SAM HAHN: Anybody that's a real golfer understands the more golf there is in the world and out there with different connections to game there are, at least for me personally, the more I seem to learn about myself and people, and as the game grows, I think, so do we as human beings.
MASON REED: I'm Mason Reed, and this is Invested in the Game, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Each episode, we tell the story of remarkable people who have committed their time, resources, and emotional energy into making golf the wonderful—and sometimes maddening—game that it is.
On today's episode, I'm speaking with Sam Hahn. Sam is the CEO of L.A.B. Golf, the hottest equipment company in the world right now.
L.A.B. makes custom putters out of Eugene, Oregon, and they have a remarkable story—going from an idea in a garage to a somewhat laughed-at product to being the must-have club in your golf bag, which has led to months-long waiting for many of its customers. And that was before J.J. Spaun used a L.A.B. putter to roll in an outrageous putt to win the 2025 U.S. Open. It's a very American tale of ingenuity, science, entrepreneurialism, resilience, and success. And they're just getting started.
Sam is a fascinating guy I've gotten to know recently. He runs L.A.B. with a remarkable sense of business acumen, audience understanding, company culture building, and a growth mindset. Not bad for a guy who was in the music business before L.A.B. We talk about the early days of L.A.B. being written off, how he spent his anxiety-filled weekend watching the U.S. Open, and his thoughts on what's next for L.A.B. and golf in general. Hope you enjoy hearing Sam's story as much as I did.
Sam Hahn, welcome to Invested in the Game. Thank you for being here. I know you're a busy guy, especially these days.
SAM: Thanks so much for having me, Mason. This is exciting.
MASON: We have a story structure and a way we structure these podcasts that we like, but we're going to break it momentarily. We'll call it extenuating circumstances because, as it turns out, we are recording this, coincidentally, just a couple of days after the completion of the U.S. Open. The podcast has been scheduled, I think, for about a month. So it just so happens that this is how this shook out, and for the benefit of anybody listening out there that didn't watch the U.S. Open, I just have to capture a few things because it's important when we hear Sam's take on this to understand what just transpired. But if you didn't watch it, J.J. Spaun, who ultimately won the event, was contending for most of the tournament.
And when he started on Sunday, he bogeyed five of the first six holes. And most people who are watching it probably had written him off, which statistically was probably a fair thing to do to say he's not he's not going to win. After bogeying five of the first six holes, he's standing on the ninth tee, and there's a rain delay that he later called "a gift from God." Those are his words. He then proceeded to make an unthinkable four birdies on the back nine when everybody else in the field was effectively melting down on a really tough golf course with very tough conditions after it had rained, including a capstone putt on the final hole to win the event from 65 feet, which if you're looking at statistics, is a putt that probably has a make-rate somewhere between 1% and 2% would be my guess.
SAM: You're statistically way more likely, even at the tour level, to three-putt from that distance than you are to one-putt.
MASON: Even better. So he rolls this in, wins the U.S. Open, and did all of this using a L.A.B. putter.
And if you're watching the telecast, they were talking about how many feet of putts he had made, and how that was a real difference maker, and the iconic photo, which we will now see. This is not recency bias. You will see this putt and this celebration for years and decades to come. It is it will be up there in the pantheon of U.S. Open moments, throwing his L.A.B. putter in the air and celebrating. It was absolutely incredible. So what I want to know from you, Sam, before we get into the real portion of this structured podcast is how did Sunday go for you? Were you tuned in for the whole thing? Were you doing other things? And then I want to hear how Sunday shook out for you.
SAM: So I'm generally pretty anxious about all the viewing and everything. I do tend to live and die by every putt made and missed on the tour that, you know, that was, especially when we got guys in contention. I knew it was going to be a big, uncomfortable, anxiety-producing day. So I tried to keep, you know … I was up at 5:00 in the morning, couldn't go back to bed, and got up and went, went and go hit some balls and played a few holes with my buddies. And I was just trying to keep myself as busy as I possibly could.
Yeah, and then I know myself well enough and respect my friends and family well enough to know that I should be doing this stuff alone. I don't watch these events with people anymore. And so yeah, I tucked in on the couch and watched the whole thing. And you know, we had two putters, you know, right in the mix there between J.J. and Adam, Adam Scott. And so yeah, you know, it was going to be a long day, and like everybody else, you know, the first six holes would have been as clear a message from the golfing gods as is possible saying, "Bro, today ain't your day. Great work first three days, but you don't get to win a U.S. Open today." And, you know, goes out in 40, which as it turns out, nobody's ever won the U.S. Open opening with a 40.
And then yeah, the rain delay, the moment they blew that horn, my first thought was, "Oh my God, this is so good for J.J." And because by the time, even though he had played so poorly, everybody … or he didn't play poorly; he scored poorly. Everybody had started to back up a little bit. So he was still right there. And I thought it was going to be a great reset for him. I'll spare the play-by-play of the back nine. But when it came down to that last putt—or actually slightly before that—my favorite moment of that actually was the eagle putt that he had on 17, watching that thing really have a chance and roll four feet by was a huge win, you know, for that to have been a positive stroke and a good aggressive putt.
