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

[Josh Parker]

3 hours ago, GolfSpy MPR said:

I'm not superstitious, but I am a little stitious, and having anything named "shanks" sitting in my golf bag, hanging out with my wedges and irons, seems like a bad idea to me

I agree!  It can't have a name like that. 

[Cfhandyman]

8 minutes ago, CFreddie said:

Wow - seems like I missed out on a TON today (serves me right for playing golf)   

@GolfSpy MPR - I'm liking Wesley.

@GolfSpy SAM - I'd go Robin Hood.

@Cfhandyman - how about the Beast?

I'm a little worried what I'm end up with now, given my color choice 

Unfortunately, Calvin had to punt this evening on our call, so we pushed to Friday.  Stay tuned!

I’m loving the Beast, beauty and the beast  

 

and to give you added resolve. Shaken, not stirred. 

[MattWillGolf]

23 minutes ago, Cfhandyman said:

 

I’m loving the idea of naming our putters. So far we have orange, red, black, blue and green. I have this blue beauty

 So I need help and input on what we should name this bad boy. So far, I’ve come up with the following: Blue Devil, big blue, blue thunder, Excalibur and gimme the blues. What do people think or what would you suggest?  I’m open to suggestion. 

The more I think about it, the more I like the name Nemo. Instead of finding Nemo, I'm looking for Nemo to help me find the bottom of the cup. 

I do like the Blue Devil. 

Edited April 24 by MattWillGolf

[TJ Hall]

15 minutes ago, Just_the_Chip said:

I’ve been looking for a custom headcover person to make me a giant Pepperidge farm goldfish head over

Haha…there might be a few others here that would be interested in that as well!

[MattWillGolf]

2 hours ago, Big Deal Walsh said:

I love the choice for the alignment marker! For some reason those 2 lines just make sense to me. Hope you enjoy it! 

Thanks. The number of alignment options is pretty amazing really. There really is something for everyone. I wanted something somewhat simple for my eye, enough to encourage me to focus but not too busy.

[MattWillGolf]

32 minutes ago, Cfhandyman said:

 

I’m loving the idea of naming our putters. So far we have orange, red, black, blue and green. I have this blue beauty

 So I need help and input on what we should name this bad boy. So far, I’ve come up with the following: Blue Devil, big blue, blue thunder, Excalibur and gimme the blues. What do people think or what would you suggest?  I’m open to suggestion. 

Upon reflection, you could simply call it the Leaf. Oh and I bet the folks at the Dormie Workshop could make a pretty sweet cover for it. 

Edited April 24 by MattWillGolf

[Dweed]

Congrats testers. Have fun but we'll be reading your results. Looking forward to them.

[MattWillGolf]

L.A.B. Rats. That’s a creative idea.

[jbern]

Well, we have our first copy-cat color. I took a family poll with my wife and kids and the clear winner was blue (it’s also my favorite color in general!). The only non-blue vote was my wife choosing pink, which made me laugh out loud thinking about @Cfhandyman‘s wife stealing his putter if he chose pink!

Our LAB fitter answered all of my questions and really helped guide me to something I should be comfortable with right away. 

In my fitting video, I was using a standard putter, but my gamer putter is armlock. Having not used a standard putter in a year for a single putt, I was holding the standard putter armlock-ish. This lead to some funky initial fitting measurements (32.5” long & 70* lie). We landed on the counterbalance option so I could have the grip and feel of the armlock without being an armlock putter and without the putter being abnormally short.

Below are my specs as submitted including the final alignment design:

Hand: RIGHT

Putting style: COUNTERBALANCED [ $70.00 ]

Head weight: HEAVIER

Shaft: L.A.B. Golf x TPT Shaft Long [ $399.00 ]

Shaft length: 37″

Lie angle: 70

Putter color: DF3 Blue 

Alignment mark: I & X with line along the back of putter

Grip Selection: Garsen Quad Tour 17″

 

For the alignment aid, I went with the two lines (option I), the LAB logo (option X) and a line down the back because it’s a shoutout to LAB while still having lines from front to back. It also reminds me of a hammer for some reason, which I like. Let me know what you think! 

