LAB Putter Mistakes to Avoid

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IN THIS VIDEO – Talking through all the common mistakes we see at the studio when players are considering or configuring a new LAB putter. We show you how to avoid these errors and get the best spec for you.

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so this video is not to bash them i’m not trying to make a clickbait video so people come and watch oh loud putters are a scam it’s nothing like that at all what I do see is a lot of misconceptions and mistakes that people fall into when they do a lot of research online they watch tour players that are using lab putters they become convinced I’m going to get a lab putter this is the solution to my problems so the number one thing is assuming that a lab putter of any shape size head style length spec is going to fix a bad stroke if you make a stroke that I often see people make let’s say it’s a lot of an outside in move it’s an open face it’s a high delivered loft uh there’s excessive face rotation there’s really inconsistent motions there’s bad setups there’s this misconception that just the fact that the putter is balanced a certain way that you’re just going to putt better the number one kind of experience I see when someone comes in here for a lab putter but they don’t end up buying one it’s usually a person whose stroke and setup is kind of a mess i let them kind of have their own moment with it demo it a little bit without saying too much and kind of get their reaction and I often hear “Ah I’m not I don’t really get it like I’m not really seeing it i don’t know i’m not really noticing this sort of miracle feeling.” And I go “Okay well that’s fine let me show you a couple things about your stroke that are really higher priorities so for example you’re hitting down in your putter a couple of degrees uh you really tend to stand very open you’re cutting across it these are the common ones you know people with really good putting strokes that come in and try lab putters they often say “Hey this the balance this feels really good i feel really confident about my face control.” And then they they go “You know what i think this is worth me doing.” someone coming in that really really doesn’t have good technique but there is nothing no putter no driver no wedge no nothing that can change someone’s technique that’s deficient into someone’s technique that’s good the putter can add confidence to that and that’s it but there’s only so much that that can do the second and possibly bigger mistake that I see uh people make with lab putter is actually getting fit for it in my opinion improperly so making a bad choice on the final specs so there is an online system where you send them a video of you putting against like a door frame or something so they can draw some angles and recommend you a length and a lie in here I do it with uh it’s actually like an adjustable lab fitting putter so basically you would say to someone hey get into your your comfortable posture don’t think about it just tell me how do you set up to the ball where do you stand where do you hold your hands we lock it in i look at the length this says 33 i use the langle gauge i measure it you know it might say something like 64 which for reference is very flat so this person has come in for a fit or they’ve done the online fit with their current setup and gotten let’s be honest a very extreme recommendation and I see these people on the golf course all the time or I’ll read online yeah that’s the spec that I got fit for here’s the problem that is being fit based on a setup that let’s just say universally you can ask a lot of putting coaches is just poor technique that’s just not how you should be setting up to the ball if you are a normal stature person meaning average height know average arm length and stuff like that a putter that’s that short and that flat basically means that you are producing a lot of angle in your wrist so there’s a lot of angle between the forearm and the wrist a lot of angle between the shaft of the club and the lead arm you want to look at most of the best putters in the world there’s a fairly straight line relationship between those two things so the mistake people make is taking what they have and just applying it to a lab putter making sure the lie angle sits flat which I understand is necessary for the balancing technology but it doesn’t stop them from doing what happens when you have all this angle here which is a lot of rotation when you make a golf swing or you’re chipping or making a full swing you want this angle here in the shaft you want wrist rotation you want the club moving on the like a lot like that that’s how you hit the ball with speed and you release the club putting is a lot more of a stable motion and when you don’t sort of get the wrist a little bit more locked out you’re going to notice your face angle is really inconsistent the complete opposite of what you’re trying to achieve by buying something like a lab putter when I go back into uh my customer orders and I look at the specs they’re really kind of boring to be perfectly honest with you most of them are 34 35 in long most of them are about 69 70° lie maybe once in a while I’ve gone one degree flat for someone because every single person that’s come in with this type of setup I’ve had an honest conversation with them and I’ve said “Listen I can help you beyond the putter i can tell you that you will be a better putter with this better setup.” And what I love now about a lab putter especially the big models the big DF3 is that if you are making the change I just described let’s say you take my advice you get the more normal line angle that’s more upright you get the normal length if you go back to your old habit it is really obvious that this thing is sitting in a weird way you can really tell that the toe is sitting way up it’s a great reminder oh I must be doing that thing with my wrists again let me get myself in a much better position much better posture but when we’re talking about sort of the lie angle balance part of it I want people to enjoy that experience of feeling like it’s super stable but do it the right way do it with good setup and good technique that will compound the good effect that you get out of it it won’t just take sort of what you got that’s not working very well and just throw an $800 putter on top of it and you’ll probably end up a little bit disappointed in the end anyway if you appreciate our honest unbiased no marketing approach you can help support the channel in a couple of ways leave us a super thanks