L.A.B. DF3 Putters - 2024 Forum Review

[ejgaudette]

22 minutes ago, CFreddie said:

New headcovers! I’m partial to “Great Outdoors” one. Thoughts?

I agree that the Great Outdoors looks awesome!

[Steve F]

26 minutes ago, CFreddie said:

New headcovers! I’m partial to “Great Outdoors” one. Thoughts?

I like the "Great Outdoors" @CFreddie! That's a new one.... but I see that they have the Pimento and the plain LAB Rat ones back in stock..... and I'm starting a little drool on my work desk....

 

The edit: the Pimento is OUT of stock! Poo....

Edited June 5 by Steve F

[GolfSpy_KFT]

The Great Outdoors headcover is absolutely fantastic!

[Cfhandyman]

33 minutes ago, CFreddie said:

New headcovers! I’m partial to “Great Outdoors” one. Thoughts?

As much as I like the Lab rats, the great outdoors one is really cool.  I might have to order that one. 

[Steve F]

4 minutes ago, Cfhandyman said:

As much as I like the Lab rats, the great outdoors one is really cool.  I might have to order that one. 

Funny you should say that Chris @Cfhandyman.... I have the LAB rat in the cart... just have to pull the trigger! ... ugh!

Edited June 5 by Steve F

[Cfhandyman]

3 hours ago, jbern said:

Summary of my two latest 9 hole rounds

I mentioned in a previous post that over my two latest 9 hole rounds, the putter performed... fine. 

The first round consisted of 16 putts and the longest putt made was... 4 feet. I took a video of every putt (except one-putt tap-ins) that you can check out below.

Holes 4, 5 & 6 were the most disappointing. On hole 4 I had a 27ft putt that was severely downhill and proceeded to putt it off the green  and that led to my only 3-putt. Holes 5 & 6 were both 7 footers that I think were very make-able and neither scared the hole too badly.

 

The other 9 hole round was at a course that I played a lot when I was in high school, but haven't played in 15+ years! It was very busy that day so I was feeling pretty rushed in general, but I had 16 putts and my longest made putt was again...4 feet. I had one 3 putt that was on the last hole from 42 feet (it lipped out left and went farther away because left of the hole was downhill pretty severely). Below are my detailed stats:

 

 Overall, my lag putting performance has been pretty solid (except for that one in the video ). My confidence on those 6-12 foot putts just isn't there yet. I think I need to stop thinking about the putter and it's technology and just start stepping up and hitting the putt.

 

@jbern absolutely great job in recording Dory in action and editing.   That’s a lot of work. Well done 

[pagolfer]

I just bought the rat one.   Use this for 10% off.    BUSTAJACK10

[GolfSpy MPR]

Squeezed in a nice little practice session this afternoon. Because Arccos is very clear that my putting is hurting me most in the mid-range, I asked ExPutt to give me random putts between 5 and 20 feet. For these, I'm avoiding any technical or mechanical thoughts. In my mind, I have a fixed image of the hole at its distance. For the stroke, I'm just thinking about tempo: I step into the putt, inhale, then—"exhale 2 3 4"—where "2" initiates my backstroke, "3" the transition, and "4" is impact.

My path is still well out-to-in, typically from 4–6°. But my horizontal launch angle is generally pretty good.

I rolled 50 putts, and made 35 of them. I haven't done this often enough yet to have a baseline as to whether that's good or not, but I was generally pleased with it.

[jbern]

1 hour ago, CFreddie said:

New headcovers! I’m partial to “Great Outdoors” one. Thoughts?

This is awesome! Great concepts and glad they're offering more options! My favorite is the great outdoors one, but you have to admit that the LAB rat concept is genius!

[jbern]

2 hours ago, Rearviewmirror said:

If you're ok with unsolicited internet advice....

Not ok

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

just kidding! Thanks for the drills and especially the note about lifting my head on #5. That is something that I've always struggled with and used to practice holding my head and club in the finish position for a 3 count after hitting. At a minimum, I will definitely focus on that in my next practice session.

 

[jbern]

44 minutes ago, Cfhandyman said:

@jbern absolutely great job in recording Dory in action and editing.   That’s a lot of work. Well done 

Thank you @Cfhandyman! It was definitely more work than I expected. I'm not familiar with video editing, but one of my goals was to try to throw in some videos every now and then.

[Rearviewmirror]

5 minutes ago, jbern said:

Thank you @Cfhandyman! It was definitely more work than I expected. I'm not familiar with video editing, but one of my goals was to try to throw in some videos every now and then.

