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

[Jim Shaw]

1 hour ago, Cfhandyman said:

So question for the readers.  What does this represent?

A)  The back end of the L.A.B. DF2.1  

B)  A scenic drive from the Upper peninsula of Michigan to Atlanta

C)  A map of the north eastern US

D)  A scenic drive to visit all the testers involved in the L.A.B. DF3

Correct answer is D.

 

 

 

now, that will be fun... enjoy...

[mpatrickriley]

My testing is a bit limited this week, for two reasons:

• We've been getting a lot of rain, and our course is not one of those much-desired, sandy-soiled, firm-and-fast places. The property is based a clay-based bowl. It's a marsh right now.
• My wife is out of state, visiting her parents, and I'm here with five of our six children. You might imagine that this circumstance could cramp my putting testing time

[ole gray]

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

You better join the party hoss!  Mine should be arriving soon and I'm as excited as a fat hog on a dropped watermelon. 

[ejgaudette]

2 hours ago, GolfSpy MPR said:

My testing is a bit limited this week, for two reasons:

• We've been getting a lot of rain, and our course is not one of those much-desired, sandy-soiled, firm-and-fast places. The property is based a clay-based bowl. It's a marsh right now.
• My wife is out of state, visiting her parents, and I'm here with five of our six children. You might imagine that this circumstance could cramp my putting testing time

I get nothing done when I am with my 3 kids solo I can only imagine 5 young ones running around. But those days go fast.

[HikingMike]

4 hours ago, Cfhandyman said:

This weeks, tester of the week is none other than,  @jbern

That looks like a DeChambeau setup to me   

Edited June 4 by HikingMike

[jbern]

3 minutes ago, HikingMike said:

That looks like a DeChambeau setup to me   

I think if I had that hat my swing speed might get close to his 

Yes, I am a single plane golfer and Bryson is about as close as it gets to a single plane golfer on high profile tours. I did use several videos of Bryson to compare to my own videos when I was first working on the swing change to single plane!

[HikingMike]

2 minutes ago, jbern said:

I think if I had that hat my swing speed might get close to his 

Yes, I am a single plane golfer and Bryson is about as close as it gets to a single plane golfer on high profile tours. I did use several videos of Bryson to compare to my own videos when I was first working on the swing change to single plane!

Nice! Just holding the arms out there to make a straight line with the club at address felt awkward. But it looks fantastic and makes a lot of sense to me.

[CFreddie]

Quick summary of yesterday's round today, specifically on the performance of Chewie.  Overall, I think his feelings are still a bit hurt as he struggled on some challenging greens at Windswept Dunes GC (on vacation with family down in the Florida).  In the spirit of transparency, he / we didn't come to play today:

 

But boy...doesn't Chewie look great???

Edited June 4 by CFreddie

[mpatrickriley]

54 minutes ago, CFreddie said:

Quick summary of yesterday's round today, specifically on the performance of Chewie.  Overall, I think his feelings are still a bit hurt as he struggled on some challenging greens at Windswept Dunes GC (on vacation with family down in the Florida).  In the spirit of transparency, he / we didn't come to play today:

So obviously not ideal, but help me understand. Looking at your putting numbers from different distances, Arccos clearly thought you were struggling on short putts and doing relatively solidly on putts from distance (on a SG) basis. But that doesn't seem to square well with having 43 putts; one would think that that would be caused by a lot of 3-putts, typically from some distance.

[CFreddie]

19 minutes ago, GolfSpy MPR said:

So obviously not ideal, but help me understand. Looking at your putting numbers from different distances, Arccos clearly thought you were struggling on short putts and doing relatively solidly on putts from distance (on a SG) basis. But that doesn't seem to square well with having 43 putts; one would think that that would be caused by a lot of 3-putts, typically from some distance.

