Speaker 1: I think they've done an incredible job the last couple
Speaker 1: of years, because not only are guy's using it, they're
Speaker 1: using it successfully, and certainly on the tour. When anyone
Speaker 1: has some success, we all look, you know, whether it's
Speaker 1: a new shaft in Rory's driver or you know, Lucas
Speaker 1: Glover's new potter, We're all looking at what they're doing
Speaker 1: to see if that's the secret.
Speaker 2: Put another log on the fire.
Speaker 3: Nobody here is given time. Welcome to the fire pit
Speaker 3: with Matt Chanella. In part three of this podcast series,
Speaker 3: we were getting to lucky break number four in the
Speaker 3: life and times of Lab Golf, the boutique putter company
Speaker 3: that was hatched in the garage of Bill Pressey in
Speaker 3: twenty twelve. Lie Angle the Balance was Pressey's answer to
Speaker 3: a bad case of the yips and the solution to
Speaker 3: what he considered false marketing by Golf's OEMs original equipment manufacturers.
Speaker 3: After Sam Hun and his family bought into the company
Speaker 3: in twenty eighteen, and after grinding through some of the
Speaker 3: growing pains of marketing the logo, manufacturing efficiency and getting
Speaker 3: it into the hands and bags of tour pros, it
Speaker 3: was twenty nineteen when lab Golf started gaining some significant momentum.
Speaker 3: At this point. It's worth noting that lab Golf doesn't
Speaker 3: pay people to use their putters. I'm not getting paid
Speaker 3: by lab Golf to tell this story. As I explained
Speaker 3: in episode one, I had a college friend who tipped
Speaker 3: me off to the technology in twenty eighteen, and after
Speaker 3: Lucas Glover won back to back PGA Tour events in
Speaker 3: August of twenty twenty three, I decided to make some calls,
Speaker 3: and as of February twenty twenty four, I haven't stopped
Speaker 3: making calls. I'm eighteen interviews into this story and it
Speaker 3: keeps going, keeps getting better. I do have a deal
Speaker 3: with Dormy Workshop, who sponsors this podcast. The Canadian based
Speaker 3: company only makes handmade leather goods such as custom headcovers
Speaker 3: and accessories. For their complete collection of originals headcovers and classics,
Speaker 3: go to Dormy workshop dot com and use promo code
Speaker 3: fire Pit fifteen for fifteen percent off your next purchase. Okay,
Speaker 3: it's safe to say Bill Pressey's invention in Sam Han's
Speaker 3: marketing have stormed the gates of putting technology and results.
Speaker 3: Tim Wilkinson, Jeff Sloman Von Taylor Kelly Slater and his
Speaker 3: relationship with Adam Scott is a big reason for lab
Speaker 3: Golf's success. Again, here's Slater, the eleven time World Champion
Speaker 3: of surfing, on the impact the putter had on his
Speaker 3: game and how it ultimately influenced his playing partner at
Speaker 3: the twenty nineteen AT and T Pebble Beach Pro Am.
Speaker 4: I've just spoken about the club to anyone and anyone
Speaker 4: who wants to listen, and generally I'll just play with
Speaker 4: people and they'll see me roll the ball and just
Speaker 4: roll so pure off the club that they can't help
Speaker 4: but ask about it, and you know, to get to
Speaker 4: the point with Adam, That's that's how it happened with Adam.
Speaker 5: I was playing with him.
Speaker 4: We were paired in the same group at Pebble for
Speaker 4: three days, and at the end of the third day,
Speaker 4: he goes, Man, you gotta just show me that club.
Speaker 4: You got to just show me like how it works
Speaker 4: for you and go on the putting grain and just
Speaker 4: just tell me. Because he goes to the ball is
Speaker 4: just rolling so pure off your club. And I was
Speaker 4: making all sorts of putts. I didn't strike the ball
Speaker 4: very well and I wasn't scoring great, but I was
Speaker 4: making putts.
Speaker 3: Adam Scott turned pro in two thousand. He has fourteen
Speaker 3: PGA Tour wins, which includes the twenty thirteen Masters. In
Speaker 3: twenty fourteen, he was number one in the world for
Speaker 3: eleven weeks. He is number seven on the PGA Tour's
Speaker 3: list of career earnings at sixty three million, nine hundred
Speaker 3: and thirteen thousand, three hundred and twenty five dollars.
Speaker 1: I mean, the first time it clearly sticks out to
Speaker 1: me was was it Pebble Beach in twenty nineteen at
Speaker 1: the at and T pro am playing in a group
Speaker 1: with Kelly who was using one. But I played with
Speaker 1: him a bit before that, so he I know he
Speaker 1: was using it for a while before that, But I
Speaker 1: don't know that I took that much notice. But I
Speaker 1: certainly did that week at Pebble because well, as you'd
Speaker 1: know and have probably experienced, like a wet February pebble
Speaker 1: beach green can get a little bumpy and everyone struggles
Speaker 1: time to time putting on that surface with the ball
Speaker 1: bouncing around. And played three days with Kelly and between myself,
Speaker 1: the other pro and any of the amateurs Kelly rolled
Speaker 1: the ball better than all of us, and I have
Speaker 1: played with him and he is a good player. However,
Speaker 1: you know, I still think the pros could probably out
Speaker 1: put Kelly's slater, but he is very good and he
Speaker 1: rolled it better, and I thought there must be something
Speaker 1: in his equipment that is helping him.
Speaker 6: Man.
Speaker 4: I think I had a round in spyglass. I had
Speaker 4: around a spy glass. I think I had twenty two putts,
Speaker 4: and granted I missed a couple of greens real close,
Speaker 4: you know, so I was putting from off the green
Speaker 4: and they're not counted as a putt, so maybe was
Speaker 4: like twenty seven to twenty eight putts from the ones
Speaker 4: who included off the green. But point being that I
Speaker 4: just get so confident with the thing and I just
Speaker 4: start when I'm on, I just start making everything.
Speaker 2: And I did the.
Speaker 4: Same thing at Tahoe. I played that tournament up there,
Speaker 4: and I didn't score very well. I was really nervous
Speaker 4: and not striking the ball well and missing lots of greens.
Speaker 5: But man, I made everything on those greens.
Speaker 4: And yeah, I just people just I play with friends
Speaker 4: and they see the ball roll off the club and.
Speaker 5: They want to try it. It's just that simple.