The editing was A++ - really well done. I feel like you could rival some YouTube golfers   

[Captwilks67]

I've been eying a LAB putter for years now. Just cant get around pulling the trigger on the price, when my Scotty works well enough. Maybe I'll change my mind once I play Pinehurst or Cabot Farms though! Really want to take one of these bad boys for a spin. 

[Steve F]

So, last Thursday my boss walked in and once again asked if I had my clubs with me. (They are ALWAYS in my trunk, you just never know when someone will ask you to play golf!) We went to one of their local favorites, River Downs GC. We were playing a scramble, but the caveat was for me that I had to do my putting and finish my putting on my own. And man, was I putting. No three putts, sunk several long range putts... The Mamba was on it and taking no prisoners. I smudged the overall scores as they don't really matter for our purposes but left the putting numbers. I can't tell you how great it felt to sink those long putts! 

... and hole 5 a 40ft 1 putt.... 

That Thursday, the Mamba was on fire... More data on the weekend rounds and practice to follow! 

[Cfhandyman]

Round 11 with the L.A.B. DF3 is now in the books and it continues to perform well.  31 putts, 6 one putts and 3 birdies.  So this is where we are after 10 rounds of play versus the previous 10 rounds with the Evnroll.   

    

Compared to my previous 50 round average with the Evnroll, birdies have increased from 1.5 to 2.0 per round, bogies have decreased from 6.7 to 5.7 per round, one putts have increased from 5.4 to 6.5, but so have 3 putts to 1.1 per round.

 

Then went to purchase new Lab rats headcover for the Lab rat, only to discover it's sold out for the DF3 after only a few hours. Wow, my first reaction, didn't they order enough or they must have sold a lot of them to be sold out within hours.  So maybe its the Great outdoors after all.

  

Edited June 6 by Cfhandyman

[Steve F]

On 6/2/2024 at 9:19 PM, yungkory said:

With how well received this test seems, I may have to order a DF3. The Link experiment is over now and the DF2.1 is back in the bag. Someone talk me out of a DF3

I'm definitely not going to be the one or be able to do that @yungkory! So far I've loved everything about the DF3. Statistically speaking with my Spider it's pretty close right now. If I had to judge simply on feel and comfort the Mamba wins hands down. I like the feedback much better than the Spider: you have more sensation of what's happening than with the Spider. I am slowly but very surely getting used to the L.A.B. style of putting: the absence of the club twist is most certainly noticeable and once you've gotten accustomed to that, it's become a matter of dialing it in. I've had crappy days with it, for sure, but those are becoming less and less as time goes on! I hope this helps with your purchase of your new DF3!!

[Cfhandyman]

25 minutes ago, Steve F said:

So, last Thursday my boss walked in and once again asked if I had my clubs with me. (They are ALWAYS in my trunk, you just never know when someone will ask you to play golf!) We went to one of their local favorites, River Downs GC. We were playing a scramble, but the caveat was for me that I had to do my putting and finish my putting on my own. And man, was I putting. No three putts, sunk several long range putts... The Mamba was on it and taking no prisoners. I smudged the overall scores as they don't really matter for our purposes but left the putting numbers. I can't tell you how great it felt to sink those long putts! 

... and hole 5 a 40ft 1 putt.... 

That Thursday, the Mamba was on fire... More data on the weekend rounds and practice to follow! 

Well done.  To all those who dare, beware the bite of the Mamba

[Steve F]

2 minutes ago, Cfhandyman said:

Round 11 with the L.A.B. DF3 is now in the books and it continues to perform well.  31 putts, 6 one putts and 3 birdies.  So this is where we are after 10 rounds of play versus the previous 10 rounds with the Evnroll.   

    

Compared to my previous 50 round average with the Evnroll, birdies have increased from 1.5 to 2.0 per round, bogies have decreased from 6.7 to 5.7 per round, one putts have increased from 5.4 to 6.5, but so have 3 putts to 1.1 per round.

 

Then went to purchase new Lab rats headcover for the Lab rat, only to discover it's sold out for the DF3 after only a few hours. Wow, my first reaction, didn't they order enough or they must have sold a lot of them to be sold out within hours.  So maybe its the Great outdoors after all.

  

... Chris, I may have purchased the last one! Sorry my friend!! I had it in my cart for about an hour, finally pulled the trigger yesterday afternoon! 