And then to have just hearted the four-footer, you know, I mean, four-footers with that kind of pressure on greens that fast, like, they're hard. They are really, really hard. Routine didn't change. The rhythm of the stroke was beautiful. He knocked that thing right in the middle. And then when Victor's ball came to rest behind his on 18, knowing that he was going to get the read, I felt incredibly confident about a two-putt. And then about a third of the way out from the hole, I knew it was going in. I just started screaming, just screaming and screaming and screaming and yelling and "Oh my God" and screaming and woohoo. I couldn't stop. I just couldn't stop. There was just too much pent-up energy. And it must've been minutes that I was just running back and forth down my hallway screaming.
And then I came around to right here in my kitchen, and I'd noticed my porch door was open, and I was quite concerned that the EPD was going to be rolling up with a wellness check on me or something. But fortunately it didn't happen. But yeah, it was just absolutely surreal, you know.
MASON: Had people been jinxing it by texting you Friday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, saying, "So cool, J.J., J.J.!" Like, were you like, "Don't jinx it?"
SAM: No, I would say the tone of most of them was like, "Hopefully it works out," which I was appreciative of. And we've had a couple of close calls. We've been in the mix a few times down the stretch at some majors and some big events and stuff. And certainly the people around me know me well enough not to do that because I am superstitious. So it was like, "Hopefully tomorrow's a great day for you." It wasn't like, "He's got it!"
The only one that made me crazy was our president, Robert Johnson, texted me something, I think, on 17, I think before he hit the eagle putt, maybe after, I don't know, but he said, "Let's make sure we get in touch with J.J.'s team and do all this stuff." And I was just like, "Shhh …"
MASON: Stop!
SAM: Quiet.
MASON: Don't talk about it! I got to admit, I was watching it, and when he was on the 18th hole before that putt, I try to be optimistic and glass-half-full, but I thought, "Please don't three-putt this," mainly because that's like you said at the beginning of the show, that statistically, that's probably more likely a three-putt. And it's the U.S. Open. Anybody who's ever done anything competitive in golf at the recreational level, you've been at your little club playing with your buddies or in a member-guest or whatever it is, you get nervous. It is so nails to stand there and … forget making it, getting it within five feet. I mean, just getting it to give yourself a chance to two-putt.
SAM: Totally. I will say over the course of the last seven years, as I've watched different players, you know, be in contention and how they've performed and, you know, look, the putter didn't make the putt. J.J. made the putt, you know, and it's the same that goes for anybody that's ever had any success or failures with our putter. You know, the technology is a nice advantage. It helps a little bit, but ultimately it's a gut check. Ultimately, it's whether or not you can control your nerves in that moment.
And, you know, the golf gods paid him back with that putt from Victor. I mean, that had to have really helped, you know, be able to visualize because he gave that … that putt almost went in. So I'm sure that that steadied the nerves. But as I've watched people over the years, there's just a … forgive the woo woo here, but there's an aura, there's a glow, there's something of just knowing when a dude's locked in, particularly in that makeable eight-feet-and-in range. I remember there's been so many times where a guy's been over a relevant eight-footer where I'm just like, "Oh I don't know." And then there's also been a few times where it was like, "I know." I think about Richard Bland won the senior U.S. Open last year with the Directed Force putter, and he had an eight-footer to get into a playoff. It was a tough one. And there was just something about him. I just knew that that putt was going right in the middle. And I had the same feeling about J.J., especially after he made that four-footer on 17. I'm like, "If he can get this anywhere inside of eight feet, he's going to make it."
MASON: He putt the lights out, but even standing on these final holes and hitting drives into those fairways was something that most people couldn't do. You just watched it all happen unfolding in front of you, and it was just nails. So I want to do one other thing before we get back to regularly scheduled programming here with how we do these interviews. But one other thing, I want to backtrack just a bit.
Maybe three weeks or so. You are one of our Challengers this year for Charles Schwab, and we made a film about you and L.A.B. Golf, and people have probably seen that on TV, and if they haven't, quick plug SchwabGolf.com. And so because of that we asked you to play at our pro-am at the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial, and because of your connection to J.J., J.J. was in our group. I caddied for you, and because we had the podcast scheduled, and it was a time for us to get to know each other. So I carried your bag, and J.J. was in our group, and …
SAM: By the way, for anyone listening, Mason is not a very good caddie. Wonderful man. Very poor caddie.
MASON: Yeah, I know. Thank you. And that's two years in a row. I've shown up without tees, without a rangefinder. It's like the worst. I hope I was a good conversation.
SAM: Incredible conversationalist. And to your point, I think the fact that I had to be as concerned about the numbers that you were giving me distracted me from my own play probably helped quite a bit.
MASON: We could go down a whole 'nother podcast on this. Apparently my aura gave you incredible driving skills that day. You shot the lights out, by the way. I've told many people that story. So anyway, you're talking with J.J. about putting, and then hours after that pro-am was done, I just happened to be walking around, and you were on the on the green looking at his putts and working on some drills, and Mark Carens, his caddie, was there, and you all are doing your thing.
And also, as people found out during the telecast, Mark, J.J.'s caddie's father, passed away on Father's Day 2024. He just won the U.S. Open a year later on Father's Day this past weekend. And in the film for Schwab, at the very end, you say if you had to play and make a putt in the U.S. Open, you would grab a DF because it's like the OG original putter. This all to me seems extremely strange and so, so weird. I mean are there any higher powers going on here of all these dots connecting that maybe the universe just decided that this is how this was supposed to go?