Speaker 3: Back to Adam Scott at Pebble Beach in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 3: how did you then sort of start start you know,
Speaker 3: thinking let me let me check that out, or did
Speaker 3: you get you go to the practice putting green or
Speaker 3: what was the next step?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I obviously I hit a few on the putting green
Speaker 1: with Kelly's putter. And you know, Kelly is so thoughtful
Speaker 1: about every part of his life really but certainly about
Speaker 1: his surfing, but that carries over into his golf and
Speaker 1: he has a theory and a process and you know
Speaker 1: he walked me through all of that and how he
Speaker 1: got to putting the way he parts with the lab
Speaker 1: and you know, just getting as pure a role as
Speaker 1: he possibly can. And it was helpful insight into starting
Speaker 1: to use what I think traditionally we would say is
Speaker 1: a pretty radical putter and a good start point to
Speaker 1: see what that technology can do.
Speaker 6: You know, And you've.
Speaker 1: Got to give credit Kelly a lot of credit that,
Speaker 1: like he's deep dived into lab putters or putters in
Speaker 1: general to find the best one he can.
Speaker 3: Would you consider yourself like an equipment geek, Like are
Speaker 3: you into sort of the like technology of things or
Speaker 3: are you more of like a field guy.
Speaker 4: No, I'm I'm more of an equipment guy. I mean,
Speaker 4: I think you have to have feel obviously for length
Speaker 4: and you know that kind of thing. Excuse me, just
Speaker 4: traffic here. Yeah, I think you have to have some
Speaker 4: feel in your game. Obviously there's there's not a connection
Speaker 4: with what's going on. But I'm more of a equipment
Speaker 4: kind of guy.
Speaker 5: You know, I really believe in the technologies.
Speaker 4: You have to you have to look at what the
Speaker 4: ball does now and how far these drivers are hitting it,
Speaker 4: and then you know, and obviously you have to pair
Speaker 4: that with technology, with with technique and skill. But when
Speaker 4: I read about lab Golf and how and then saw
Speaker 4: the Revealer with Sam using that on YouTube and showing
Speaker 4: how the club doesn't spin, you know, I mean a
Speaker 4: lot of people will talk about a face balance putter.
Speaker 4: I don't even know why face balance is a thing
Speaker 4: people say about a putter.
Speaker 5: It means nothing.
Speaker 4: It means that when you hold the club up it
Speaker 4: lays horizontally like flat to the horizon. It doesn't actually
Speaker 4: do anything through this stroke and most of those are
Speaker 4: to heavy and the toe flip's over. So when you
Speaker 4: use that revealer. You'll see that the club's just spin.
Speaker 4: That's the most remarkable thing. I think that should sell
Speaker 4: anyone because if you can just have the club and
Speaker 4: just hold it and as it goes through the stroke,
Speaker 4: it just stays wherever you square the face up to.
Speaker 5: I don't know what else you want to putter.
Speaker 3: It's not like any everyday amateur, right. This guy's an
Speaker 3: eleven time world champion, so he's you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: like he's a master at his craft. And so for him,
Speaker 3: I guess that's probably what sort of validated it early.
Speaker 3: For you, I would assume, is that the fact that
Speaker 3: he could articulate or talk through or have some sort
Speaker 3: of ye the language around how and why he was
Speaker 3: using it, was that why it was resonating with you,
Speaker 3: not only the results.
Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely, I mean, you know, just starting with a
Speaker 6: level of respect for what he's been able to achieve
Speaker 6: in his field, but then having played a fair bit
Speaker 6: of golf with him over the last twenty years or
Speaker 6: fifteen years at that point, and understanding he's very good
Speaker 6: golfer and he's not afraid to experiment with things to
Speaker 6: get better. And I admire.
Speaker 1: That because you know, we all can get a bit
Speaker 1: stuck in our ways with things, and he put the
Speaker 1: time in to get there and the fact, yeah, like
Speaker 1: you said, he was able to communicate what this putter
Speaker 1: can do that other putters can't do. And I thought
Speaker 1: that was pretty impressive. That was a good pitch from him.
Speaker 1: So I bought into that for sure, and I ordered
Speaker 1: one up straight away and I got it the next
Speaker 1: week when Wednesday at Riviera.
Speaker 3: How'd that process go in terms of like ordering or
Speaker 3: getting something to your you know, specifics or liking or
Speaker 3: you know how you know, I mean for you to
Speaker 3: make that change and like get that? How does how
Speaker 3: does that? How did that? How that? How that work? Yeah?
Speaker 6: Kelly put me in touch with Sam from Lab and
Speaker 6: Sam was there in l A.
Speaker 1: And based off what he'd seen from me putting, created
Speaker 1: a few different options for me. And I basically said,
Speaker 1: just give me the same thing Kelly had because that
Speaker 1: was looking pretty good and rolling good. But he felt,
Speaker 1: you know a couple of different angles and lengths might
Speaker 1: be appropriate. Uh, And you know, it felt great straight away.
Speaker 1: I didn't have the guts to pick it up Wednesday
Speaker 1: night and put it in play that week in LA
Speaker 1: but I did use it then, uh, from the Florida
Speaker 1: Swing on through the Masters that year, and that was
Speaker 1: the directed force, which is their kind of original, you know,
Speaker 1: large headed zero pork Putter.
Speaker 3: Back to Sam Han for his recollection of how and
Speaker 3: why Adam Scott became a believer.
Speaker 7: I got a call. I was at Riviera and you know,
Speaker 7: this is Adam Scott. Can you meet me in the
Speaker 7: locker room?
Speaker 2: Fuck?
Speaker 7: Yeah, Adam Scott, I can meet you in the locker room.
Speaker 3: And it was probably more like, who the fuck is
Speaker 3: impersonating Adam Scott and tell me me being the locker.
