LAB’s NEW Heel-Shafted OZ.1i vs Center-Shafted: Which Is Better?

LAB Golf just dropped the brand new OZ.1i HS (heel-shafted) putter, and we’re putting it head-to-head against the original OZ.1i (center-shafted) to see which one really performs. We also break down the entire LAB putter lineup — including the DF3, MEZZ.1, MEZZ.1 MAX, and LINK.1 — making this the ultimate LAB Golf putter buyer’s guide.

But the biggest story might be something no other putter company is doing… LAB’s custom fitting process. Using their adjustable fitting putter and lie-angle degree meter, LAB can dial in specs to the exact degree for your stroke. It’s a level of customization you won’t find anywhere else in golf.
If you’ve been wondering which LAB putter is right for you, or if the new OZ.1i HS really makes a difference, this is the video you need to watch.

⛳️ Which LAB putter would you game? Drop your thoughts in the comments!

Follow us on social media!
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@embersgolf
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EmbersGolf/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/embersgolf/

https://embersgolf.com
Embers Golf
7705 W 108th Ave
Westminster, CO 80021

#LABGolf #PutterFitting #GolfEquipment

We got the brand new Oz HS model. You guys have seen it. It’s been all over the place. It’s the first one that Lab has come up with that isn’t center shafted. Let’s dive in to Lab putters. Let’s hit them. Let’s test them. And then let’s talk about pricing and what putter is going to be for which player. But stick around cuz we’re going to tell you something that Lab is doing that no other putter company is doing. Once you see this, you’re going to want to do it. It makes buying a putter so much easier than the competitors. So, here we have the original Oz with the insert that everybody’s used to seeing over the past few months. There is some subtle differences here in the back of the putter. That’s pretty much going to be because this one is center shafted. So, you need a spot for this to mount inside the putter head. This one is the heel mount. So, that gets rid of a lot of that weight right here. And they’re able to move some of that back. So, you can see a little bit of the difference there over the top. What’s the same about these putters? Well, you still have the twoderee shaftling optional on this putter only. You still have the milled face, which is going to give you that more Scotty Cameron feel off the putter face cuz a lot of guys don’t like that aluminum tink that comes from the other models. But then the true consistency of the face balance. Alex, I think we might need to throw this in the revealer. Yeah, let’s try it. Okay, so they should still both be the same face balance. So, it should still have the same help as far as straight forward, straight back, keeping your hands out of it as much as possible to try and get that face as square as possible at impact to stop pushing and pulling putts, especially in that 15 ft and in lab in general, is going to help so many guys inside that 15 ft mark. You have a 6 7 8 10t putt and you’re missing it by hitting the lips and just pushing and pulling it. That’s where this putter can save you so much. Cuz if you start it on your line and you have the read right, this putter is going to put it on the line. Now, your hands are still at play, so you could still miss them, but you know what I mean. Almost looks like it was tested. So, this one we’ve put in our revealer we’ve made. This one we just unwrapped out of the plastic. Something’s been in there. Okay, so we got our revealer here. Now is the time. Moment of truth. You seeing that, Alex? A little bit. There’s a little bit of movement now. Not much, but a little bit. Let’s get the regular Oz in here and see if that one has any movement. Now, if anybody has qualms with our revealer, we’ve begged. We’ve wanted a revealer so bad, and it got to the point where we just made our own because we weren’t getting one. That’s definitely less. That’s not moving at all. No, definitely less. That one didn’t budge, but now it still wasn’t bad. Should we put a regular mallet in there so people can see? Yeah. Now, this should give us a good demonstration of what a normal putter does in a revealer. the tow hang and everything on that gives it so much weight that it just it really moves around a lot. So, if you don’t have that steady stroke, that’s what your putter is doing. Now, obviously, you’re going to have grip pressure, you’re going to hold the face more controlled, but as you know, it doesn’t take a whole lot to get a putt offline. I mean, we’re talking a degree could make a putt miss by a couple inches at 10 15 ft. Even though it had a little bit of