Looks like a great head to head with your putters! Evnroll looks to still be holding a slight edge? With your experience, how does the Evnroll feel compared to the DF3 for you? Just curious at this point in the testing....

[Cfhandyman]

Just now, Steve F said:

... Chris, I may have purchased the last one! Sorry my friend!! I had it in my cart for about an hour, finally pulled the trigger yesterday afternoon! 

Looks like a great head to head with your putters! Evnroll looks to still be holding a slight edge? With your experience, how does the Evnroll feel compared to the DF3 for you? Just curious at this point in the testing....

Black on black for the headcover and good for you.  You know the old adage, you snooze, you lose.  In my case, I went golfing figuring I'd order it when I got home.  Wrong.  In terms of the putters, statistically it is close, but its becoming very clear the L.A.B. DF3 is much better for me.  I strongly the suspected that this was due to exceptional face control of the L.A.B. with TPT and pistol grip which was strongly confirmed on putter testing with Quintic which showed exceptional face control.  I also trust my fitter's advice.  When he told me to just put the L.A.B. in the bag and leave it there.  It was so good for me.  I am seeing this on course.  When you make a good stroke, the ball rolls well and sticks to the line all the way to the hole like a heat seeking missile.

[jbern]

1 hour ago, Steve F said:

So, last Thursday my boss walked in and once again asked if I had my clubs with me. (They are ALWAYS in my trunk, you just never know when someone will ask you to play golf!) We went to one of their local favorites, River Downs GC. We were playing a scramble, but the caveat was for me that I had to do my putting and finish my putting on my own. And man, was I putting. No three putts, sunk several long range putts... The Mamba was on it and taking no prisoners. I smudged the overall scores as they don't really matter for our purposes but left the putting numbers. I can't tell you how great it felt to sink those long putts! 

... and hole 5 a 40ft 1 putt.... 

That Thursday, the Mamba was on fire... More data on the weekend rounds and practice to follow! 

Congrats on Mamba sinking those long ones! That is awesome! Sounds like things are really firing on all cylinders for you now! Since you blurred it out ... I'm curious if your scores have gotten better since using Mamba??

 

 

[jbern]

1 hour ago, Cfhandyman said:

Round 11 with the L.A.B. DF3 is now in the books and it continues to perform well.  31 putts, 6 one putts and 3 birdies.  So this is where we are after 10 rounds of play versus the previous 10 rounds with the Evnroll.   

    

Compared to my previous 50 round average with the Evnroll, birdies have increased from 1.5 to 2.0 per round, bogies have decreased from 6.7 to 5.7 per round, one putts have increased from 5.4 to 6.5, but so have 3 putts to 1.1 per round.

 

Then went to purchase new Lab rats headcover for the Lab rat, only to discover it's sold out for the DF3 after only a few hours. Wow, my first reaction, didn't they order enough or they must have sold a lot of them to be sold out within hours.  So maybe its the Great outdoors after all.

  

Am I reading those charts correctly... Your scores have gotten slightly worse since moving to LAB Rat, but your putting has gotten slightly to significantly better?

I see that compared to the previous 50 rounds, it appears that the DF3 is the clear winner.

1 hour ago, Cfhandyman said:

Black on black for the headcover and good for you.  You know the old adage, you snooze, you lose.  In my case, I went golfing figuring I'd order it when I got home.  Wrong.  In terms of the putters, statistically it is close, but its becoming very clear the L.A.B. DF3 is much better for me.  I strongly the suspected that this was due to exceptional face control of the L.A.B. with TPT and pistol grip which was strongly confirmed on putter testing with Quintic which showed exceptional face control.  I also trust my fitter's advice.  When he told me to just put the L.A.B. in the bag and leave it there.  It was so good for me.  I am seeing this on course.  When you make a good stroke, the ball rolls well and sticks to the line all the way to the hole like a heat seeking missile.

I'm very surprised they sold out so quickly! I'm kind of impressed that they did, but bummed for you that you didn't get one!

[Steve F]

25 minutes ago, jbern said:

Congrats on Mamba sinking those long ones! That is awesome! Sounds like things are really firing on all cylinders for you now! Since you blurred it out ... I'm curious if your scores have gotten better since using Mamba??

 

 

My scores have gotten slightly better overall, but when I have a stinker round, it really stinks. I have some more on course data to share that isn't so glowing... but in the midst of a mediocre at best round, the putting showed some signs of holding it together while other parts of the game were not so hot. Those numbers are coming! I blurred out the overall scores because the group I was with wanted to scramble, so the approaches were not all mine. All the putting is, however, as that was the caveat that I had with the group in playing this round: I have to do all my own putting, which I did, and the putting for this round was great vs my history! Putting with the Mamba and the additional attention paid to putting have made a world of difference from my perspective and from the group I normally play with on Sundays. They have all noticed much better putting from my bag.... so, yes. The putting seems to be improving! 