Speaker 7: I was fortunate enough that Kelly gave me a heads
Speaker 7: up he might be calling. But yes, I probably would
Speaker 7: have been, you know, yes, hung up on him being
Speaker 7: like a fuck yourself. I have better things to do
Speaker 7: than deal with the prank caller. But no, and so
Speaker 7: yeah he comes. That was actually a really funny introduction
Speaker 7: for me anyway. You know, it says, meeting a lot
Speaker 7: of room round, you know whatever. Two o'clock. I go
Speaker 7: in there and ask the locker om intend to where
Speaker 7: Adam's locker is. And I go over there and he's
Speaker 7: talking with the foot Joy guys, and Adam's in his
Speaker 7: underwear talking shoes and like I'm like, hi, he kind
Speaker 7: of you know, acknowledges me. But he's talking to the
Speaker 7: foot joy guys and like, I mean, we're fucking ever,
Speaker 7: like they're just talking. I don't, like, I have no
Speaker 7: idea how there could be that much to talk about
Speaker 7: with a fucking shoe. And there's like two guys and
Speaker 7: they're like, you know, like this and they're holding up
Speaker 7: shoes and they're talking toe boxes and heel relief, and
Speaker 7: I'm like Jesus Christ and I'm just like, oh my god,
Speaker 7: when with this conversation and I swear to God it
Speaker 7: went on for twenty minutes and I'm just sitting there.
Speaker 7: So I sit down like on this bench behind it
Speaker 7: and behind the two of them, and I'm like, you know,
Speaker 7: I don't know, probably on my phone, are just kind
Speaker 7: of looking down. The foot Joye guys walk away, and
Speaker 7: before I have a chance to get up, Adam in
Speaker 7: his underwear like throws a leg up on the bench
Speaker 7: right next to me, you know, and it's like kind
Speaker 7: of corners me in, and like, you know, if there's
Speaker 7: a if there's a guy that's going to make a
Speaker 7: heatero dude question his sexuality. It's Adam Scott. I mean,
Speaker 7: here's this just like a Donnis man, you know, half
Speaker 7: naked standing in front of me like Hi, I'm Adam
Speaker 7: Scott and I'm like and I'm like, I'm like trapped
Speaker 7: in there, like I couldn't even stand up. So that
Speaker 7: was Yeah, that was really really fun. We talked for
Speaker 7: a while. That was a really good week too. Ernie
Speaker 7: Els gave us a gave us a go that week.
Speaker 7: Adam did too, and then He'll said something, he said
Speaker 7: something I'll never ever forget that week. He didn't he
Speaker 7: didn't actually put it in play that week, and he
Speaker 7: played very well. I think he finished second or something
Speaker 7: with an armlock, which I was super bummed about because
Speaker 7: I was like, ah, fuck, you just putted really good,
Speaker 7: like probably there goes my opportunity. Uh. And then later
Speaker 7: I get a call from him and he had been
Speaker 7: testing it that then, and then I think he went
Speaker 7: to he went to the Honda, and Bill was at
Speaker 7: the Honda with him, found a putter. And then I
Speaker 7: got a call from a few days later for no
Speaker 7: reason at all. He just called up and he said,
Speaker 7: I'm going to win the Masters with this part of.
Speaker 3: This year, and what was the feedback you were getting
Speaker 3: from from your peers? You know, what what was that?
Speaker 3: What was what was there? Some raised eyes and some
Speaker 3: eyebrows and some thoughts on like what.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, for sure, I think at that point.
Speaker 1: You know, I've been on tour a long time and
Speaker 1: I've seen when when other guys had made some pretty
Speaker 1: radical changes. And of course, you know about ten years
Speaker 1: before I'd changed to use a long potter, and that
Speaker 1: certainly raised some eyebrows, so I was used to that,
Speaker 1: you know. Now this was another direction completely with there's
Speaker 1: a fair bit of stuff going on with the lab
Speaker 1: from the grip to the head, other angles in between,
Speaker 1: and being so non traditional it raises eyebrows for sure.
Speaker 1: But I just I just had this. It's like this,
Speaker 1: you know, if you can embrace what this part of
Speaker 1: does and stay out of your own way, the results
Speaker 1: could come. And I just had this feeling and I
Speaker 1: said it to Sam, although it didn't pan out, but like,
Speaker 1: this was the putter that can win around Augusta because
Speaker 1: it's just put such a good role on it, and
Speaker 1: the size and everything makes it so versatile from in
Speaker 1: and around the greens, which is tricky at Augusta because
Speaker 1: it's so slow off the green then onto such a
Speaker 1: fast surface, and chipping from certain positions at Augusta is
Speaker 1: very difficult.
Speaker 3: I asked Adam Scott to talk about the feel and
Speaker 3: why this could ultimately become his gamer.
Speaker 1: I think the standout thing when anybody first puts with
Speaker 1: a lab putter is the smoothness of the stroke, especially
Speaker 1: in the transition from the back swing to the through swing.
Speaker 1: Because of the unique balance that lab putters have. That
Speaker 1: smoothness in transition is noticeable. And you know, now I'm
Speaker 1: just used to it because I've put it with a
Speaker 1: lamb putter for.
Speaker 6: A long time.
Speaker 1: But I think when you first pick it up, that
Speaker 1: is the different feeling. Forgetting forgetting the angles and head shapes,
Speaker 1: which are quite radical generally, I think the feeling of
Speaker 1: the stroke is different, so you know there's something there
Speaker 1: and if your mind is open and willing to explore that,
Speaker 1: I think there's the benefit comes from there.
Speaker 7: So he putted with it at Handah. He played very well.
Speaker 7: He actually had a chance to win the players that year.
Speaker 7: Rinsed one on whatever it was, eleven with the is
Speaker 7: apart five with the angled water or whatever and kind
Speaker 7: of took him out of it, but he putted beautifully.
Speaker 7: And this is a short putter, by the way, This
Speaker 7: wasn't a broomsticks the regular conventional directed force. And all
Speaker 7: of a sudden we're on the map. Out of Scott
Speaker 7: is using this big red giant potter. What the hell
Speaker 7: is that thing? We're getting articles, we're getting pressed, w
Speaker 7: RX is taking pictures and and it's a real thing.
Speaker 7: It's happening, And now our sales is really starting to
Speaker 7: go up. We're actually selling putters, like really really moving them.
Speaker 3: After Adam Scott and after this is happening, and this
Speaker 3: shit's hitting the fan at like like now you're peeking
Speaker 3: out at like how many putters a month? Or like,
Speaker 3: can you give me some sort of quantifiable like number
Speaker 3: that that that speaks to success?
Speaker 8: Like I want to say, actually, can check I can
Speaker 8: get somewhat of a reference here real quick.
Speaker 3: Just yeah, just to you go from like kind of
Speaker 3: roughly four hundred into in existence.