movement, it was still better than I think almost any other putter that we’ve put in the revealer. Even if we look back, Alex, you might be able to clip some of the um square to squares we took from Callaway. We put those in the re revealer. Those had quite a bit of movement. So, it’s still better, I think, than the competition. But, let’s roll a couple. What I love about the Oz, especially with the insert, is you get that same tick that everybody’s used to, whether they’re playing a Ping or a Scotty Cameron or a milled Bardi, anything that’s that mil face. You’re not going to get that that sound that you get from the regular lab um lab putters. This one feels really good. It’s a really solid putter. Now, let’s roll a couple with the HS model. First off, right out of the gate, I love the way this one looks compared to the center shafted. The way that this bends and comes out of your line of sight from standing over the top of it and seeing the top of the putter like a traditional putter without the shaft going center, that’s huge for me. I I like that the way that looks so much more. It just seems more like what I’m used to. I don’t think it’s better or worse. I just think it’s more like what my eye is more more used to seeing. I like the alignment marks on the blue one better, though. Yes, having the lines go all the way back. I much I much prefer that. Let’s roll a few. I mean, it rolls very true. I think this putter is going to be really big for the lab lineup. The biggest reason the Oz came into the field and really took over for the last few months in my opinion is you had the lab technology in a normal looking putter head. So this is a shape that we’re used to seeing whether it was it’s the Odyssey, we’ve seen this shape in the putting field for a lot of years. So this is a lot easier for guys to get behind than let’s say the DF3 or even the MEZ. This is much more to what people are used to seeing. If they could figure out a way to do that in the DF3, game changer. So, the link is going to be the blade putter. Now, whether you do you’re doing stock off the shelf or a custom putter, the price changes a little bit, but most of them are the same price. So, if you’re doing the Link, the MEZ, the MEZ Max, the DF3, uh the Oz, the regular Oz, not the insert model, those are all going to be roughly about the same price. So, you’re choosing m mainly on aesthetic. So, the link, let’s start there. You have the blade putter that’s going to give you the technology of a square to square putter. That straight back, straightforward technology, but in that blade. If you’re that golf purist and you like everything to look original, you like that look of that blade. You like the think to think of Tiger and his prime hitting that that Scotty Cameron, that’s going to be way more to what you’re used to. And it gives you some of that technology. The issue with that is it’s still a blade. So the bigger the putter head gets, the more forgiveness, the more that MOI moves towards the back of the putter, the more forgiveness you’re going to have. So the link is going to be for that purist that wants that blade look, but a little bit of that technology, and it’s a good fit for that. It helps you make more putts. So here we have the Mez Max and the Mez are going to be the same shape, just different sizes. This putter here is going to be more like that fang style. So it’s more of a hybrid between the blade and the DF3. Now, this came out before the Oz, obviously. So, this is going to be more of that traditional putter shape. It’s still definitely different. Have you ever seen this putter shape? I hate it. Yeah. So, it’s supposed to be that fang style, but it’s not. Obviously, it is the fang style, but it’s not what you’re used to when you think of like this guy here when we grab our Odyssey AI number seven. It’s not that. No, I think that’s the kind of putter I use. Yeah, they were going for this and this is what they got. It’s not that, but you do get some of that MOI to the back. It’s still face balanced, which means it should be pretty square when you’re going back and forth and it’s going to give you more forgiveness. So, if you can’t get behind the big DF3 or the Oz doesn’t suit your eye, this is going to be your model. The most popular model in the lab category in my opinion. It’s what you see on tour. Guys like JJ Spawn, Ricky Fowler, all these guys are using this putter. Even Ricky Fowler went to the DF2, I believe, to 2.1 or something like that. You’ll have to check and see which one he’s actually using. But this is my personal DF3. I’ve used this for a long time. Tinkering with some other stuff. The biggest thing people have to get behind is the shape of this. Um, it’s not a shape that I like. It’s not