Unquestionably, the techies and engineers who design the game’s newest equipment are fully fit to do the job — and, with each new club, to deliver dazzle to your own game. But some gearheads like to go in a very different direction, because disruption isn’t merely about breaking things. It’s about being radically better.
The golf equipment industry is loaded with big brains and lofty diplomas. Ballistics PhDs from aerospace. Engine designers from automotive. Materials scientists from advanced manufacturing. They make up a vast army of eggheads, pouring their expertise into a game governed by conformance rules and rooted in tradition.
Innovation happens constantly, though not always as dramatically or regularly as advertisements suggest. Golfers crave the next breakthrough. Manufacturers promise it with every product cycle.
But genuinely disruptive ideas are rare. They don’t arrive on schedule and can’t be conjured by a marketing blitz. On the face of it, they seem to appear out of nowhere, like a hole in one, but they spring from tireless effort, a tolerance for risk and a willingness to question what others accept as settled.
Innovators like L.A.B. Golf’s Sam Hahn, whose story you can read below, didn’t just contribute to groundbreaking products — they challenged assumptions about how gear should be designed, built and sold.
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LONG BEFORE HE bought into the golf industry, L.A.B. Golf CEO Sam Hahn, was sold on golf. Deeply invested. Fully addicted.
As the owner of a bar and music venue in Eugene, Ore., he worked nights and played by day. When he wasn’t swinging clubs, he dissected them in niche corners of the internet, mixing it up with fellow gear obsessives, sharing reviews and strong opinions. He talked a good game and flashed one too. Looping his local muni, he whittled his handicap to scratch.
But putters drove him crazy. Like many golfers, his relationship with flatsticks followed the arc of teenage romance: hot and heavy at first, fueled by infatuation and the thrill of draining a few long bombs, until betrayal spoiled the mood. The putter would go cold. Confidence would waver. Another club would gain favor. And the pattern would repeat.
Still, through countless cycles of heartache and frustration, Hahn never lost hope that he’d find “the one.” When he finally did, it wasn’t much of a looker.
L.A.B. Golf DF3i Custom Putter
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It was ugly, in fact. Bulbous and awkward, with a hollowed-out circle on the back, the putter — then known as the Directed Force — called to mind a metal detector married to a satellite dish. So much for appearances. The first time Hahn took it to the course, he one-putted the first seven greens.
Even when he missed, the experience was edifying. Hahn had always adjusted his stroke to fit a new putter. With the Directed Force, that burden vanished. Because the head was balanced to the lie angle of the shaft, aligning the center of gravity with the shaft and grip, there was no need to manipulate it.
“With every other putter, I was fighting to keep it square,” Hahn says. “And now I realized my job was just to let it stay square.”
L.A.B. Golf MEZZ.1 Custom Putter
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Two weeks later, the love affair was interrupted when the putter head fell off. Hahn sent it back. Along with a replacement, he received a call from Directed Force inventor Bill Presse IV, an industrial engineer in Reno, Nev., who apologized. Presse was struggling to make the company work. The two got to talking. Before long, Hahn, along with his father and brother, bought out Presse’s partners and relaunched the company as L.A.B. Golf — short for Lie, Angle, Balance. That was in 2018.
Getting a new company off the ground is like hitting driver off the deck. It’s difficult and risky. Hahn dove in with a naivete that turned out to be a strength. His outsider status gave him an edge. Hahn, who is 45, with a dark mop of hair, glasses and a lean build, had never had a commercial stake in golf. But he knew how to connect with people. He had a founder’s willingness to engage and a gearhead’s credibility with his audience. He was also online “pretty much 24-7,” he says.
When J.J. Spaun rolled in a 65-footer to win the 2025 U.S. Open with a L.A.B. in his hands, a company that began with a cultish following captured next-level national attention.
When the pandemic hit, his audience grew larger and more captive than ever. Hahn leaned into the moment, though he never thought of it as marketing. He was proselytizing what he saw as truths.
Momentum gathered gradually, then suddenly. What had begun as whispers in gear forums migrated onto the game’s larger stages. L.A.B. racked up PGA Tour wins and influencer endorsements. When J.J. Spaun rolled in a 65-footer to win the 2025 U.S. Open with a L.A.B. in his hands, a company that began with a cultish following captured next-level national attention.
A little more than a month later, L.A.B. sold a majority stake at a valuation north of $200 million.
L.A.B. Golf DF3 Custom Putter
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It’s a larger operation than it once was, with 260 employees, but Hahn has stayed in Eugene, running the company out of a building that overlooks Emerald Valley Golf Course, the public course where he first put the putter into play. It takes him no more than 90 seconds to get from his desk to the first tee. He plays as much as ever, maybe more. He’s a plus-3 now.
His office is cluttered with training aids, clubs, headcovers, ball markers — all samples from aspiring entrepreneurs seeking advice. He tells them “your people are everything,” especially in an industry that is brutal on newcomers. Hahn is part of the establishment now, but the culture of his company hasn’t shifted. He has hired someone to field the flood of direct messages L.A.B. receives. But if you DM the company, there’s a good chance you’ll hear back from Hahn himself.
For golfers who know the pattern of putter romance, that kind of commitment is hard to beat.