Speaker 7: You know, I think I remember sometime around then Postmasters
Speaker 7: twenty nineteen. I remember we got an order from a
Speaker 7: Korean guy for one hundred putters, and we were like,
Speaker 7: holy fucking shit, how the war old, are we going
Speaker 7: to make one hundred putters in three weeks? So, you know,
Speaker 7: I think at the time a really good day for
Speaker 7: us was like five to seven orders in a day.
Speaker 7: So yeah, I think we were probably making one hundred
Speaker 7: putters a month at that point.
Speaker 8: Maybe.
Speaker 7: So in April, Rol's around, Adam's putting good, he's hitting
Speaker 7: the ball good. And this is the twenty nineteen Masters,
Speaker 7: which we all know Tiger won, and uh uh leading
Speaker 7: after day one, my phone's ringing off the hook, I
Speaker 7: got Textcalo or the phone's blown up, the emails blown up.
Speaker 7: Orders are coming in like fucking crazy because the cameras around,
Speaker 7: because he's a past champion, it's a big, ugly red putter,
Speaker 7: and we're freaking out. And then day two Friday, I
Speaker 7: believe there was like six or seven people tied for
Speaker 7: the lead after Friday, and Adam was one of them.
Speaker 7: And on that Friday he had made a bomb on
Speaker 7: six pen was all the way back right and he
Speaker 7: bere for maybe one of the Part three is on
Speaker 7: the front. Just this monster putt that was on, you know,
Speaker 7: every fifteen minutes on Golf Channel. They were showing this
Speaker 7: putt and yeah, phones ringing off the hook. Shit's getting crazy.
Speaker 7: Now we get our first, real, real bad break. So
Speaker 7: Adam at the time was traveling with three different putters.
Speaker 7: He had a broomstick, he had an armlock, and he
Speaker 7: had our DF and he was working on.
Speaker 3: Direct Force.
Speaker 7: Yes, sorry, directed Force. So we kept then. Yeah, way
Speaker 7: back when we rebranded, we didn't want to lose the
Speaker 7: little bit of name recognition that we had, so we
Speaker 7: named the company Lab and then we named this particular model,
Speaker 7: which used to be called the Reno, we named it
Speaker 7: the Directed Force. So, uh, yeah, He's traveling with the DF,
Speaker 7: a Cameron armlock, and a Cameron broomstick, and and he
Speaker 7: was switching around and he kind of had in his
Speaker 7: head that certain conditions were better with certain putters, and
Speaker 7: YadA YadA. Saturday Momore he gets up and somebody tells
Speaker 7: him's supposed to rain, and he had it in his
Speaker 7: head that he putt it better with an armlock when
Speaker 7: the greens were a little slower. So Kad is John
Speaker 7: the money at the time, and he has John go
Speaker 7: grab the armlock. They spent about an hour dialing it
Speaker 7: in and armlock is a very different technique. You got
Speaker 7: the shaft running against your forearm, which creates shaftling and
Speaker 7: generally creates a very different ball position. And so he
Speaker 7: dials in this arm lock, and then right before he's
Speaker 7: about to tee off, decides he wants to go with
Speaker 7: the DF. John runs back to the locker room, grabs
Speaker 7: a DF. I don't even know if he hit any
Speaker 7: puts with it, puts it in the bag and actually
Speaker 7: made a nice one in the first hole, and then
Speaker 7: after that proceeds to miss everything short and right, and
Speaker 7: I get on camera. I get him on camera, and
Speaker 7: I had a video of him from the day before
Speaker 7: in the video on that Saturday, and I mean the
Speaker 7: ball had moved back six inches like it was like
Speaker 7: a subtle thing. I mean, it was a completely completely
Speaker 7: different setup because he'd you know, been screwed around that armlock,
Speaker 7: and that was whereas I was seeing the ball that day,
Speaker 7: and and he's just squeezing these things short right, short, right,
Speaker 7: short right. And then on sixteen he missed about an
Speaker 7: eighteen inch putt and that actually had nothing to do
Speaker 7: with anything other than he got completely fucked and you
Speaker 7: don't I could hear it on the broadcast barely, and
Speaker 7: he talked about it after we kind of debriefed the thing.
Speaker 7: But he got nailed by a roar right in the
Speaker 7: middle of his you know, backswing, like a loud tiger
Speaker 7: had done something crazy and just got nailed by a roar.
Speaker 7: Flinched on it misses this eighteen inch putt and they
Speaker 7: show it fifteen fucking times and in the phone stopped ringing.
Speaker 3: Seriously, it's that much that it's that much.
Speaker 7: Of an impact instantly, instantly, sales wise, it actually wasn't
Speaker 7: that it. We still climbed. That was still a big
Speaker 7: level up for us, for sure. And uh but what
Speaker 7: I realized the takeaway from that moment was I can't
Speaker 7: rely on the tour. But we just can't. We just
Speaker 7: can't do this anymore. We have to, you know, the tour.
Speaker 7: If it happens, great, let's be available. Let's you know,
Speaker 7: hope that they try it. But like if we're, if we're,
Speaker 7: if we're putting all our chips on the tour, it's
Speaker 7: a it's just it's a it's a yeah, it's it's
Speaker 7: it's a it's a high payout bet, low odds, high
Speaker 7: payout bet. So we needed to think of a different
Speaker 7: way to get putters out the door. And that's when
Speaker 7: we really honed in on who we were marketing to.
Speaker 7: Tour players don't buy putters, so fuck them and uh,
Speaker 7: and it wasn't helping a bunch of them for you know,
Speaker 7: reasons we can get into, but it was really helping
Speaker 7: our customers. Like we had customers at this point, we're
Speaker 7: developing a bit of a cult following because you know, frankly,
Speaker 7: all of our customers had a trauma bond with their
Speaker 7: putter because they got made fun of it, you know,
Speaker 7: made fun of just the same as me. And when
Speaker 7: you get made fun of, you get that much more
Speaker 7: possessive of it. And so, you know, guys got really
Speaker 7: prideful about their putters. And we've got this bit of
Speaker 7: a cult following. And that's where our marketing guy, Zach
Speaker 7: Kuzahaski with Rooted Solutions, really started to hone in on
Speaker 7: the message, you're a better putter than you think. And
Speaker 7: what that whole concept is about. What you know, what
Speaker 7: we take that to mean is we're here to help
Speaker 7: make you better. Like our company is not about like,
Speaker 7: look how amazing we are, you know, like you see
Speaker 7: some of the major brands now where they just pictures
Speaker 7: of their designer, you know, standing by a mill and
Speaker 7: all this stuff, and this kind of glorification of these
Speaker 7: designers like you know, and obviously plenty of credits. A
Speaker 7: build it with what he designed was amazing. But what
Speaker 7: we wanted to do was make our message about you,
Speaker 7: the player, to tell you you've been getting hosed. You're
Speaker 7: actually pretty good. You read greens better than you think
Speaker 7: you do, you judge pace better than you think you do.
