to get enough weight in it. Okay, So Kevin blew it up a little bit so we could get two rows of weights in it. And then, uh Liam was just screwing around one day and just made a conventional putter out of it instead of a broom and everybody liked it better. So the Max was born.
Interesting, I've ever been.
So nervous after building it because I built it felt unreal and I was like, I'm gonna show this.
It was just I was like, now it because.
I wasn't sure which way Sam's gonna go with. I wasn't sure it's gonna be, like, why are you wasting any.
Time making it bigger?
Yeah, you know, just building this small thing because because it was already bigger, the head was already there, it was just only being used for broom. He was the first person to you know, chat it conventionally.
And conventional one.
And I remember just being so like, this could go either, this could go the fifty to fifty chances goes really well, really badly.
Oh good, Yeah, that's our best selling putter of all time.
Well really well or ignored.
Sorry to interrupt you, guys, guys, this is uh, this is Brian. Brian is our Fred R and D.
I know who you are.
I'm like, I mean, friend, You're fine, okay.
But he's impressive. I'm fine, you're.
Yes, sir.
First time he was playing in the underrated to Steph Curry's thing. There he is, there's Kevin. Do you remember ze Press this is dead.
I like to be sure, by the way, that's sick.
I think we might. I think we might have some for you. We'll get to we'll get to send you out for a bunch of guys. Yeah, for sure.
Pretty good rocking the d F three for about a couple of weeks.
Now let me take it. I'll take you guys kind of through the general process real quick. So we'll go in Kevin's office because Kevin's office is way cooler. So, like I mentioned, this was, uh, this was a health club, is what this build, this part of the building was. This was the sauna. Is Kevin's office. Go ahead and take a peek in there, and you know that's where all the original prototypes are, and so all the drawing and everything gets done. Concepts are done here, Plans are
made here. So after you know, we've got you know, pretty robust process involved in approving drawings and kind of figuring out which direction we want to go on design. But the coolest thing that happened in the last few years when we moved into this building is that we had enough space for our own machinery. And so as soon as we've got you know, a design that we want to try, we go into this room. So as soon as we got this machine right here, our lives
changed instantly. So this is what enables us to go from a napkin drawing to actually, you know, having a putter that we can touch. So it's a five acts C and C machine. My machine is currently out, but you know, Kevin does a lot of this work here. Wait, you mean to.
Tell me after the logo debacle you're still doing the.
Absolutely that's how all good things stuck and it wasn't.
I want to see that.
I want to see that that logo.
I just I just was looking through my pictures and found it and I sent it to Sarah. It is, that's the original logo. Everything's conceptualized, and then this machine poops it out and we turned it into a putter. It's pretty sweet. The rest of this stuff is all actual production manufacturing. These machines right here are like bitty tiny little versions of that. This is actually a five acciacy. And see, these little guys enabled us to go from when you first met Bill to actually being able to
produce these somewhat consistently. So, I mean, you remember you were there in the early days, right when you get putters and somebody all kind of felt a little different. Yes, you know, even though they were supposed to basically be the same. This one's heavy and this one's light and whatever. It's because that where we located the hole. If you
miss it, by a ten thousands of an inch. The putter's going to be twenty or thirty grams lighter or heavier, depending upon what we need in order to get a balance. When we found these things and enabled us to drill holes precise enough to actually start making them consistently and fast, so that was that was a very very big deal for us. So this is another five actis cy and C machine.
So you you could steal only make one club at a time.
So this machine here is so big and you can see like we can load in you know, fifty me's heads, so we don't actually we're not actually milling the heads here. Okay, different machine shop about an hour south here. Okay, when it's time to drill the holes per lying or whatever, they can load that up with forty hostles all to be drilled at sixty nine and chips ships and then you know does it. So no, they're not drilled one
at a time like they used to be. But yeah, over on those other machines, they were you'd have to screw get one going, you know, get it started drilling, and then you screw the next one on, and then you move that one off when the other one's done. I mean it was. It's crazy, amazing, amazing. This room is really fun. Sorry, guys, I have a tour coming through. Uh, don't worry about us. We're just showing them the st This is how all the markings on the putters get made.