SAM: God, it sure seems that way. I mean, I was actually just talking with my son about this last night and had a good old, you know, "Do you believe in God?" conversation with him, and I sure believe there's an energy out there. Is there a single, you know, being making decisions for how everything shakes out? I'm not sure, but is there something about the way that we all function together as a planet and a universe that we're not aware of? You look at something like this, and how could there not be, you know, like how could there not be?
Between J.J.'s win and then the whole L.A.B. story. I mean, it's just an extraordinary sequence of, you know, what you can crudely call lucky breaks. But the caddie's dad story and, and J.J. himself and the adversity, all of it. I mean, it's nuts. I mean, it's just absolutely nuts. And if I'm honest, I try not to think too much about it.
MASON: Hopefully he's enjoying the moment, you're enjoying the moment, and more broadly—and we're going to talk about this now when we get into your story and the L.A.B. story—the L.A.B. community, there's a community of people that are … I was going to say staunch advocates. I don't want to use the word "cult," but there's a lot of very proud L.A.B. followers and L.A.B. users out there.
SAM: We'll say ravenous fans.
MASON: Ravenous fans, great. You've told your story a few times in articles and on podcasts. I'm not sure that everybody listening to this has heard it, but your background is not a lifelong golfer that was out there since age 5 and competed in junior events and blah, blah, nor is it that you've spent 20 years in the golf equipment industry. It is very different, both from your personal experience with golf as well as your experience, or lack thereof, in the golf equipment industry, both of which have probably contributed to the success. But what's the Cliff's Notes of how you ended up becoming CEO of the hottest golf equipment company in the world right now? And I can say that without hyperbole. How did this get to where it is, and how did you get to here?
SAM: Yeah, so I knew how to play when I was a kid. My dad taught me how to play, but I wasn't like a super avid golfer. It wasn't until I moved to Oregon, which I did, I met a girl out here when I was traveling around playing music, and put down some roots, and I was always working at night. I was in the bar and music business. So I was a talent buyer for a couple of venues. I had my own little booking agency, and I was also a musician myself. And so I had nothing to do during the day. My first place in Oregon was right next to a dog-friendly golf course. I had a dog, and I just used this as an excuse to start running him around. Then I met some good players who I, you know, enjoyed their, their company. We became friends, and like, that's how you get good, right? It's just by being around good players. I got the bug in a way that is … I haven't met anybody that went full-tilt psycho golf guy as quickly as I did. I was probably like an 18 handicap when I was 21 or so, and then I was a scratch player by the time I was 23. And put up a net in the garage. I watched every broadcast. I read all the books, and mixed in there, I loved equipment. I always loved equipment. I always loved tinkering with it and screwing around with it.
Fast forward to 2017, I was at Emerald Valley, which is actually where the L.A.B. factory is now, very strong golf course out here in Eugene. The guy who was teaching there is a fellow named Bob Duncan. And he'd come across something called the Reno 2.1 made by a company called Directed Force. And he picked it up in Australia, of all places. There might have been, you know, I don't know, 700 of these putters total in the world at this point. And he brought one back to Eugene, Oregon, of all places.
He insisted I give it a shot. I had a totally profound experience with it, and I bought one myself. And then a few months later, the head fell off the putter. And so I had to send it back. And that's when I got in touch with the inventors, a guy named Bill Pressy, who's just a lifelong golf guy. He's been in every sector of the business, be it equipment, instruction, touring, all of it.
And, you know, unfortunately, probably not enough time on the pod, but I mean, Bill's story and how this ultimately, you know, was invented is extraordinary. It's an incredible story. And so he and I, you know, hit it off, and then it wouldn't have been a month or two later that Directed Force was going to close the doors. So they had the tech, but the … everything, it's hard. I mean, it's just. It's just so hard to break into the golf equipment industry.
And I … you know, my naivete on all of that served us incredibly well, because I managed to convince my brother and my dad to all go in and buy out Bill's partners and saying, "Look, if it works for me, who is this incredibly streaky, horrible putter, you know, all I got to do is get out on the PGA Tour, hand it to a few guys, and we'll get a big check from one of the big companies. Turns out it's not that simple.
And, you know, so we, yeah, we started over, we rebranded as L.A.B. That would have been officially in 2018.
MASON: Did you do that on a, I don't want to say a whim, but on a wild hair? Or were you like, "I am convinced. I know that this can become a very, very successful company." What were you thinking when you actually had to pull money together?
SAM: I was totally convinced. And for the months prior to that opportunity, I was Directed Force's greatest evangelist. I was obsessed with this putter, and, like, it answered every question that I ever had about putters, putter-fitting, and how putters are supposed to work. It answered every single one of them because, you know, while I did have a knack for understanding equipment and how it went, ultimately, I didn't have enough confidence in my own belief to disagree with decades-old narratives about how putters work and how you're supposed to move them. Seeing how Bill's putter performed in the revealer validated every thought I ever had about toe-hang putters, face-balance putters, and everything. So I knew there was something here. It was not a whim. It was not a, "Eh, it seems like a cool thing. Let's do it." Like I was already like super in.
MASON: Got it.
SAM: I mean, super, super, super in.
And my dad and my brother also were. I insisted that they get into the putter, and they had some big-time experience with it. And my friends who grabbed it, everybody I knew who was getting it was like, "Huh, this is different." I knew just through that small few months of convincing God-knows-how-many people to buy a $500 putter sight-unseen that looked terrible.
Besides just the chassis itself, the branding looks cheap and weird, and it looked like an infomercial product. So now all of sudden I've got some confidence in my ability to pitch this thing. And so I didn't think it was going to be that hard.