a shape that I was seeking out, but it did help me make more putts inside 10 ft. My biggest qu is being so it’s aluminum is you sometimes get a ting sound, especially when you’re doing like a Texas wedge or a bigger swing. And I don’t really like that. I like that softer thud. That’s where the Oz comes in. I think the Oz technology, if they were able to do a milled face in the DF3, I think that would be huge. And maybe that’s something they’re working on. I don’t know, but that would be my first thing that I would want in this putter. Again, you have the two° shaffling on all these putters, which is going to help you get that forward face, get that ball rolling, that front spin going to be a huge pro. And you can pick up the ball with this. So maybe if you have back problems and stuff like that and you want to be able to pick it up easily, that helps. Regardless of which lab head shape and style you choose, you can customize these to a T. You can choose the color of the head. You can choose all the different alignment lines. You can choose the the shaft, whether it’s the stock black shaft or you do the Acra. The TPTs have been on back order for a while, but you can fully dial these in. Now, where this comes into play in a big role, I think with the cost of the putter that you’re already playing and how long people play their putters, I think getting fit is is super important with this. Why that’s so important is some guys stand further from the ball, some stand closer to the ball, some have different lengths, some have very specific lengths. So, so putters are usually sold 33, 34, 35. You can get them lengthened, you can get them shortened. Getting them dialed into the exact length, whether that’s 34 and a/4, 34 and 3/4, 35 1/2, 36, and then that lie angle to make sure that that putter is sitting nice and flat on the ground. And then once you do that, you can customize everything. Like I said, color and all that. And for me, you can pick out which putters in this stack are mine because I like the pink. That’s my style. That’s what I go for. But you might like the green or the red or the charcoal. So right here we have our fitter putter. So this one’s labeled for a fit. So there’s two different adjustments we can make on this putter. We can loosen this and then that gives you the ability to get your hands comfortable. So I’ll set this in front of a customer. I’ll let them get their hands comfortable here. Obviously they can go up and down. They can stand up straighter. They can bend over further. And then right when they’re comfortable I tighten it down. Then they can roll a few putts. They’re like, “Okay, you know what? I’m realizing I’m standing too far over it.” So then I can loosen this up and we can sit here for an hour and they can mess around with this. The other thing you might be saying, okay, well why don’t you just grab putters of different lengths? True, you could do that, but they have an Allen key that you can go in here and you can do this. Now it can be a left-handed putter. It can be a right-handed putter and you can really mess with that lie angle. So let’s say somebody keeps their hands really low, they put their hands really high. You can sit here and tweak it. I’ll let their hands get comfortable. Lock it down right there. Okay. So, now that’s there. We come over here. We have this gauge. Once they’re comfortable and confident that they’re at the angle they like, we put this gauge right here. Slap that on the putter and it’s going to tell me right where I’m at. The putter’s flat on the ground. So, that’s a 74.3 74.4 lie angle. We can get that fully dialed. Let us know in the comment section what shape, what style, what alignment lines, what weights you like. Put all that in the comment section. Let us know what you prefer. If I’m going to continue to play one, it’s the DF3. But what it’s missing is the sound and feel of the the insert. So, I’m hoping that that’s the next thing on the docket for for Lab. If you’re in the market for a new putter or you’re just feeling like you’re missing some putts, yeah, there’s social media pushing the docket here, but the technology works. Guys aren’t guys on tour aren’t going to be using putters if they don’t work. We saw JJ Spawn win the US Open, arguably the hardest tournament, I don’t think there’s an argument there, of the year, and he won it with the DF3 in huge fashion, draining that long putt. So, if you’re in the market for a new putt, you feel like you should be making more putts. At least put Lab on the docket. You should be trying it. And if you need to get fit, we can help you out. But I think it’s definitely worth it to get fit and to fully customize out your putter, especially with how long guys are gaming putters.