Speaker 7: The problem is is that you have this unruly, unwieldy
Speaker 7: instrument in your hand preventing you from being you. So
Speaker 7: let us help you. And we really started to craft
Speaker 7: that message. We started to leverage social media and social media.
Speaker 7: I mean, this is kind of another one of those
Speaker 7: things where we got lucky. Having no golf background, Bill
Speaker 7: and I developed our brand voice bickering with people on Facebook.
Speaker 7: That's how the whole that's how our whole shtick got started.
Speaker 7: That's how we started learning how to communicate the physics
Speaker 7: in ways that you know, the average golfer could understand.
Speaker 7: That's how we started learning how to be smart asses
Speaker 7: and how to fuck patrols. And that's how we learned.
Speaker 7: It was like real time market research, you know, because
Speaker 7: we're getting real time feedback from people who are looking
Speaker 7: at me doing a Revealer video and the comments that
Speaker 7: we get below it. You know, all of these things
Speaker 7: we learned about the road that we had in front
Speaker 7: of us, and and we learned that we had to
Speaker 7: accomplish one of the one of the most difficult human tasks,
Speaker 7: which is to change somebody's mind. It's so hard.
Speaker 3: A sample of give me an example of like a
Speaker 3: common theme to the trolling or equipment geeks, or doubters
Speaker 3: or like skeptics. I mean, you must have a few
Speaker 3: at the top of your head.
Speaker 7: What would people say? Oh, yeah, one that we still
Speaker 7: get four or five times a day. They see the
Speaker 7: Revealer demonstration. They see the Revealer demonstration in the first
Speaker 7: this fucking guy walking into my building with a tailor
Speaker 7: made putter. Uh, we get it four or five times
Speaker 7: a day. Is uh, that's all fine and good. But
Speaker 7: I don't put with the revealer. I put with my hands.
Speaker 7: So you know what this this is? This is snake oil.
Speaker 7: And the response is, well, are you not able to
Speaker 7: feel the difference between the way a two ball swings
Speaker 7: versus a newport? You know, and that's what that's what.
Speaker 7: You know, We've been fitting for torque the whole time,
Speaker 7: they just didn't call it torque. And so, you know,
Speaker 7: very rarely do I get a response after I illuminate
Speaker 7: the fact that torque does matter. Yes, of course our
Speaker 7: hands can mitigate torque, but why do you want it to?
Speaker 3: Since investing in lab Golf in twenty eighteen, Han has
Speaker 3: worked his way through a lot of highs and lows,
Speaker 3: good moments and bad and Adam Scott's twenty nineteen Masters
Speaker 3: was a microcosm of that adventure. In round one, Scott
Speaker 3: shot sixty nine and was T. Six. He followed that
Speaker 3: with a sixty eight and was tied for first after
Speaker 3: round two. On the weekend he shot seventy two, seventy
Speaker 3: three and finished T. Eighteen. But for Han, his focus
Speaker 3: was on the success Adam Scott had on the Florida
Speaker 3: Swing and the first two rounds in Augusta. He had
Speaker 3: the feedback he needed to keep moving the company forward.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it was huge for me to realize that, like,
Speaker 7: we are onto something and that people aren't seeing it.
Speaker 7: So I need to do a better job of explaining it.
Speaker 7: I need to be patient and I need to change minds,
Speaker 7: and changing minds is fucking hard, man, especially in golf.
Speaker 7: Like people are stubborn, God are people stubborn in golf.
Speaker 7: And the old guard has tremendous influence over what we buy,
Speaker 7: what we learn, what we see, and the demographic of
Speaker 7: the folks in charge of golf and in charge of
Speaker 7: instruction are fucking old. And like old people don't do
Speaker 7: good with technology, and you know, their basic feeling is
Speaker 7: like if it didn't work for me, it must be broken,
Speaker 7: you know. Like you know, we've all seen our dads
Speaker 7: like sitting there fiddling with the VCR, having a VCR.
Speaker 7: That's funny, I just dated myself, I said, VCR fiddling
Speaker 7: with the computer and you know, saying this thing's broken,
Speaker 7: and it's just like you just don't know how to
Speaker 7: use it. So it's no different from with our putter,
Speaker 7: you know. And so to get you know, these you know,
Speaker 7: kind of old guard folks to embrace different is hard,
Speaker 7: and it's and it's not unprecedented in the industry. Like
Speaker 7: one of the things that I think about all the
Speaker 7: time is like metal driver heads, like the Big Bertha
Speaker 7: came out in nineteen ninety one. Davis Love won a
Speaker 7: PGA championship with a wooden driver in nineteen ninety seven,
Speaker 7: Like the thing had been out for six years before,
Speaker 7: you know, it started to become commonplace. He was the
Speaker 7: last person to win with a wooden driver. And the
Speaker 7: reason is is because it required different techniques. So the
Speaker 7: guys that were playing for Simmons, if you just plug
Speaker 7: that same swing into a big Bertha, it didn't necessarily
Speaker 7: do great things. But somebody had to figure out, like, well,
Speaker 7: we know that the ball, when we fire a ball,
Speaker 7: add it on a machine, it's coming off faster off
Speaker 7: a metal driver than it does it would one. So
Speaker 7: let's figure out how to use this thing. And then
Speaker 7: you know, over the course of six, seven, eight, ten years,
Speaker 7: we figured out, like we need a positive angle of attack,
Speaker 7: and now let's look at shafts and look at swingweight
Speaker 7: and look at these things, and you know, to figure
Speaker 7: out how to use these things. But within the technique,
Speaker 7: there was technique differences in how to use a metal
Speaker 7: driver versus a wooden one. It's the same difference, you know.