I've seen it a million times. So yeah, check that out behind the screen glass here they're all I got a question. That's it. That's uh, that just that's how we do all the markings. It's not painful, it's not milld on there. It's literally burnt with a laser beam.
Okay, that's what I loved.
And I saw the broomstick has broomstick that was just a second ago.
And then yeah, okay, and you get so many different options now.
Of this piece is cool. I like this one. Here are you about to burn these? Okay? So right now that's doing all of the all these okay, like literally melting the metal. It's burning these on there. And then we get into the production room. Let's see if Greg is back here. Greg controls the flow of this entire floor. So every single order that comes in, you know, there's different ones that need to get made at different times, different speeds, with different builders and all that kind of stuff.
So he manages everything down here. What sucks about that is that he spent so much time figuring out who should build what that he doesn't get to build anymore despite being definitely the best builder in the building.
And what was your background? Where did you come from?
Oh? This is greatired?
Oh is that right?
So you weren't running factories? You were running yeah stuff. There's a new movie coming out. I just saw a preview called Sing Sing. It's it takes place at Sing Sing and it's about the r TA, which is the rehabilitation.
Through the arts. Phenomenal, don't miss.
That was pretty much what he did. He was all about arts. He was constantly working with the inmates and drawing pictures. And yeah, we had to like acting tag too. There had to be there was some untraining that had to happen, like, for instance, like you know, when some of the guys wouldn't build potters properly, he would beat them. The show. We had had some major complaints about that.
So how did you find your way to this? Well, you were retired.
I was retired. He's working in a casino.
That's a look at control.
Just bord to death with him. Scroll through Craigslist job listings and really solid ad for a club builder.
So and were you a golfer?
I have golf my entire life, just not out of nowhere near Avid or any good.
But you've been playing your whole life?
And were you a club geek or just just played golf and didn't get my clubs?
Big Berthas from early two thousands. Oh wow, Sam, he knows he can have whatever he wants, but uh, I don't. I don't get out there, and I literally maybe play three times a year or so.
Most golf instructors are the same thing.
Now.
I enjoyed it when I did it out there. It's just times in suiting, kind of busy. He's also like ridiculously clutch when he does get out and play like we do these company scrambles. We had a putting contest. The dude has an uncanny ability to show up. And I assume you probably don't play as much because then your odds are going to get reduced as ab how often as clutch. But yeah, Gregs and man, he runs the whole show down here and it's great.
To meet you.
Congratulations, Yes, sir, let's keep that.
Yeah, Gregs and many yeah, I mean, I mean he literally was like hired to do half a U was part time employee. He just wanted to come into shafts and putters and then like now like runs show. So yeah, so every every putter ends up with a bill sheet. So the order comes in and each one of these steps has to be done by one of these folks.
I mean, it's a big long assembly line. There's so many customer options, so many different things that need to be done, and yeah, everybody's gonna sign off on their particular you know, part of the whole build here. And and it's more than anybody in the business does as far as the amount of options that we offer. And lately we're doing a pretty pretty bang up job of getting it right every time.
And so then let me ask you this.
I'm seeing I'm looking at the DF three heads here, the bottoms of them, and it looks like the holes are all in the same place.
Yep, And the holes are always in the same place.
What differentiates each one of those it's.
What goes in the holes. So depending upon the lie, the length, the grip, the amount of shafting armlocked roomstick, all these things, they're all going to take different configurations. This one. This one you can tell by the number of holes. These are all either broomsticks or armlocks because they got twice as many holes in them as the other one, because we need the extra room to get more weight in it. So yeah, so after every putter's built now it goes through a very stringing QC process.
So all these tables are out here are just to check putters. That's it.
Everyone that goes out.
Every single putter goes through actually multiple people because you know, we had, like when we started doing really high volume, the monotony of going that we're starting to miss some stuff. So now two people need to check it and cross check each other.
And so how many people do you have doing QC on everyone?
That's a good question. How many QC How many the biggest QC department right now.
I would say about.
About twelve twelve folks.
And each putter sees how many people? Not all twelve.
No, each putter does not see twelve QC people. It will see two.
It will see two, so check, recheck.
Correct, Yeah, just to make sure you've got two eyes on it. But yeah, there's a million different data points on each one. This one's pretty chill. This is a wholesale stock putter that still has you know, X number of data points that need to get checked. This is where it gets screwed too. There's so many sitelines and everything.