MASON: So you had high confidence, but you didn't really know what it would take to get the rest of the world to know what you knew. But you had confidence in the product and the science and its ability to, you know, make the putter face more square, all the things that it does at its core.
SAM: Absolutely. Yeah, exactly.
MASON: So for people listening—I always say my mom, I hope she's listening—who don't play golf, a bag of golf clubs has 14 clubs, and the putter, over time, is the one that seems the simplest. It, you know, there's still people today that could arguably use a 30-year-old putter, and they're not … they might be totally fine using that putter. They could not use a 30- or 40-year-old driver, much less, you know, any other technology. In layman's terms, what had Bill figured out that cracked the code on putters that made a difference that is ultimately a big part of the L.A.B. story.
SAM: So for the non-golfing layman, the best way that I can explain it is that up until 2013 when Bill came upon lie angle balance, if you think of it in terms of cars, every single car ever built had been built with poor alignment, to have the car pulling 45 degrees to the left if you let go of the steering wheel. Of course, we have the strength in our forearms and hands and fingers and everything to, even with a misaligned car, drive the car straight. But Bill figured out that ultimately it's a lot easier to drive a car straight when it's aligned properly. That's the best way to explain what lie angle balance does. You no longer need to fight the face. Rather than keeping the putter face square, now all of a sudden you just kind of let the putter face stay square.
MASON: Got it. So it goes without saying, you still have to … you're … just like you were saying about J.J., you have to read a green, and you have to you have to know speed, know distance. But, at least with respect to not having to do more work to square the face through the putt, the putter is going to help you out doing that because of because of its engineering.
SAM: Exactly.
MASON: Got it. This is just as an aside, having spent some time with you, I feel
indirectly pressure that you feel putting, as if everybody thinks it's some magic thing that you will just make every … or you especially as the CEO of the company, but anybody with a L.A.B. putter, I feel like it's this pressure that you now are better than other people. I can some ways, I step up to that. I … when I'm using a L.A.B. putter, but do you feel that people unfairly judge your putting because of who you are in the company?
SAM: Oh, hell yeah. I absolutely, and I wish I had a highlight reel of like, or a low-light reel rather, of what my putting looked like pre-L.A.B. so that even when I putt average, you know, I can explain to people how much better this is. I mean, it used to be bad. I mean, real, real bad. Like I, I mean, I was switching putters every round intentionally just to ride a honeymoon into my next round, even if I putted well. So yes, I totally feel that pressure.
I would say in the last year or so, it's gotten a little lighter.
MASON: Well, J.J. just lifted a lot off your shoulders. Now he's like, don't look at me. Look at him.
SAM: 100%. And the validation now is really there on almost every level to the point where I don't need to go around in 24 putts to prove the tech works. And early on, like, it was really tough because not only were people judging, waiting for me to putt well, some honest people wanted me to putt bad because golfers are stubborn, and they don't like change, and they don't like being told "10 more yards" every year for 30 years straight. And they don't like gimmicks, and they don't like infomercials. And there we were, we were selling hope, and there's a skepticism there.
And so people, yeah, every time, and not even just with me, every time on tour, like somebody misses a four-foot putt with a couple holes to play with a Newport, you're not going to see a single comment saying, "See, Scotty Camerons don't work." If they miss it with a L.A.B., that's every single comment, you know, is like, "See, it's snake oil." And so, yeah, there's a lot of pressure. Honestly, that pressure has made me a better putter. I did pretty good at Colonial …
MASON: You did great. In fact, you rolled one in on their 18th hole, and it was the only hole where we had this ginormous crowd of people—everywhere else were kind of by ourselves—and you rolled in an absolute bomb, and I could just see that you were thinking, "Thank goodness. Right now I'm under the microscope here, and I just rolled in a 30-footer."
So you've had, I think, you've called them "sliding doors" moments, but you've also had these interesting things that have happened through the years that are all part of the journey to where the company is today. At one point, Kelly Slater, the famous all-time greatest surfer was putting out of his mind at Pebble, and some of the PGA Tour pros saw him doing that, and that led you to Adam Scott, and Adam Scott was then using your putter. You've had all these moments.
When did, though, the company start to see this large-scale success where, all of a sudden, you're having conversations to put it into big box stores like PGA Superstore, where you're getting large orders, and it goes from a little bit under the radar to "Man, this is real deal now. We're on the scene"? When did that start to happen, and how did that happen?
SAM: Yeah, it's been incredibly, like just perfectly incremental. You know, the golf industry is littered with great products that, you know, catch fire and catch lightning in a bottle and can't meet demand. And that story doesn't end well. And so, yeah, it's been piece by piece. I think I actually remember very vividly in 2019 is when I met Adam. That was when we got him the putter that he ultimately led the Masters through two rounds in 2019 with a conventional-length one that was the big branding iron, and it wasn't a sweeper putter. That definitely put us on the map that year. But it was still fairly slow going after that. Yeah, and we'd been ringing on all the doorbells trying to get us in there. And I actually remember exactly a year later at Riviera, wedging myself into this like back corner of the locker room because it was the only place I could get cell phone reception, talking to the folks from Superstore. You open up a couple doors to start with Superstore. They're not ordering 30 at a time for every one of their locations. And so that was kind of the beginning. I would say 2020 is when we really started to see some momentum.