Speaker 7: And so we got a lot of putting gurus out
Speaker 7: there where they have a brilliant arsenal of instructional techniques
Speaker 7: to help somebody stabilize a face. They don't apply to
Speaker 7: what we do. And so if it doesn't apply to
Speaker 7: what we you know, since they can't apply their stick
Speaker 7: to our putters, it doesn't work. It's not you know,
Speaker 7: they think it's not relevant. It's not real.
Speaker 3: Before we go any further, and we still have a
Speaker 3: ways to go. Back to Adam Scott for more on
Speaker 3: advancements on the equipment industry, technology labs, technology and how
Speaker 3: and when he tries to utilize all of the above
Speaker 3: to maximize his potential and ultimately extend his career.
Speaker 6: It is a really tough market to crack.
Speaker 1: The pot of market, you know, it's really dominated, certainly
Speaker 1: on the tour by the big brands, and it's a
Speaker 1: very traditional thing putting. But I certainly am of the
Speaker 1: belief just because we started putting one way, it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean it's the best way. You know, I've explored putting
Speaker 1: the way I have, from short to long, to armlock
Speaker 1: to clause and everything, and a lot of people have
Speaker 1: had that process, and you know, but I think I'm
Speaker 1: trying to give myself the best chance to make every
Speaker 1: put before I've even hit it. Before I've even made
Speaker 1: a stroke. The great thing with the lab is I
Speaker 1: think it helps you make a better stroke.
Speaker 3: I think back to Hogan and j Singh and Bernard Langer,
Speaker 3: and there are guys who obviously have always been notorious
Speaker 3: for being really good ball strikers, really good tea to
Speaker 3: green guys. And then on the green that's a whole
Speaker 3: nother that's a whole nother that's a whole nother ass.
Speaker 3: That's a whole other game. Obviously, that's that's And so
Speaker 3: for you to have to have found this or this
Speaker 3: technology or this this tool that you use on the greens,
Speaker 3: has that almost like freed you up and extended your
Speaker 3: love of the game and career and pursuit of perfect
Speaker 3: Like I mean, does that almost like now that you've
Speaker 3: got this, does it now allow you to almost like
Speaker 3: you know, go work backwards from that and say, now
Speaker 3: it's like now you get to continue to be Adam
Speaker 3: Scott and contend and compete and win. And you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying is that has that been a key
Speaker 3: component to like this sort of aspect of your sort
Speaker 3: of back end of your career.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think putting, Look, putting is a key component
Speaker 1: of the game for sure. I think in yeah, my
Speaker 1: career is you know, like everyone has had a long career,
Speaker 1: it's a journey and there are times when you have
Speaker 1: to make change and you have to adapt. And you know,
Speaker 1: I'm one of the last remaining guys that turn pro
Speaker 1: with a Ballada golf ball, and you know, that's where
Speaker 1: I started playing as a pro. And now look how
Speaker 1: I'm playing, and I've made huge changes this year into
Speaker 1: you know, my driver and golf ball and the way
Speaker 1: my style of playing from teetera green and I think,
Speaker 1: although it hasn't been perfect, it's the way I need
Speaker 1: to go forward to be relevant out there playing. And
Speaker 1: I think I'm getting better and I think there's a
Speaker 1: chance that that will keep me out there being one
Speaker 1: of the best players. But certainly having my putting in
Speaker 1: such a solid place at a high level has allowed
Speaker 1: me or given me the confidence to make drastic changes
Speaker 1: elsewhere in the bag to kind of push that for
Speaker 1: that level of improvement that I need to win big tournaments.
Speaker 1: And you know, worked pretty hard over the last eighteen
Speaker 1: months with lab with a lad putter on the greens,
Speaker 1: and it's been very consistent and the results on the
Speaker 1: greens have come from that, so that's it has It's
Speaker 1: given me a lot of freedom. And look, putting and
Speaker 1: putting is one of those things that when it's not
Speaker 1: feeling good, you're in for a long day heading out
Speaker 1: to that first te you know. Yet whereas I feel
Speaker 1: like I walk out to the first tea with a
Speaker 1: sense of calm and lightness every time because I know
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put.
Speaker 3: Okay, seems like a good time to go back to
Speaker 3: Bill Pressey on the influence of a guy like Kelly
Speaker 3: Slater and then Adam Scott Kelly Slater.
Speaker 9: Oh, here we go. I mean that was out of
Speaker 9: the blue. We there's it's hard to say, you know
Speaker 9: how these these all play a role, but that was
Speaker 9: a big one. And I don't know exactly. I think
Speaker 9: he got it in Florida. I've heard various stories, you know,
Speaker 9: but there's a place in Newport Beach and uh, Carlsbad.
Speaker 9: I think it was Carlsbad Golf channer. But either way,
Speaker 9: I mean, to have a goat in any sport on
Speaker 9: your side unpaid, I just hey man, this is that
Speaker 9: was huge. And and then.
Speaker 10: Adam getting Adam to roll from from Kelly which is
Speaker 10: just an insanely cool story. You know, we even Sam
Speaker 10: and I look back at that and we start putting
Speaker 10: these together and.
Speaker 2: How lucky.
Speaker 3: Back to Adam Scott, Bill Pressey, does it. Have you
Speaker 3: ever had a conversation with him or or or talked
Speaker 3: through the technology or anything like that.
Speaker 6: No, I haven't.
Speaker 1: I've always dealt with Sam, and you know, and we
Speaker 1: have a we have a great relations and I have
Speaker 1: a huge respect for Bill, what he created and what
Speaker 1: Sam has taken on, and how deeply passionate they are
Speaker 1: about what they're doing. And and you know, I've really
Speaker 1: just tried to be kind of like a reassuring voice
Speaker 1: for them, because you know, it's for small guys in
Speaker 1: a big pond. It can be tough, and you know,
Speaker 1: they obviously think they've got the best product out there,
Speaker 1: but you know, trying to keep them calm and stay
Speaker 1: the course and and not do anything to get away
Speaker 1: from the core values of the putter and to continue
Speaker 1: to evolve it. And you know, there's no doubt I
Speaker 1: think they've done an incredible job the last couple of years,
Speaker 1: because not only a guy's using it, they're using it
Speaker 1: successfully and certainly on the tour. When anyone has some success,
Speaker 1: we all look, you know, whether it's a new shaft
Speaker 1: in Rory's driver or you know, Lucas Glover's new part,
Speaker 1: we're all looking at what they're doing to see if
Speaker 1: that's the secret.