Thats correct - based on Arccos compare of a 13 handicap, they average 3 3-putts per round.  In comparison, I had 8, which I attribute to the challenging green complexes (very large with a ton of undulations).  I was definitely struggling with distance control (leaving a ton short) and then cleaning up those putts, equating a bunch of 3-putts.  

However, I do some good news...stay tuned 

[CFreddie]

Round #2 Update - complete 180 from yesterday's round, including setting a personal best in 3-putts (zero!) and total putts (32).  After yesterday's disastrous putting performance, I spent a lot more time on the putting green prior to the round - focusing on distance control & setup (I noticed I was pushing a lot of putts right yesterday).  Very happy with Chewie today - lets hope we are turning a corner...

[Rearviewmirror]

Painful day at the office today - got my butt absolutely handed to me (anything longer than 7 iron off the tee was hooking like mad and contending with deep zoysia grass rough), but on the plus side the putting is showing signs of life! 

My SG was awful due to short misses, but only 3 three putts (one of which was a horseshoe from 3ft). Lagging felt A+ and I didn't leave any long lag putts short of the hole (did ram one 8ft past though resulting in one of those three putts. 3-4ft putts were my kryptonite again today - with three hard horseshoes (including a birdie which was painful after sticking it to 3ft with an 8 iron). This was EXACTLY what happened to me with my Mezz before I got dialled in on the right mix of authoritative but not too hard. I think this is the right long term move, and for only two rounds in, I'm surprised it's starting to click this well already.

Comparing my last 25 rounds, it's the 6-9 footers dragging me down - this was my stats based mostly off the trusty Mezz:

[MattWillGolf]

On 6/3/2024 at 9:42 AM, jbern said:

Great news on the rib injury... I was able to play two 9 hole rounds recently (Thursday and yesterday) and I felt great during the round and just slight rib soreness post round. Big win for me and I'm free to get out as much as possible moving forward!

I think between my two recent outdoor rounds, one previous outdoor round and a lot of time on the Exputt, I have enough time with the DF3 to provide my first impressions. That will be updated on the main testing post soon!

A one word summary of the DF3 during my two recent outdoor rounds: fine. I took some video of my putts during the round from Thursday and I'm trying to edit it to make it mildly viewable and that's taking a bit of time. I'll have my more detailed summary from those two rounds once I get that edited.

Glad to hear that your ribs are on the mend.

[MattWillGolf]

I’m happy to report another solid outing with the DF3. Today’s 9 hole round saw a total of 15 putts. It was made up of six 2-putts and three 1-putts. The one putts can thank my chipping with my 8 iron. Also I used the DF3 as a “Texas Wedge” on one of the holes. The distance control on longer putts is improving. I am absolutely in love with the feel of the putter. I have zero regrets on going with the BGT Stability ONE shaft. It pairs nicely with the DF3.

[golfguy94]

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. 

 

Edited June 5 by golfguy94

[Cfhandyman]

15 hours ago, CFreddie said:

Round #2 Update - complete 180 from yesterday's round, including setting a personal best in 3-putts (zero!) and total putts (32).  After yesterday's disastrous putting performance, I spent a lot more time on the putting green prior to the round - focusing on distance control & setup (I noticed I was pushing a lot of putts right yesterday).  Very happy with Chewie today - lets hope we are turning a corner...

Is this Chewie’s way of saying, all is forgiven for leaving me when you went on vacation.  I think one of the keys is getting some practice time on the greens with the L.A.B. and getting a feel for distance control.  Well done.  

[Rearviewmirror]

8 hours ago, golfguy94 said:

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.  

I think this is a bit of a case of YMMV. I get the impression that there's been a fair bit of internal movement/promotion inside of LAB and as a result there's now folks doing full time fitting video replies. Again, not substantiated, but I get the impression it is more of a throughput machine now, with less "discussion".

My own experiences with the video fitting has been that they very much take your setup in the video as your preferred setup. What that means is, unless they see something horrendously egregious (think Tony Finau levels of lie angle) they will likely give you specs somewhat close to where you are today.