And then with COVID, like for the rest of the golf industry, but even more so for us, I mean, was an incredible opportunity for us because the entire world just started looking at their phones, and our entire existence was on Instagram and Facebook. I mean, that was, you know … we didn't have any marketing dollars, so we weren't making commercials. And, you know, it was just me online, you know, arguing with putting gurus and skeptical customers, and that, I think, really drew a lot of attention to us and ultimately helped open a lot of doors.
MASON: Also, I wanted to ask you about the … what do we call them? Feverish fans? Is that the nice word?
SAM: Ravenous.
MASON: Ravenous.
SAM: Rabid? I don't know.
MASON: Rabid? Ravenous? Is that also when that started because you have the opportunity to … unlike larger manufacturers, you yourself and the company can talk directly to golfers and fans through social media and through other community channels? Is that when that started? I mean, I know that there's sometimes debate, but was that was the idea that there was a group of fans, was that COVID-inspired induced or …?
SAM: No, it started before that. It started instantly. Because as I look back on it, it's like the emotional bond that people created with their putters because … especially when we were small and nobody from nowhere and nobody on tour was using it. If you showed up with a $450 putter that looked like the Directed Force did, like, you're going to take a lot of **** from your friends, you know, like, and everybody did. And I think there's like this almost like trauma bond, you know, that all of our customers had with their putters. They had to defend it. They had to putt well with it in order to, you know, validate spending this money on this, you know, gimmick-looking thing.
MASON: That's probably an important point for us to make for people listening. I should have. If you don't know what a L.A.B. putter looks like, they don't look like standard putters. They are shaped differently. Some of them are oversized. Some of them are look like they're from Star Wars or Star Trek. So that's such an interesting point. I just call that out that not everybody may know how different they looked.
SAM: Totally. I mean, especially the original one.
MASON: The original one. Right.
SAM: The original one was … my nickname for it when I first got it, and everybody had a nickname for their Directed Force putter, mine was Dark Helmet from Spaceballs. You know, looks like that's pretty much what it looks like.
MASON: Yes, "comb the desert." So I love that point, though, that if you were leaning in and saying, "This is my putter," it came with some responsibilities that you have to putt well. People ask you questions about it. They're saying, "Why don't you just use these other ones that are perfectly fine?" And OK. So and then that is in that bred, you know, almost an advocacy in a community.
SAM: For sure. And given like the nature of just, you know, online culture in general, social media culture in general, so many arguments, you know, those first four years, you know, with skeptics and all of that. And between the personal experiences that everybody had, as well as sort of, you know, my accessibility, Bill's accessibility, you know, like everybody knew we didn't have a marketing budget. They knew that they needed to help us out. They were rooting for us. They were rooting for a proper American-dream story where a guy has a vision and a dream and makes an invention and, you know, partners with somebody to help bring it to the world. Like this is Hollywood stuff, you know, and people loved being a part of that journey. And like, I mean, since J.J.'s win, there's been this wonderful seal floating around the internet that said, you know, "I had a L.A.B. before J.J. won the U.S. Open" and …
MASON: I just saw it right before we got on the podcast. I just saw it, and I was like, "I need to get a hold of it."
SAM: It's so good, you know, and they're not wrong. They do own this company, like all of these people that helped, you know, lift us to where we are now. Like we could not have done it without them. We could not have done it without the L.A.B. rats community. And it makes a moment like this so much more exciting, you know, like to share it with hundreds of thousands rather than the people in the office, you know, it's just so special. I mean, this was an it-takes-a-village kind of moment here.
MASON: I guess there's probably … I didn't mean to do this, but there's probably a clunky music metaphor here, which is that you love a band, and they're just under the radar, and you love them, and you follow them, and you know them. And all of a sudden, next thing you know, they're playing the Super Bowl. And like, "That's my … those are my guys. That's my gal."
SAM: Totally. And like, which comes with its downsides too, where like, you know, a lot of the OGs like are kind of a little mad now, and it's all mainstream, and yeah, it's popular, right? So being popular always comes with a few guys that never want to buy into it. Even though we all secretly listened to Dave Matthews when nobody was around, we didn't say that out loud, or whatever your pop culture guilty pleasure may have been.
MASON: Exactly. It's a great segue. I want to talk to you about getting big.
I think most people would say if they have a business, you're either growing or you're not. One of these like oversimplified adages. You've reached a point where you do a lot of custom work where people can order directly from you, and those orders can take a little while because you're building custom putters. You also sell ones stock. If you walk into a PGA Superstore or a golf club, you can buy this. And a lot of times they're sold out. Sometimes they're backordered. And this is the burden of success.
Tell me a little bit about your thoughts and or concerns about getting big. You know, I can assume what a lot of them are, just the natural journey of a company going from small and soulful and having the, you know, fans like you talked about. But what are you thinking about day-in and day-out of just getting big and how you try to mitigate risk of losing some of the things are so critical to you personally and to the company.
SAM: Yeah, I mean, think that we have the luxury of it being a custom product that, I think, does give us a little bit more leeway around the sort of public sentiment and frustrations around, you know, the lead times and them always being out of stock. You know, SeeMore is a good example where, you know, in their previous ownership, when Payne Stewart won the U.S. Open, you know, there was millions of dollars' worth of orders that by the time, you know, they had gone through a couple of cycles with different foundries in China, they showed up and everybody kind of, you know, had moved on, and that's because they were sitting there waiting for a boat to come in from China.