Speaker 3: He set out to actually like try to make something
Speaker 3: that actually did what everybody else was promising, because he
Speaker 3: felt like they weren't. And now here we are twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three, Lucas doing what he's done, You doing what
Speaker 3: you've done, and then all these other players as you,
Speaker 3: as you point out, does it feel like there's been
Speaker 3: this tipping point and now you no longer have to
Speaker 3: feel like you or anybody else involved in LAB doesn't
Speaker 3: feel like they have to actually keep trying to you know,
Speaker 3: explain it or justify it or or you know it
Speaker 3: just it's doing it now. It's like it's speaking for
Speaker 3: itself to this point.
Speaker 1: Oh, I think so, And I think they should feel
Speaker 1: proud at LAB that they've got to that point. That's
Speaker 1: no easy feat, especially in the tour pro world. That's
Speaker 1: a fickle little area, you know. And I don't know
Speaker 1: that Sam would like me saying this, but I was
Speaker 1: trying to keep it a secret I I didn't want
Speaker 1: everyone to find out because look at look look at
Speaker 1: what they're doing with it. When guys are doing when
Speaker 1: we're out there, we're close enough where we can see
Speaker 1: when a guy's doing something much better all of a sudden, consistently,
Speaker 1: And you know, I think the sure a few of
Speaker 1: the guys took notice of me with the Lab putter,
Speaker 1: and you know, out of curiosity, probably checked the stats
Speaker 1: and like, oh this is good. I thought Adam wasn't
Speaker 1: a good putter, but he actually is. And you know,
Speaker 1: I guess a couple of those guys then followed through
Speaker 1: and tried it. But you know, I think it's a
Speaker 1: great story. What I do know and why I had
Speaker 1: a bit of a soft spot from the beginning was
Speaker 1: I think Bill has a connection to Australia through his
Speaker 1: father potentially or something.
Speaker 6: So there was a small connection there to me and Bill.
Speaker 1: Because on the Directed Force it's got his name on
Speaker 1: the bottom, and I've kind of had that Australian feeling,
Speaker 1: So there is some connection there to Australia.
Speaker 3: Like Sam, Bill and the entire team at Lab Golf.
Speaker 3: I certainly appreciate people like Tim Wilkinson, Von Taylor Jeff Sluman,
Speaker 3: Kelly Slater, and Adam Scott for their time and perspective
Speaker 3: on this putting technology and why it all matters to them,
Speaker 3: And they will all come back at the end of
Speaker 3: this series for some reflections in final comments, But at
Speaker 3: this point and before we get to Brett Rumford and
Speaker 3: ultimately the Lucas Glover story, I felt the need to
Speaker 3: get an independent voice in this series, someone who makes
Speaker 3: a living and has established a loyal following by being
Speaker 3: a doubter, a tester and authenticator of brands like Lab
Speaker 3: golf technology like Directed Force.
Speaker 11: So my name is Adam Beach and I'm the owner
Speaker 11: of my gof's by which I think the best way
Speaker 11: it's been said is the consumer reports of golf with
Speaker 11: a journalistic edge. I think that puts a nice bow
Speaker 11: around it for people to understand what we do. We're
Speaker 11: the only independent golf test facility in the world, meaning
Speaker 11: if golfers buy it, I want to test it so
Speaker 11: they're not wasting their money on a lot of the
Speaker 11: things that I felt they were wasting their money on
Speaker 11: for EON's.
Speaker 3: You know, when I say lab putters, what do you.
Speaker 2: Say unconventionally amazing? Why the golf industry as.
Speaker 11: A whole can get laser focused on certain things. So,
Speaker 11: for example, I'm not putting Scottie Cameron down. I'm just
Speaker 11: saying Scottie cameer putters. I call it brand Washington, you know.
Speaker 11: It creates this name, and unfortunately, unconventional things in the
Speaker 11: golf industry tend to be looked at as gadgets or
Speaker 11: not to be taken serious by the serious golfer because
Speaker 11: they don't want to go out in the course and
Speaker 11: have this infomercial product. When they pull it out of
Speaker 11: their bag and go, all of their buddies go, what
Speaker 11: the hell are you doing? You know, So it's really
Speaker 11: hard to break into this industry with such an unconventional product.
Speaker 11: It takes time, it takes wins on tour, it takes
Speaker 11: trust in the gofer to believe in something like this,
Speaker 11: more so than just some other company coming out with
Speaker 11: another Scottie Cameron or another ping answer that's easily approved
Speaker 11: by serious golfers. For a serious golfer to put this
Speaker 11: in their bag, they have to get over a major hump,
Speaker 11: and that is that this thing is ugly, you know,
Speaker 11: and that for years Goffers thought that the looks of
Speaker 11: a putter actually matter. And the interesting thing is I've
Speaker 11: been collecting data for almost twenty years on this ten
Speaker 11: really in depth let where we test putters and also
Speaker 11: get the subjective feedback, and we can then correlate those
Speaker 11: two to find out doesn't really matter and looks actually
Speaker 11: matter none to how well a putter performs. The unfortunate
Speaker 11: thing is gofer's minds can't get past that. A goffer's
Speaker 11: memory is last a long time. It's very hard for
Speaker 11: them to get over some of these these humps, and
Speaker 11: you know, lab putters is one of them.
Speaker 2: They're very unconventional, but the.
Speaker 11: Results are pretty profound and they're pretty quick because, in
Speaker 11: my opinion, putting is really difficult.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 11: Everybody knows that unless you're just one of those people
Speaker 11: that you know is a great putter. But for the
Speaker 11: most of us, we struggle. And it's because there's so
Speaker 11: many variables to putters. It's the weight, it's the length,
Speaker 11: it's the lie, it's the you know, it's the loft,
Speaker 11: it's the alignment aids, and anything that can take some
Speaker 11: of those variables out of the equation, in my opinion,
Speaker 11: help golfers right. And this putter does that from what
Speaker 11: we see in here by taking one of the really
Speaker 11: simple ones away, and that is it's really important to
Speaker 11: be square impact, meaning not facing to the right or
Speaker 11: to the left or you know, delfting or adding loft.