Yeah, the sitelines they need to make.
The one that they picked is the one that's actually on it. It's a huge, huge process, and that's why they're so expensive. Just on straight labor of a putter, I would have to assume we need six seven times the labor forced to produce the same number of putters as a competitor, you know, I mean, it's it's a huge thing. You know. In consequently, we just have to run and run the business a little different. We don't
can't pay tour players millions of dollars. We can't pay them anything, you know, we need.
That to And that's okay because they don't pay for butters anyway, right, So, but if they use it, that's an even bigger endorsement if you're not paying for them. I would think that if they're using it without being paid, that's a greater endorsement.
Than it is, except that it's a relative to the total size of the golf community, it's this pretty small number of people that notice your people notice golf to beer ax, people notice my golf spite. People have noticed, but like you know, the general golfing population at large is ready for you know, John Rahm to say, hey, look at my new lab putters, you know, something like that, and it's just not gonna happen, and.
Like for a couple of weeks.
So it's going yea, and even Phil Mickelson's using it now, I don't even say that anymore. And it's like after his couple of his performance, like we'll talk about Willis Allergi bress I spoke with him.
How did that two weeks ago?
How did it happens? He went because he was always.
That blade Oh yeah, heways, he always but he's always looking for an edge. I mean he's used some funny putters over the years. He used the original Scottie Cameron Futura, remember that the huge thing with the holes down that that like striped it. Yeah, he used to use one of those. I think in two actually made one of
the greatest putts I've ever seen. He made one from the very front left of the number two green at Augusta to the all the way back right flagged like a ninety foot putt that broke about sixty feet.
As good as they are, that's luck, of course, as good as they are.
Most of the time. He uses Little ladyto two style blade and but he he golfs with one of the ducks kids. Oh really, And and then two other guys at his place in San Diego. And those two guys have been using the big one. He apparently has been giving them ship for using the big one for three years. Then they got DF three and he's like, let me try that. He putted one round right handed, one handed with one of theirs. Wow, And then got in touch with the ducks kid. The Ducks kid called Liam. Liam
called me and we had for like three exchanges. It was like Phil to Matt, Matt to Liam, Liam to me, Me to Liam, Liam to Matt, Matt to Fill. I'm like, can somebody please just give me a number? Yes? So yeah, we talked and and he's great. We've spent some time. I went down to his place in San Diego and worked on him some more. And he is so smart and he is the most intelligent golfer that's ever lived. And it's just really, it's not close. It's not close.
I mean, there's there's explain intelligent.
There isn't an aspect of any single shot struck ever that he hasn't considered to the nth degree. That's a good example. He talked about how so most people don't like fade putts, you know, like right handers don't like a left to right putt. No, generally we miss it low. So to give himself a bigger margin of error, he will lean the shaft away from the target, away from his line, basically adding effectively adding loft to the putt.
So that because most of us what we do is we take it back and then we push it down towards the hole rather than you know, keeping it up left of the hole like we should. So when he pushes it, he's generally dragging the handle. So if he's takes it back and has that impulse that we all have to kind of push it at the hole, he drags the handle and because he had the shaft leaning back, now he's delofted the potter, so it comes off hotter
on the on the tighter line. And then if he doesn't do that, the extra loft slowed it down so that it you know, gets the top side of the break or the bottom side of the brake, and he just gives himself. I mean, like, what a crazy thing to consider. Yeah, And and we actually got the first time we got to talking, was talking about what I considered to be one of the best putts hit in in competition history. So I'm a seventy first hole at
the PGA Championship at Kiowa where he won. I don't know if you remember, but he inexplicably had been putting convention. He he had his tiny little blade that he was using all week and inexplicably went to the claw on this four foot or for par that he had. And you know, the announcers are like, oh, he must have been nervous and thought it was going to be the yips or this or that, and I knew different. I
knew that that wasn't the reason. And then a couple of years later, I was out in Chicago at the live event and he was talking with you hanging out your car, and I was just kind of listening in he brought that put up and he saw me kind of perk up, and he was like, you know that putt,
And I was like, I definitely know that. But and the reasoning was that the ball had come to rest in like a tiny little depression, and when he grips it with the claw, the putter has more loft on it at impact, and so he utilized the claw to get it to rise up out of that tiny little depression rather than if it had hit it could have
scort it in any different direction or whatever. And to have the presence of mind, you know, I mean, the rest of the world in that position, you know, with a four foot or to you know, maintain a one shot lead going into the last hole of a major championship, was just like, don't screw up, don't screw up, don't screw up, don't grew up. Exactly, That's what I'm thinking, right, And he's thinking like, huh, that balls in a little hole.