In our case, like most people at this point know this is a handmade product. Even the stock stuff has to be hand-balanced. So think we get a little bit of wiggle room there. It's also important to stay present with the fact that this is a moment in time.
We've done made some, really, really smart choices about our manufacturing that can't happen overnight at this scale, but we're well on our way. You know, we were, regardless of what happened with J.J., we were already sold out, in a perpetual state of sold out, and we'd already had measures in, you know, in the works to meet the demand. And you know, and more specifically to your question, kind of how do you maintain the specialness that is L.A.B. and the quality that is L.A.B. and the perfection that is L.A.B., you know, on a larger scale?
You know, one of the sort of accidental and retrospectively wise decisions that we made was not to bring in a bunch of golf industry folks. You know, the foundational management team of L.A.B. were golf nuts. We were consumers. And so, you know, all of the questions of like, "Why is it so hard for them just to make it in different colors?" Or "Why is it so hard for them to, you know, make different sightlines?" or whatever, we answered all of those questions and made our product and our production process around it.
And it wasn't until very recently that we brought in some golf industry professionals, and the momentum that we had in the L.A.B. ethos was so deeply ingrained that there wasn't an opportunity to start rolling it back. There wasn't an opportunity to just …
MASON: So they can be additive at this point rather than …
SAM: Correct.
MASON: … disrupt your culture and things like that. Got it.
SAM: Exactly.
MASON: So I want to continue that thought, which is just a quick detour that I have to ask you because I've always wanted to know this. When you think about professional golfers and golf equipment generally, you would think because they're basically independent contractors—they play for a living—that they would pick whatever clubs they thought would help them win.
But the cynical side of me thinks that somebody can be paid to play a golf club that may not exactly be the one they would choose on their own. And I always admire, I don't remember who it was, like Brooks Koepka, somebody had a mutt bag where they had gone and just picked the clubs they wanted, which to me meant they weren't taking money. They were picking hand … they had all these different manufacturers. They had a TaylorMade driver and some other kind of irons and whatever.
Is that a sad truth of the professional golf world that, as part of their compensation, some of them just simply have to be paid to use a golf club that may not, I'm sure it doesn't hold them back, but may not be exactly what they would choose if they just chose whatever they wanted.
SAM: I think in some cases it's definitely not what they would choose, and they get stuck. And I think, you know, all of the, you know, massive increase in purses over the course of the last three years has definitely given birth to a lot less equipment contracts. You know, there's enough to play for that the guys don't need to do it.
But you know, like, there's a lot that goes into it, like having a relationship with one of the big OEMs. Like, yeah, you're getting paid, but more than that, like they, you know, when you develop a relationship with one of these, rather than having a full mutt bag, like the support you get out on tour goes a long way. Like if you're a full, you know, TaylorMade staffer, you know, that team that runs that tour truck and, and, you know, all the stuff …
MASON: They're with you year-round. They're adjusting your clubs. They're letting you try new things. Yeah.
SAM: Exactly, you know, so there's some, there's some merit, you know, to that. Putters, I think it's really silly. It's not silly for somebody to take money for a putter. It's silly for somebody to go looking for a putter contract. Find the putter you like and, you know …
MASON: And then call the company and say, "I really love using your putter." And they say, "No problem."
SAM: Exactly, exactly. But yeah, I mean, that's another kind of lucky break where pre-L.A.B., you know, kind of '05 through 2015, equipment contracts were crazy. I mean, every company was paying anything that anybody would ask in order to, you know, have a contract and get it done. And particularly at the lower level of the game, like when, you know, like one of the OEMs has, and I don't have the details exactly right, but I think if you play 25 straight events or finish the season with 25 plays or something like that, you get a $30,000 bonus. This is on the Nationwide Tour, Korn Ferry Tour, or whatever. For most of those guys, $30,000 is huge. Like, it's absolutely massive. And even on the PGA Tour, the bottom 90 players, like, they don't know if they have a job next year. And so, you know, putting a few extra bucks in the bank, it's a thing. Where we got lucky again was we were the only, up until very recently, we were the only ones with the technology. So if you really did believe that it was going to help you make one poor putt a tournament, which by the way, one putt at the end of every tournament by the end of the year is worth millions, we were fortunate enough to get some people to give it a try.
MASON: If people listening haven't been to a golf tournament, a professional golf tournament, they haven't seen that on a practice putting green where the professionals are practicing their putting in the middle of the tournament, the manufacturer, people who make the putting equipment, are often there with their putters out, and you have to be credentialized, I believe, to be able to go do that.
So do you find that pros kind of grab different putters and tinker around when they're doing that, and they walk up, and they've got their putter, but they're like, "Oh, I'm going to walk over and try this thing." Or do they do that in private when they're back at home? Is that a public thing that they may grab a few different manufacturers of putters in the middle of a tournament and a practice round?
SAM: It's pretty individual. I mean, there's, there's, there's some guys … I mean, one of the guys that's so funny is, Eric Cole is a, you know, great putter and great player. And he doesn't actually switch putters very often, but he will grab almost every single putter on the, on every single staff bag every week. It's just part of, you know, he just likes it. He likes to screw around with it. In our case, I can say, you know, when I was the guy that was humping the bag around on tour, you know, for those first three or four years, and I was always the first one there, and I was always the last to leave. It was my company. I had nothing else to do. That's the reason that I was there. It was not my job. Whereas all the reps typically showed up at 9:00 and left at 4:00 or 5:00. All of the bites that we would ever get happened before all the other reps and before the other players showed up. They definitely did not want to be seen grabbing a L.A.B. putter.
