Creating WORLD-CLASS Putters by Hand

If putting is an art, then putter-makers are the true artists. Meet the mind behind Olson Manufacturing, Logan Olson, whose handcrafted putters have already been in the hands of the game’s greats.

Hear Logan’s process into what makes a world-class putter inside his California custom shop.

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it’s cool to find yourself in this space where you’re sort of tripping through these questions of like I don’t want to design it like that I want to design it like this there’s so much respect that is owed to so many people before me in the sense that like there’s this incredible resource of design that’s already done and I now have the privilege to put my thumbprint on it and say Here’s my take we are at my shop here in Humble Fortuna California it’s where I’ve been since like 20 early 2018 that’s where I spend all my time the amount of hours that he’s put in is over the top and crazy sleeping at the shop sometimes it’s almost comical really yeah when I’ll get a thing he’s like I just had an idea like what are you doing at the shop at 3: in the morning I had an idea okay fun fact every single putter that’s ever left my shop I’ve washed with a toothbrush so lots of miles on on the toothbrushes I actually started this as like a Job Shop like how cool would it be to have this resource and humble because they’re they’re not really around here it’s cuz there’s no demand for it here there’s this period of time like man is this really going to be like a career path long term that I’ll be able to grow with you got all this equipment you got all these tools and I just started making Putters for people and I was like giving one to my friend and then it slowly turned into this thing where you know a friend of theirs would ask for one I remember having a conversation with my parents they’re like well how’s everything going you know how’s how’s the business doing like he it’s fine um making Putters and they’re like okay what happens when you like run out of friends there’s no way you can stay busy making Putters that’s what everybody’s response was I’m like oh no I think I think it’s like bigger than that like I really do it was just like floods of emails for like orders for Putters which was exciting because now all of a sudden not only did I have customers but I had a wait list I had a demand for my product and I had to tell people no you need you know hold on I’m too busy which was like the first moment of like oh this works and then it was the business model in the summertime I think Logan was probably about 8 and when he went first out to play golf with Papa her dad is like this um extreme figure they would play like 54 holes cuz in his 60s it was such a cool thing to be able to play and spend time with your grandparents but also you know learn a game that can give back for a lifetime it’s been fun with some of these athletes where you know Scotty for example so much time has been spent with him and now Scotty Sheffer and he’s got a custom new putter in his bag another good good putting performance out of him today this was one of the earlier Putters that I did for Scotty with a modular system and so that flange unbolts and so you could try different flange widths and then there were three different faces so you could try three different sort of feels and sounds all these boxes are sort of remnants of pieces along the way that I’ve either saved as bookmarks in case things need to be Revisited with Putters it’s just it’s been a exchange of a canvas that has a lot of freedom for me there’s just so many ways that you can take it I do enjoy the problem Sol side of it because it’s this little bit of a switch where a lot of the creative nature of making these Putters goes from designing really unique things to solving unique [Applause] problems so just making sure that everything gets like the total once over and I like to think that I probably inspect it more than the customer will so if there’s something that I’m going to catch maybe they won’t but there’s definitely not something that they’re going to catch that I won’t a lot of the line work or logos or finishing that I do typically has some version of either asymmetric lines or like I think a lot about stuff and it only takes somebody to say one thing and pretty soon I’m like off in the weed’s coming up with something crazy the amount of times that Logan’s come up to me I’m very excited hold this is the best thing I’ve ever made and he like hands me check it out and we’re like looking at he’s like and then like um like literally 3 weeks later or a week later a week later yeah you know what scratch that that was terrible this is so much better the best thing the Cadence of this place is so much slower than like the rest of California I mean there’s areas north of us that are the same but you’re always like about a century behind and so whatever was cool in other places we’re always like behind because it’s just so detached and I think that it’s real easy to forget how like lucky we are to be in this space there’s just so little distraction uh in the sense of just other things happening that you can really get pretty proficient at what you’re doing here it’s like a Wonderland here if you’re into being outside and doing things outside like hiking climbing surf whatever biking really hard it should be pretty good today we’ve had like almost two weeks of pretty solid weather excuse me biking is just such a good way to get away from the typical like work day it’s just so different that’s not you guys is it someone’s running a drone it’s a great way to totally like blank all that out cuz it’s like you can’t think about anything except for trying to like not hit that tree that’s right in front of you or not die I was Logan’s teacher and um he and I kind of had this old CNC machine and and when he graduated he’s like you think I can use that machine to make a little wooden putter I said sure the level that he’s brought it to is is more of an Artistry where you don’t really see that in CNC world you see like production get it done crank it out blows my mind where he’s at compared to where he started I uh I remember being like maybe 7 or eight and my grandpa got me an erector set I would just go nuts that wrecked your oh I hated that thing because I was always stepping on all the parts yeah it was a diabolical dare say it in the middle of the night if you had to pee yes yeah my my dad would be proud and my dad’s dad would be proud you know that was the end of like Grandpa Eric being with us he looked at me and he said like I couldn’t be more proud of where he is now and I’m glad he didn’t everybody always has everyone’s back no matter what you’re not going to quit till you succeed that’s it Logan’s a very spiteful person he will uh he will make sure that he accomplishes something if especially if you tell him it’s not possible yeah yeah it just means if if you’re having trouble it just means you got to work harder it’s just trying to bring that energy and bring that sort of passion towards what you’re doing to execute in the same space without complacency you know you don’t get comfortable you don’t decide I’ve made it you don’t decide this is how I’m going to do things it’s this ever exchanging I wonder if there’s more on the table I wonder if I could do this better I I will do this better it’s your duty to act on it almost otherwise things just don’t happen the small batch has been cool because it’s been sort of the ability to take a lot of the learning that’s been happening with the tour players and then also give me some freedom to do some cooler more unique things than just trying to create some like really mass-produced product that would have to sort of sacrifice some of that um design language that makes sort of more true to me so I hope that people can stay excited and come on board and benefit from a lot of the learning that I’ve been able to be fortunate to be a part of um but at the same time connect them with this brand in a way that feels unique and special for them too