I wonder how I can deal with that. I mean, just the presence of mind and the understanding of what it is, you know, that it's happening in a given moment, how to make that putt. I mean, it's just mind.
Blow amazing, just totally mind blow amazing.
So yeah, and then uh, this is you know, finally sit these are armlocks, right, counterbalance, So this this is a putter. That's you know, kind of gripped like that.
That's a I've not seen it.
With jail bird Madness. You know, those were all like Rickey, Fowler and Window. They were all using dis exact grip seventeen gript. The grip it down just a little, a little weight above the hands, and theory sort of lowers the access point. Okay, it's a nice feel. I like it interesting. I don't love it, but I like it. I don't love it with on you know, with that much onset is on the DF three. But but they're good. Yes, so we did a big loop if you're able to tell,
that was the R and D space. But yeah, once they're all bagged and tagged and we know where they're going, and then we get ready to ship them. This is just all raw materials in here, grip shafts, headcovers, all that stuff. And we actually have another i think ten thousand feet somewhere off site to store everything. And you don't think about.
It, but like somebody's got to do the inventory.
Fifty thousand headcovers takes up a lot of room, yes, but yeah, then they get or yeah, or even just boxes on something. We never really considered that an empty box takes up space. So then yeah, this is the shipping department here, which already needs to expand probably have to go that way.
And do we know what we're how many shipping a week?
Right now?
Our best month ever? We shipped a little over fifteen thousand putters?
Wow? And what month was that? Was that the month after Lucas?
No? No, no, no, this year? Really? Yeah? Yeah, no, it's been exponential since Lucas when we had our first podcast. Yeah, we were stoked if we shipp three hundred pos in a month. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I want you to meet Adam. Adam will remember Adam? Do you remember shipping putters to a young zeb Perez?
Hello, So sir, it is a pleasure to see you.
Pleasures on month, Sir.
Adam's I have been with us for a long time as well. He he and I also worked together over at the Bar. I mentioned, you know, with Gavin and.
Oh wait, did you get COVID to that Christmas party to remember our super Spreader events interview just after that and you're telling you like, oh, I had a combined.
Company by bar and the lab people all have the company Christmas party at the arcade and one person had COVID, So both of my both of my two businesses were down for the count.
Oh my god, I remember that.
Yeah, Adam's been with us forever and he uh, he's definitely shipped a lot of your putters. He was, he was. Everything that is going on in here was all just him. There was nobody else doing that and in q including q C. Yes. Wow, So I mean he was kissing, shipping and receiving every single package that we had.
So does it make your life easier that you have this large of a staff because now you have to manage everybody?
Or oh no, having good having good people is the key to an easy life here. Yep. Just making sure you manage and train your crew appropriately. They do all the work.
For you, make you look like a rock star, and it just leaves you room to take care of them and make them feel like a loving family.
So is that the culture here? Is that? What comes from here? Is how the culture is?
Like?
That's those are our company values love, unity and curiosity.
Unity and curiosity.
That's awesome, we think so not on the box, but.
So that's great.
Any curiosity. It was like company values again, a mission statement all right, let's get out of everybody's hair and hair well.
I hope you enjoyed that and encourage you to check out both of those videos on our golf Smarter TV YouTube channel. At golf Smarter, I told you a couple of weeks ago how much of an impact the broomstick has already had on my putting after only three rounds. But I've not been able to play since because of our vacation travel schedule. As we get into August, I will be playing a lot, and I'm looking forward to
sharing more great results. This week's Golf Smarter Ambassador, Ben Burt from Exeter, New Hampshire, sent a video of himself for today's special episode opening in order to get a free link to Tony Manzoni's video of the Lost Fundamental. He had a choice.
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Now.
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