you can actually order just about anything golf club or shaftwise through Golf Liberty sort of leads me into my next point which is you know they have the blade style putter they have which I really like the shape of the new OZ style putter i say to people listen if you’re looking to make a change if you really want to change your confidence if you want the the best amount of that really stable kind of floating putter feeling where it’s not yippy at all you don’t feel like the face is moving around don’t be afraid to go with the bigger model don’t be afraid to go with the DF3 model i just think if you’re going to make a change make a change the blade putter is great don’t get me wrong but I get so many people come in and go “I would never play a putter like this even the mallet style I would never play a putter like this.” It’s like okay well how much do you care about actually improving and making more putts and how much do you care about what other people think of you the other thing I don’t think enough people are considering is trying or going with the heavier spec so on their website they have standard and they have a heavier i have this one in my hand that’s the heavier spec i have this one here that’s the standard spec it’s not night and day i mean I I stroke the standard spec one yeah it feels nice it feels nice and stable i pick up the slightly heavier spec one and I really get that sort of like yiproof feel you know when you come to a shop like mine I focus the first at least quarter of the session on helping people fix setup errors and stroke errors so that they have a variety of options they don’t feel like oh I must get a lab putter because I’m such a terrible putter if they still want to go that route great if it still gives them confidence great and then at that point I find one thing people kind of do it’s a bit of a mistake with a Lab putter because it does have most models have the built-in lean they have the built-in press grip most people are playing the ball position of this too far back in their stance so they’re playing it more like where they may have played an old blade so what I love about these is that that little bit of lean and sort of this this big head and the CG location of it and and the balancing the zero torque it really is probably the easiest putter I can think of to get people to actually feel an upward angle of attack oh I went in i should buy one um because of the lean and the press they’re getting the effect of the upward angle of attack with reduced loft that’s something that’s very hard for someone who doesn’t putt that way it’s great technique this honestly really shortcuts that for people i think that’s an underrated feature of lab putters in general i see on the quad which measures roll really nice roll numbers from people once we make that adjustment we get the ball a little bit more forward in their stance give them the feeling of allowing the putter to brush upward but not brush upward in a way that adds loft just sort of maintaining the structure of the grip and allowing the putter to move up a little bit and they start to get this really nice forward roll in the ball and they start to get a lot more consistency to where the putter face actually starts when it’s too far back in the stance you’re going to find that you push a lot of putts you’re going to overcompensate you’re going to pull a lot of putts and the last call it this probably more of a misconception but maybe at times a mistake is people overestimating the value of the upgraded graphite shafts they now have a number of them some reasonable some extremely expensive people are overestimating what the actual practical performance difference between that and the standard piece of steel is going to be you have to be ultra realistic and I never ever ever ever say anything to people much beyond hey it softens the feel off the face a little bit i think it looks really nice and the quality of it and the manufacturing quality of the head matches this aftermarket shaft a little bit better you’re spending a lot of money on a putter do you want something a little bit higher quality in the shaft and it does dampen the feel just a little bit softer are the torque numbers different than the steel shaft on a robot if a really long stroke happens is the putter moving around a little bit less than steel it’s certainly possible maybe there’s data for that maybe there isn’t i don’t care but when someone’s already considering spending like550 $600 US on a putter the people that are getting bogged down with oh if I don’t throw an extra 200 bucks into the upgraded shaft I can’t really afford that it’s not worth it unless I do it i hate hearing stuff like that because it’s just it’s it’s it’s borderline delusion right if you’re not going to putt well with the putter or you’re not putting well with your stroke changing into a two three $500 putter shaft is not going to make possibly for some people any difference and possibly for some people too subtle or too unmeasurable a difference too impractical a difference to be worth the money my opinion all of these companies and I’m not picking on lab should kind of be ashamed of themselves for the amount of money that they charge for a putter and stick a piece of $10 steel in scotty Cameron Ping PLLDS high-end Odyssey’s I I’ll go on and on and on these companies obviously at at volume can get a really good deal on on beautiful aftermarket graphite like this Acra or any other number of shafts they should be doing that kind of for you or they should be making it really cheap upcharge-wise for you to go with that i just think that it’s so at odds uh it’s such an expensive item i think people shouldn’t be just like drivers like you buy a super expensive driver and then the internet’s convinced you that if you don’t spend an extra 500 bucks on a on a Ventus you kind of have a piece of crap in your hands i hate that that’s even going on with putters now so think of it as a nice little addition little bit of a feel change it looks really cool putters are a little bit of jewelry it’s a little bit of uh fashion a little bit of personal expression keep it realistic that’s really what it’s for don’t expect the shaft to just change the way you putt all of a sudden don’t take this video the wrong way i actually really do like lab stuff sure I wish it was a bit cheaper sure I wish they shipped a bit quicker but this is not me bashing them these are things that I want to tell you to avoid making mistakes on a really expensive item and mentally ending up disappointed with something that you were really excited about