MASON: It's amazing.
SAM: Like one of my favorite moments where I kind of realized that that was going to be our sweet spot was the first, you know, kind of time, not a household name, but for me, a household name was in Reno in 2018. The sun's going down, and the only rep on the green, and there's not even a player there until eventually Vaughn Taylor walks up, and Vaughn's got his SeeMore putter, and he's sitting there trying to roll in three footers and missing half of them and really, really struggling. And I showed him the putter.
We had a great conversation. There was nobody around giving him **** for, you know, pulling out the branding iron and he ended up finishing second that week and keeping his tour card. And so my whole thing was always like, first to show, last to leave. Now it's a little different. Now people particularly, you know, I've been getting reports from …
MASON: Yeah, you're not so much under the radar anymore.
SAM: Totally. And I, my guy, Joe Mira, who's out on tour with us every week, you know, been texting me all week, just saying how many more guys, you know, particularly even some high-profile players who never come anywhere near our bag, all of sudden are giving them a wiggle and …
MASON: Looking over the fence a little bit to see if maybe it … maybe I'll just, maybe I'll try it? These professionals are so good, and they know whether or not a putter is going to help them or hurt them. They can feel it, and they can see results. This is not, you know, a mystery or some weird amorphous thing. It's like you either, you're either putting well or not.
SAM: Yeah, the ball either goes in or it doesn't. Yeah.
MASON: Yeah. A couple things about the future. So the tech is real. The tech is real. But I'll try to use a separate example. Like the tech in a Swiss watch or Rolex or something is also real. But the vast majority of people buying one of those watches are not swimming down or going in a submarine down to the Titanic, checking the pressure on it. They're buying it for a different reason. There's an old saying, "People aren't rational. They rationalize."
L.A.B. seems, and you can tell me if you disagree with it, but seems like at its core, there's rational value. There's science. There's engineering, the things that we already talked about. But it's also a community. It's a concept. It's being different. It's taking pride in maybe being independent. I there's a lot of other intangible layers wrapped around it and people may be buying into something that's bigger than the technology, which leads me to think that if you agree with that, there's a future where you could sell more things with those attributes overlaid onto it.
So you certainly could sell a hat, or you could sell a golf polo or anything else because of other, the other reasons people buy into that. Basically the elasticity of your brand. How long until you start to … or are you already thinking like that? Are you starting to figure out how L.A.B. is defined in a world that is more than balanced putters and square faces and what that can mean to people?
SAM: Sure. I mean it's funny, like I've I have never been able to relate with the head-cover collecting customer. Like I'm just not that guy. I've never, I never did it. I'm a function-over-form golfer. And but we got people in the company now who do. And, you know, I used to … it used to always feel a little exploitative, frankly. And it wasn't until I got into the business and saw the absolute joy that it brings some of our customers to have one of 300 limited-release head covers and how much fun they have collecting. I mean, sure, it's not my jam in golf, but I have other aspects of my life that I can relate. And so, sure, we want to do that, but I think that you just got to keep in mind that that's for the customers.
I get a little upset when we see, you know, like when we make a release, and we get feedback, he's like, "Oh, you know, freaking L.A.B., $150 for a head cover. That's ridiculous. You know, they're just gouging and trying to grab their money." Like 300 head covers at 150 bucks a piece is not …
MASON: You're not retiring early on that.
SAM: That's not a margin enhancer. That's not a, you know, that's just a fun thing that we do because, you know, to honor our customers and to honor different events and stuff like that. It's not gouging. It's not a, it's not a money grab. It's just fun. And it takes a lot.
Like it takes a lot of work to get those designs right and to find the right manufacturer for them and stuff like that. So we'll do some of that. Where I'm looking forward to sort of taking our brand vibe out for a spin is that there are other technologies out there. And this won't be for years, but there are other technologies outside of putting but into irons, wedges, woods, shafts, all this stuff where it's hard to find the right person to tell the story, and we're really good at explaining technology. And we've also built a level of trust with the golf consumer that, even if it looks a little funny, it probably works. If L.A.B. is putting their logo on it, it might work. I think back to square drivers. And so Nike and Callaway were both in that race to release the …
MASON: Sasquatch driver back in the day.
SAM: Yeah, the Sasquatch and the FT-5, I think it was called, from Callaway, which by the way is like one of the most underrated fairway woods of all time. It's awesome. Their three, the FT-5 three wood was phenomenal. But everybody lost their minds, you know, like all their customers lost their minds about how ugly it was and how stupid it sounded and whatever. And you know, just because they were used to classic-looking golf clubs coming out from the manufacturers that they'd grown to know and trust.
In our case, people are expecting us to put out weird stuff. You know, they're, expecting us to prioritize function over form. And that's an incredible asset that we need to be careful with. We need to make sure that we don't ever try to sell 10 more yards for the sake of selling 10 more yards. And the way that we think we accomplish that is just by staying so committed to the R&D department driving our product rather than the marketing department. And I think that a lot of these larger OEMs who are two, three, four generations removed from their founders start to lose sight of that. They start to lose sight of the fact that their companies were founded on the idea that they had a better mousetrap, not that there was a market-share opportunity. And so I think if we kind of stay there and gear our products around that rather than exploiting the fact that we've got a cool logo and a hot moment here, I think L.A.B. will be really safe for years to come.