[GolfSpy MPR]

21 hours ago, GolfSpy MPR said:

I'm really enjoying using this 50-putt test as a practice routine. Again, my goal right now with the DF3 is really two-fold:

• Don't miss inside 3 feet.
• Make one 4'-15' putt per nine holes.

I strongly suspect that if I can meet those goals, I'll be very close to the Arccos scratch SG:Putting benchmark, which would be good enough for me (right now).

So in my first attempt at the 5'–20' random distance (straight) putts, I made 35/50. I wasn't sure if that was good. Turns out, it was pretty solid; I had two more attempts that I fell quite short of that.

But this morning, I had a really good session (above), making 42/50.

Something I've noticed: my start direction is better from 10'–20' than it is from 5'–9'. In fact, the shorter it is, the less predictable my start line becomes; there is a much greater tendency to pull my short ones (starting line often 1° or more left). That's obviously not ideal, and I haven't fully gotten to the why yet. I suspect that on the little strokes, I get steer-ier with my hands.

EDIT: as I'm looking at my ExPutt screen capture and reflecting on the 7° out-to-in path, it dawns on me that it might be related to my pulled short putts...

[Cfhandyman]

3 hours ago, GolfSpy MPR said:

I'm really enjoying using this 50-putt test as a practice routine. Again, my goal right now with the DF3 is really two-fold:

• Don't miss inside 3 feet.
• Make one 4'-15' putt per nine holes.

I strongly suspect that if I can meet those goals, I'll be very close to the Arccos scratch SG:Putting benchmark, which would be good enough for me (right now).

So in my first attempt at the 5'–20' random distance (straight) putts, I made 35/50. I wasn't sure if that was good. Turns out, it was pretty solid; I had two more attempts that I fell quite short of that.

But this morning, I had a really good session (above), making 42/50.

Something I've noticed: my start direction is better from 10'–20' than it is from 5'–9'. In fact, the shorter it is, the less predictable my start line becomes; there is a much greater tendency to pull my short ones (starting line often 1° or more left). That's obviously not ideal, and I haven't fully gotten to the why yet. I suspect that on the little strokes, I get steer-ier with my hands.

EDIT: as I'm looking at my ExPutt screen capture and reflecting on the 7° out-to-in path, it dawns on me that it might be related to my pulled short putts...

What a great practice routine and goals.  That Ex putt looks like its quite a useful training tool.  Well done.

[Cfhandyman]

5 hours ago, jbern said:

Am I reading those charts correctly... Your scores have gotten slightly worse since moving to LAB Rat, but your putting has gotten slightly to significantly better?

I see that compared to the previous 50 rounds, it appears that the DF3 is the clear winner.

I'm very surprised they sold out so quickly! I'm kind of impressed that they did, but bummed for you that you didn't get one!

My short game and putting save my bacon a lot.  My data is compared to a 0 handicap.  I currently sit at about 6.3 with the aim to get down to 4 - 5 by the end of the year.  Focussing on my putting as part of this test has helped a lot.

50 round average with Evnroll putter compared to a 0 handicap golfer (Arccos).  so basically I'm giving up 6.6 strokes versus a 0 handicap

Last 10 rounds with the L.A.B. DF3 putter (Arccos) compared to a 0 handicap.  So the game overall has improved with the biggest improvement coming in the short game and putting.  Majority of my practice is from 100 yards and in.  Driving has improved slightly but approach play (125 yds to 200 yds) needs more work, but the biggest improvement has been in the short game and putting..  

 

 

 

Edited June 6 by Cfhandyman

[MattWillGolf]

I went to my session at Club Champion yesterday. It was a very good learning experience. The end result according to the SAM session and my fitter was the that the Evnroll ER11v was more suited to my putting style. But I am somewhat disappointed at the moment because the reports from the session which were emailed to me were incomplete. They were only of the Evnroll putter and not the DF3. I have emailed my fitter but he was out of the office today. Hopefully he can send the details for both putters.