[jbern]

4 hours ago, GolfSpy MPR said:

OK, so my current name finalist list (with the red [putter] head theme):

• Winston
• Weasley
• Conan
• Vincent van Gogh-in

With two more suggested by my daughter:

• Garrett (from Dude Perfect; of the guys in the group, he's my favorite: he's pro-coffee and seems to realize that it's absurd that he's approaching middle age while filming trick shots for a living)
• Red Skull (which I thought was an exceedingly cool name until I read the Wikipedia entry and found he's apparently a Nazi, which ends that name idea)

As a mild fan of the Harry Potter series, but a big fan of the Weasley family in those books, the name Weasley would get my vote!

[Cfhandyman]

46 minutes ago, MattWillGolf said:

Upon reflection, you could simply call it the Leaf. Oh and I bet the folks at the Dormie Workshop could make a pretty sweet cover for it. 

Great suggestion, but you mean my love/hate relationship with the Leafs?  They have to beat Boston first in the playoffs. I’m more partial to

 

[Cfhandyman]

7 minutes ago, jbern said:

Well, we have our first copy-cat color. I took a family poll with my wife and kids and the clear winner was blue (it’s also my favorite color in general!). The only non-blue vote was my wife choosing pink, which made me laugh out loud thinking about @Cfhandyman‘s wife stealing his putter if he chose pink!

Our LAB fitter answered all of my questions and really helped guide me to something I should be comfortable with right away. 

In my fitting video, I was using a standard putter, but my gamer putter is armlock. Having not used a standard putter in a year for a single putt, I was holding the standard putter armlock-ish. This lead to some funky initial fitting measurements (32.5” long & 70* lie). We landed on the counterbalance option so I could have the grip and feel of the armlock without being an armlock putter and without the putter being abnormally short.

Below are my specs as submitted including the final alignment design:

Hand: RIGHT

Putting style: COUNTERBALANCED [ $70.00 ]

Head weight: HEAVIER

Shaft: L.A.B. Golf x TPT Shaft Long [ $399.00 ]

Shaft length: 37″

Lie angle: 70

Putter color: DF3 Blue 

Alignment mark: I & X with line along the back of putter

Grip Selection: Garsen Quad Tour 17″

 

For the alignment aid, I went with the two lines (option I), the LAB logo (option X) and a line down the back because it’s a shoutout to LAB while still having lines from front to back. It also reminds me of a hammer for some reason, which I like. Let me know what you think! 

I’m absolutely loving this choice and alignment mark. Very nice build. Great choices.  Now enjoy your vacation. 

[rkj427]

Great color selections by the testers, I would be interested in any comments all of the testers would make related to the colors and how they interact with the sun on a bright, sunny summer day.

Too shiny? Too much glare? Just curious if they may actually interfere with vision and making the stroke.

[TSauer]

3 hours ago, Cfhandyman said:

 

I’m loving the idea of naming our putters. So far we have orange, red, black, blue and green. I have this blue beauty

 So I need help and input on what we should name this bad boy. So far, I’ve come up with the following: Blue Devil, big blue, blue thunder, Excalibur and gimme the blues. What do people think or what would you suggest?  I’m open to suggestion. 

Out of those, I think I like Blue Thunder the most!

I'm going to throw out a few more just because I'm sad I don't have a putter name:

• Berry 

 

• Sulley

 

• Motley Blue

Edited April 25 by TSauer

[GolfSpy MPR]

Just found a Facebook group for L.A.B. users/fans. One thread that I saw: a discussion of the durability of the aluminum heads. Not that they break or anything that dramatic, but that they're relatively easy to ding.

I'm a diligent headcover-er, so I'm not terribly worried, but it's absolutely something we testers should note and report on.

[SDunne]

9 minutes ago, GolfSpy MPR said:

Just found a Facebook group for L.A.B. users/fans. One thread that I saw: a discussion of the durability of the aluminum heads. Not that they break or anything that dramatic, but that they're relatively easy to ding.

I'm a diligent headcover-er, so I'm not terribly worried, but it's absolutely something we testers should note and report on.

Interesting you say that - @Northern Monkey found in his RUNNER testing (also aluminium face) that with some sand on the greens you would get a few marks etc - if the same thing is there with LAB it calls out similar issues of being hyper aware of cleaning the balthend club on the greens to preserve the face

[cnosil]

5 minutes ago, GolfSpy MPR said:

Just found a Facebook group for L.A.B. users/fans. One thread that I saw: a discussion of the durability of the aluminum heads. Not that they break or anything that dramatic, but that they're relatively easy to ding.

I'm a diligent headcover-er, so I'm not terribly worried, but it's absolutely something we testers should note and report on.