When I first got fitted for a Link coming from a Newport 2, they recommended 71º, which I think is actually what the Newport itself was going by the Cameron archive website. The problem was, my setup was garbage and non-reproduceable because my eyes were way outside the ball.

I then did a LOT of back and forth after gaming the Mezz for a while as I had a consistent left miss (this was after changing both grip and ball position). Letting my arms hang naturally and make a normal stroke, my stroke was crazily flat (64º) but I have quite an arcing stroke and the LAB fitter was worried it would be too inconsistent on start line given my arc. After some back and forth, I figured out that my local PGASS had the LAB Mezz Max fitting putter (with adjustable lie and length) and I spent about 2hrs down there trialling different length and lie combos until I got somewhere that felt most comfortable and reproducible.

I ended up sending my Mezz back to go from 71º to 69º and saw some improvement. My lag putting struggles with the Mezz continued (distance not line) and so I switched to the DF3. I'm impatient so went 0.5" up in length with a stock 69º/35". My own experience has been a couple of degrees does matter if you're sensitive to lie angle, but length within 0.5-1" (if you're choking down) doesn't feel as dramatic at least to me.

So in short - if you can try out a fitting putter, ideally on a Quintic machine to see differences then you should be in good shape.

Edited June 5 by Rearviewmirror

[Cfhandyman]

8 hours ago, 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 I received from L.A.B. was roughly what I expected (35.75", 68*).  They recommended, 35.5" and 69 degree lie.  I think one of the keys is to take your time with the fitting video you send them.  Have your golf shoes on, take the time to make your normal setup, record from the proper height and make your normal putting stroke.  i.e. don't rush it, the better the video, the more accurate the results. All in all, I would highly recommend it if you are considering purchasing a L.A.B. putter.  Short of getting a putter fitting on Quintic, it does provide useful information, particularly having the right lie angle.  

[jbern]

9 hours ago, 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. 

 

My initial fitting response was short, similar to what you saw. There was no talking through the video submitted with graphics on it or anything. In the follow up email, I asked several questions and this is where the more detailed responses came. The secondary responses took approximately one business day to receive. The initial fitting video submittal response took 12 days because of a computer malfunction. I don't think it would hurt to respond saying that you've been fit for other putters with a length of 33.5-34" and a 71* lie angle and see if they can explain things a little more...

This leads me to ask a question... If you do purchase a LAB putter and aren't satisfied with the length or lie, is there a process/warranty for getting those items adjusted? I know that it would need to be done by the folks at LAB to ensure the L.A.B. is still correct, but I don't think that's a process that anyone in this testing group will go through.

[CFreddie]

8 hours ago, 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. 

 

Good question/ feedback - had similar experiences from @Cfhandymanand @jbern.  

I did not get any video feedback, just a short write up of my specs with comments on my setup. We did have a good amount of back and forth due to my gamer being a bit too short, so I had to improvise and go to a local gold galaxy to reshoot with a longer putter. 

@jbern - on adjustments, LAB should be able to handle that, but I do know it has to be sent back to them (and is model dependent). Here is their page that talks about this process a bit more - https://labgolf.com/pages/repairs-warranty

[Middler]

On 6/3/2024 at 11:46 AM, Swood1994 said:

Likely has been stated somewhere in this thread but any of the testers going from a blade or mid-blade style putter to the DF3 what has been your biggest struggle and what do you see as the biggest advantage? I currently play a Scotty Squareback 2 and recently been toying with an odyssey 7s and the DF3 has been catching my attention due to this thread to switch to bigger mallet style putter.

Not directly, but I went from an Evnroll ER2 (mid-blade) to an ER5B and now the DF3 (only 5 rounds, but I am putting better and better each time). I felt more comfortable with the ER5B over the ER2 almost immediately and never regretted it, I would not go back to a blade. IME most mallets are just inherently more stable. The DF3 is another dimension (center shaft, onset, zero torque, press grip, unconventional shape), not just another mallet? IOW, if you go from your Squareback to a DF3 and don't like it, it may not be because it's a "mallet."