 

 

 

[MattWillGolf]

On 6/4/2024 at 11:33 PM, golfguy94 said:

Question for the lab golf reviewers and anyone else who has completed the online remote fitting with LAB golf.  I got my specs yesterday after a week. Which was within their 5-7 business day guidelines.  The question(s) I have are as follows:

did they actually show you anything from your video submissions? Like the angle or where your eyeline is? I got an email response with about 2 sentences in it  basically do a shorter putter because eyeline is a little too far inside the ball and to use a standard lie angle at 69.  I emailed him back within like 30 mins of getting my email and it took almost a full day to get a response back, which was answering 2 quick questions that I had. Just seeing if this is normal or not because I got the feeling that your fittings were insightful and in depth to a degree.  
  When I’ve been fitter for a putter in the past, I’m normally around 33.5-34” and 71 in lie angle   They came back at 33 and 69.  Just thought I’d ask before I drop 600+ on a putter.  Thanks and I appreciate all your efforts in the reviews guys, they’ve been very insightful. 

 

The response time you received sounds normal from my experience for this review. I think they are pretty busy.
I had a session at Club Champion yesterday with the DF3 I’m currently testing specifically for this review. Some of the feedback from the fitter was that he would have recommended a shorter shaft length by a 1/2” and a slightly stronger loft based on the SAM results. The lie angle was fine. At the end of the day how much difference that will make to a player of my ability is pretty debatable. But I think if you were spend this amount of money on a putter then a live in person fitting would be the way to go. Yes, it does add to the overall price but you would at least have the confidence in what you are buying.

[jbern]

6 hours ago, Cfhandyman said:

My short game and putting save my bacon a lot.  My data is compared to a 0 handicap.  I currently sit at about 6.3 with the aim to get down to 4 - 5 by the end of the year.  Focussing on my putting as part of this test has helped a lot.

50 round average with Evnroll putter compared to a 0 handicap golfer (Arccos).  so basically I'm giving up 6.6 strokes versus a 0 handicap

Last 10 rounds with the L.A.B. DF3 putter (Arccos) compared to a 0 handicap.  So the game overall has improved with the biggest improvement coming in the short game and putting.  Majority of my practice is from 100 yards and in.  Driving has improved slightly but approach play (125 yds to 200 yds) needs more work, but the biggest improvement has been in the short game and putting..  

 

 

 

Thank you for the additional explanation! I now understand that the numbers are being compared to a 0 hdcp. I think that's where I was getting held up in my thought processes. Arccos provides excellent data for where to improve!

[Rearviewmirror]

19 hours ago, GolfSpy MPR said:

I'm really enjoying using this 50-putt test as a practice routine. Again, my goal right now with the DF3 is really two-fold:

• Don't miss inside 3 feet.
• Make one 4'-15' putt per nine holes.

I strongly suspect that if I can meet those goals, I'll be very close to the Arccos scratch SG:Putting benchmark, which would be good enough for me (right now).

So in my first attempt at the 5'–20' random distance (straight) putts, I made 35/50. I wasn't sure if that was good. Turns out, it was pretty solid; I had two more attempts that I fell quite short of that.

But this morning, I had a really good session (above), making 42/50.

Something I've noticed: my start direction is better from 10'–20' than it is from 5'–9'. In fact, the shorter it is, the less predictable my start line becomes; there is a much greater tendency to pull my short ones (starting line often 1° or more left). That's obviously not ideal, and I haven't fully gotten to the why yet. I suspect that on the little strokes, I get steer-ier with my hands.

EDIT: as I'm looking at my ExPutt screen capture and reflecting on the 7° out-to-in path, it dawns on me that it might be related to my pulled short putts...

I can't remember if you're a veteran ExPutt user (sounds like it from your description) but one note of caution from my own experience with it. I have found that putts inside of 10 feet can mess me up for speed on real greens. It's preference is very much "jam it in the hole" which I have found isn't a great complement to the true roll the LAB putters put on the ball

[jbern]

Had my best putting round of the year yesterday! I took my daughter along with me because she had a 1/2 day of school. I wish I would've been taking video during this round! 

THIRTEEN total putts for 9 holes, including FIVE one-putts and four two-putts! See below for detailed stats:

I was finally sinking putts outside of 4 feet and it felt great!

I had two good practice sessions earlier in the week and changed a few things. In my stance, I moved the ball forward about half a ball from where it was. To my eye, it looks like my nose is slightly behind where the shaft meets the putter head. In my routine, I removed taking practice strokes. I focus on getting the line on the ball pointed where I want to start the putt and then step up and focus on how far back I need to take the putter for speed and that's it. I will keep these things rolling and hopefully the stellar putting continues.