MASON: I love it. Just one or two more questions. You mentioned to me in person, and you mentioned at the beginning of this discussion, that you're tightly wired. Given where the company is at, are you having fun?
SAM: Oh yeah. I actually set a sort of an intention at the beginning of this year where, my girlfriend and, and in my family, I mean, are always just working so hard to try and get me to relax. And I realized at a certain point that that was just not feasible. You can't do what we do and be relaxed. It's just, it's too hard. It's too much, and it's too special an opportunity and too special a moment to, you know, prioritize physical comfort over taking this thing as far as it can go. What I can do is I can have fun. And so even if it's not relaxed fun, it's still fun. And so, you know, the thing I did with you was so much fun. God, was that fun. And the following week, I did it again at Memorial. And you know, I'm always getting invites to member-guests and, you know, and fun speaking engagements and stuff like that. So yeah, I'm trying to enjoy all of that stuff and get out of the office and, and, and drink up, you know, kind of what we've done and what we've accomplished.
MASON: You're still working when you do that in fairness to your point, though.
SAM: Oh, for sure.
MASON: It's like you're declining the opportunity to relax, but you are embracing the opportunity to have fun. But when you're doing that, you're working.
SAM: Working hard.
MASON: You're talking to players, you're at the putting green, you're talking to your tour guys that are at all the events. So you figured out it seems like a good cocktail where you could get out there and have fun, but you're, you're still grinding out there.
SAM: Absolutely. And like I'd be a fool not to. This is too special and too incredible an opportunity for me and the 225 employees at L.A.B. to let our guard down and, you know, start sleeping longer hours. But yeah, man, I won't know how I'll feel in a week, but I will say the journey from being absolutely nobody from nowhere, and this company being stuffed in the corner of PGA Tour putting greens and literally getting laughed at seven years ago, being sabotaged seven years ago, being just bullied, frankly, to this moment where Joe's out there getting handshakes from every rep and every player out on tour saying "Congratulations." It's such a journey. It's such an incredible thing. And it's one of the first deep-breath moments I've ever had in this whole thing.
You know, when, when that putt went in … and, you know, L.A.B. is now like, like you said, I mean, that putt, you know, and it's J.J. that is immortalized in that thing. But if you look off to the corner of, you know, J.J.'s immortalized moment …
MASON: There's a putter in midair.
SAM: There's a putter in midair, and to me, it puts a nice bow on phase one, you know, from, from absolutely nothing start-up, crazy nonsense to being a small part of a major championship victory at one of the toughest venues in history. Being in all the stores, everybody knowing who we are, nobody needing to search what putter is that. Phase one is complete. We did it, and now we're excited to utilize our position in the industry to see just how far we can go, how much more help we can be to our customers and to our tour players.
MASON: I love it. Well, you and the 200 plus employees should be so proud, and I hope you take … I know you can't relax, but take five minutes or more—I'm sure you already have—and just enjoy the moment. It's, it's, it's remarkable. Last thing. When you look into your crystal ball, and you've described yourself in different moments as a golf nerd, as a golf psychopath, as somebody that thinks this game is absolutely incredible for so many different reasons.
When you look into your crystal ball about the game of golf, not L.A.B., although just broadly, what gives you optimism about golf? When you think about golf into the future, what gives you optimism? What are you excited about?
SAM: I mean, I think that if the powers that be play their cards right, as we head into a much more automated world that, ultimately in theory, should provide people with more time, you know, in their days and in their lives, I think if the powers that be can make the game accessible, I think that the sort of existential journey that is everyone's relationship with this game is only going to get that much more exciting and that much more interesting.
I think that there's so much more to learn. God, is there so much more to learn about the game and about ourselves through the game. And as the different little corners of the golf world expand into, whether it's simulator golf or night golf or putt-putt golf or any of the different activities that we can engage in that ultimately get all of us so frustrated because we're positive that that ball was supposed to go straight and it didn't, I think we're to learn about the game. We're going to learn about ourselves. We're going to learn about life more. I mean, that is the magic in golf.
Anybody that's a real golfer understands golf, as in life, and the more golf there is in the world and out there with different personality types and different connections to game there are, at least for me personally, the more I seem to learn about humanity, myself, and people, and all of it. As the game grows, I think so do we in our evolution as human beings.
MASON: What an incredible full circle that we started at the beginning talking about higher forces at work with everything that led up to the Father's Day putt at the U.S. Open. And now we're talking about golf as a force for good and understanding ourselves and humanity. This one's got deep. I love it.
SAM: Sorry.
MASON: Sam, good luck with everything. I'm glad we got to meet. I appreciate your time of coming onto the podcast. And I, like tens of thousands of other people out there, am very optimistic and happy about the success that you've had to date and also the next chapter. So congrats on that, and thanks again for coming on.
SAM: Thank you so much for having me, Mason.
MASON: So that's it for us today. Thanks for listening. You can check out Sam's Schwab film at SchwabGolf.com. You can follow Lab Golf on Instagram @LabGolfPutters. Or visit their site online at LabGolf.com.
For all of Schwab's golf content, our films, tournament news, and promotions, check out SchwabGolf.com. If you've enjoyed the show, which we hope you did, we'd be really grateful if you'd leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, a rating on Spotify, or feedback wherever you listen.
We'll be back in two weeks for our season-ending episode with Ben Griffin, PGA Tour star and winner of the 2025 Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial Country Club.
For important disclosures, see the show notes or schwab.com/TheGame.