Edited June 5 by Middler

[Rearviewmirror]

31 minutes ago, jbern said:

This leads me to ask a question... If you do purchase a LAB putter and aren't satisfied with the length or lie, is there a process/warranty for getting those items adjusted? I know that it would need to be done by the folks at LAB to ensure the L.A.B. is still correct, but I don't think that's a process that anyone in this testing group will go through.

Hopefully not getting anyone in trouble (not sure if this was special treatment) but when I got my Mezz adjusted, they took care of the lie angle adjustment and fast shipping back to me, all I had to pay was shipping it back to them.

[Steve F]

On 6/4/2024 at 9:15 AM, jbern said:

This has been me so far on short putts also. Too tentative/nervous on short putts and I need to just let the DF3 work its magic! My miss on shorter putts has been a short push to the right.

Ditto. As I had said in my earlier post: the Mamba is very "crisp".... the ball jumps right off the face compared to the Spider. It is definitely taken some adjusting to this lively putter! 

[jbern]

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.

 

[Steve F]

Finally got an appointment with my local Club Champion this Friday. Also have some data to share from the last two weeks, coming soon! Very anxious to see the numbers from the SAM fitting .... 

[MattWillGolf]

Heading to Club Champion with Nemo for my session. More to follow.

[Rearviewmirror]

1 hour 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.

 

Overall it looks like you're stroking the ball well, and I think this is phase 2 of the untorqueing process (phase one is the short putt left/right yip pull/push phase). In my mind Phase 2 is real line vs torque influenced line, and distance control with a true roll. It looked from your videos like you were mostly long on uphill putts, and short on all downhill (missing low for your chosen line).

If you're ok with unsolicited internet advice.... A couple of thoughts (take it or leave it, I'm not a coach, but these were struggles I had when I first switched to LAB).

Hole 5 - you lifted your head as you were making contact. A drill I found that really helped initially was to consciously hold the putter in place post impact, and then not move at all until I thought the ball had stopped. I could usually tell if the ball ended long or short, which I think also helped "feels" but this helped me diagnose good stroke/bad stroke vs I chose the wrong line.

I just got back from drilling the DF3 today and the drills that I felt really helped me from 4-12ft were (all taken from "Make More Putts: A Proven Putting Performance Improvement System" by Juan Gutierrez - great book if you need more drill ideas):

• Making 4ft breaking putts at 3 different speeds (play 3 balls and try to hole all 3 from the same distance with slow/medium/fast pace and more/less break)
• Modified clock face drill - from 4ft, 6ft, 8ft at 12 (downhill), 6 (uphill), 3 (right to left), and 9 (left to right) try and hole as many as you can from five balls. Aim for 100% at 4ft, 60% at 6ft, 50% at 8ft and 20% at 12ft with all leaves inside 18 inches.
• Uphill/downhill - play 4 balls, two at 12 o'clock, two at six o'clock - alternate between uphill/downhill starting at 4ft and keep extending out by 1ft until you are missing. Changing from more pace to less pace really helps dial in speed (at least for me!). If you want more challenge add 6" of break on the 4ft starting putt.

[CFreddie]

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

[Rearviewmirror]

2 minutes ago, CFreddie said:

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

I went for the Great Outdoors - thought it would look nice with the blue DF3  After 1.5hrs practicing 6-12ft putts at the practice green this morning I am hooked and think the Mezz might be up for sale soon.

The main change I made was to imagine everything inside of 12 feet was a slightly downhill putt - so imagined giving it enough pace to gently roll 6-9 inches past the hole instead of smacking into the back of the cup. This helped my mid-range feel a lot. Excited to get out on course again next week and try it out on the course!

[CFreddie]

Nice @Rearviewmirror! I’m prob gonna wait until Seamus comes out with their DF3 line.