Speaker 11: And this potter really just takes one of the major
Speaker 11: ones out of the equation, and that's people's hands, and
Speaker 11: it keeps you really square throughout the entire stroke. And
Speaker 11: you can just watch it. I mean eighty percent of
Speaker 11: I think of our our employees here, our lab converts,
Speaker 11: you know, and that's because the data speaks for itself here,
Speaker 11: and they it just keeps switching. Every time I see
Speaker 11: a new person coming up with another lab, I'm like,
Speaker 11: what happened. I'm like, you can't argue with it, you know.
Speaker 11: It's just it's so quick, it's so you know, so
Speaker 11: many putter. Think about how many putters you've probably owned.
Speaker 2: I've owned.
Speaker 11: I have a collection of one hundreds, okay, and none
Speaker 11: of them worked, you know, none of them made me better.
Speaker 2: This one you put in your hand, and it's so
Speaker 2: fast to go.
Speaker 11: Wow, I'm getting I'm burning the edges now instead of
Speaker 11: putting it five feet to the left or by you
Speaker 11: know by I'm sinking more putts, and at the end
Speaker 11: of the day, putting is really simple. It's get the
Speaker 11: goddamn ball in the whole as fast as possible and
Speaker 11: find a product that can do that for you.
Speaker 3: Have you ever seen this thing? Have you ever put
Speaker 3: held that thing? And what are your thoughts on what
Speaker 3: they they deemed the Revealer.
Speaker 2: It's interesting.
Speaker 11: You know Bill Pressey, the guy that found it, It
Speaker 11: started it with like a crutch, right, you know, trying
Speaker 11: to figure this thing out. And he really wasn't trying
Speaker 11: to invent the lab putter. He was trying to figure
Speaker 11: out why in the hell all of his other putters
Speaker 11: didn't work.
Speaker 2: So he put it in this device and realized that.
Speaker 11: Golfers had been trained based on stroke type, you know,
Speaker 11: heavy arct slight arc, straight back, straight through. And while
Speaker 11: there are putters that can slightly help, I do think
Speaker 11: based on data, if you have a stroke in matching
Speaker 11: that with a stroke type, this takes it one next
Speaker 11: step by going even if you do match it with
Speaker 11: your stroke type, you're still having to struggle on the
Speaker 11: back and forth of a stroke to keep your hands
Speaker 11: to get it to stay square. No matter what I
Speaker 11: mean it just is physics, right, and the revealer shows
Speaker 11: that physics. So once again it's just a variable eliminator.
Speaker 11: It takes all that stuff, which, yes, you don't want
Speaker 11: to fight. You don't want to make it harder than
Speaker 11: it's needed. Meaning if you're a straight back, straight through guy,
Speaker 11: you don't want a heavy arc putter, and I don't
Speaker 11: want to get too far in the we with putter tech.
Speaker 11: But you're just making the game harder than it needs
Speaker 11: to be.
Speaker 2: But he makes it. He cuts out all that with
Speaker 2: the revealer and basically says, yes, that is true.
Speaker 11: But no matter what, watch this thing on a revealer.
Speaker 11: When you go back and forth, all these putters are
Speaker 11: just spinning. So that means your hands are the things
Speaker 11: that in your arms and your muscles are going to
Speaker 11: have to keep that from happening, whereas with the lab putter,
Speaker 11: it's one less thing you have to worry about, which
Speaker 11: is pretty important for putting staying square.
Speaker 3: In other words, this is the real deal. I mean
Speaker 3: of all the things that you guys test and see
Speaker 3: and you you run through sort of your system of
Speaker 3: revealing whether or not it's marketing or whether or not
Speaker 3: it's it's true. So to speak. This this sort of
Speaker 3: passes the my gofspy sniff test oh far.
Speaker 11: I don't want to oversell it and say it's the
Speaker 11: most amazing thing in the world, because I don't know,
Speaker 11: but it's we've.
Speaker 2: Only really tested it a couple of years.
Speaker 11: I mean, look, I've always said that golfers should stop
Speaker 11: buying wallhangers and start playing their gamer, meaning a five
Speaker 11: hundred or five thousand dollars putter from bet Nardi or
Speaker 11: Scott Cameron that looks really cool, that's great hanging on
Speaker 11: a wall, but this piece. You need technology in a putter,
Speaker 11: no different than you do a driver, and I can't
Speaker 11: imagine how gofers haven't figured that out. You know, putting
Speaker 11: is a slow science. I do understand it's three four
Speaker 11: miles an hour, not one hundred and twenty like a driver.
Speaker 11: But we've seen it even roll putters Lab putters. When
Speaker 11: there's some technology that can help a golfer get it
Speaker 11: in the hole faster, that's what the game's about, and
Speaker 11: it seems like Lab is doing that. So, I mean,
Speaker 11: it finished really well in all of our tests so far,
Speaker 11: whether it was the really crazy looking Lab won the
Speaker 11: blade that they have I mean it looks absolutely insane,
Speaker 11: but it worked.
Speaker 2: Too, and so have all the mallets.
Speaker 11: And like I said, all of our staff is switching
Speaker 11: to them because they're helping them over their score.
Speaker 3: It's just a fun story to sort of report on.
Speaker 3: And I think getting your voice and just sort of
Speaker 3: having you articulate, you know, some of the an outsider's
Speaker 3: perspective is really valuable. So thank you for that.
Speaker 11: Yeah, And I mean, at the end of the day,
Speaker 11: I think it's unfortunate. You know, golfers aren't as willing
Speaker 11: to try unconventional things. But if more golfers were willing
Speaker 11: to try this unconventional putter, I'm very confident that more
Speaker 11: golfers would sink more putts.
Speaker 3: And you drive for show and you put for dough.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 11: We put out a tweet the other day, or I did.
Speaker 11: I've been testing for so long and there's just some
Speaker 11: things you learn over time. And it was about the
Speaker 11: ping ping drivers. And I'm not saying ping is the
Speaker 11: best driver for everyone, but if everyone played a ping driver,
Speaker 11: you would see a tremendous jump in performance by a
Speaker 11: majority versus a minority. They make the best driver, not
Speaker 11: for ever for one person, but for everyone right as
Speaker 11: a whole, and I feel the same is Star need
Speaker 11: to be true with LAB. They might not be the
Speaker 11: number one performer for everyone, but they're gonna generally be
Speaker 11: better for you than almost every other plutter you've ever tried.
Speaker 6: Put another log on the fire.
Speaker 3: Nobody here is get the time.