Yes, one of the testing requirements is to see if you can destroy your DF3.   I think @GolfSpy SAMshould evaluate it with his since he has a 2.1 to fall back on

[GolfSpy MPR]

13 minutes ago, SDunne said:

Interesting you say that - @Northern Monkey found in his RUNNER testing (also aluminium face) that with some sand on the greens you would get a few marks etc - if the same thing is there with LAB it calls out similar issues of being hyper aware of cleaning the balthend club on the greens to preserve the face

One of the commentators on Facebook voiced his regret for not cleaning his ball on a 50-foot putt, where the mud marred his L.A.B.

[StrokerAce]

52 minutes ago, GolfSpy MPR said:

Just found a Facebook group for L.A.B. users/fans. One thread that I saw: a discussion of the durability of the aluminum heads. Not that they break or anything that dramatic, but that they're relatively easy to ding.

I'm a diligent headcover-er, so I'm not terribly worried, but it's absolutely something we testers should note and report on.

I would say at last 50 percent of the people I end up playing with as a single - and even some of my friends - do not use headcovers for their putter. Now some of these are older and maybe not worth it but I just don't understand that. I would never.

You'll have to test some off-the-green-Texas-wedges and see if it does anything to the aluminum.... and for those people that use their putter in the bunker

[JoeCool]

7 minutes ago, StrokerAce said:

I would say at last 50 percent of the people I end up playing with as a single - and even some of my friends - do not use headcovers for their putter. Now some of these are older and maybe not worth it but I just don't understand that. I would never.

You'll have to test some off-the-green-Texas-wedges and see if it does anything to the aluminum.... and for those people that use their putter in the bunker

I don’t use a headcover on my old Odyssey but rest assured that when I acquire a LAB @ 800$ it’ll be covered at all time! 

[Northern Monkey]

These were the marks on my Runner after the greens had been treated. My own fault for not cleaning ball/head before use so definitely worth noting

[StrokerAce]

2 minutes ago, JoeCool said:

I don’t use a headcover on my old Odyssey but rest assured that when I acquire a LAB @ 800$ it’ll be covered at all time! 

might want to get an odyssey cover for the LAB in case someone is thinking about stealing it... (no offense to Odyssey, but...)

[GolfSpy SAM]

1 hour ago, cnosil said:

Yes, one of the testing requirements is to see if you can destroy your DF3.   I think @GolfSpy SAMshould evaluate it with his since he has a 2.1 to fall back on

I’ll be cutting mine open immediately to see if it’s REALLY filled with goo, or perhaps hidden Korean technology. 

[JoeCool]

30 minutes ago, StrokerAce said:

might want to get an odyssey cover for the LAB in case someone is thinking about stealing it... (no offense to Odyssey, but...)

[GolfSpy MPR]

5 minutes ago, GolfSpy SAM said:

I’ll be cutting mine open immediately to see if it’s REALLY filled with goo, or perhaps hidden Korean technology. 

Plot twist: it's filled with hidden North Korean technology.

[GolfSpy SAM]

14 hours ago, Cfhandyman said:

 

I’m loving the idea of naming our putters. So far we have orange, red, black, blue and green. I have this blue beauty

 So I need help and input on what we should name this bad boy. So far, I’ve come up with the following: Blue Devil, big blue, blue thunder, Excalibur and gimme the blues. What do people think or what would you suggest?  I’m open to suggestion. 

How ‘bout just Blue? As in, 

[RockerFCC]

11 minutes ago, GolfSpy MPR said:

Plot twist: it's filled with hidden North Korean technology.

Well based on recent successes the last 5-10 years, they must be sharing with their southern neighbors  And I think Nellie got ahold of it too...

[Cfhandyman]

Speaking of putter head covers and having some fun here, What would you prefer

L.A.B. Pimento and cheese

The L.A.B. Rat 

The lab monkey 
 

or Taz 

 

 

 

 

 

[TSauer]

22 minutes ago, Cfhandyman said:

Speaking of putter head covers and having some fun here, What would you prefer

L.A.B. Pimento and cheese

The L.A.B. Rat 

The lab monkey 
 

or Taz 

 

 

 

 

 

I love the LAB Rat. It's one of those brand logos/mascots that just fits perfectly. 

[Old Sarge 7997]

1 hour ago, GolfSpy SAM said:

How ‘bout just Blue? As in, 

Maybe "Bluser", a mash-up of Blue and Laser ? Or "Bluzer"?