Worldwide Golf Insider Podcast – Episode #423
On episode #423 of the Worldwide Golf Insider podcast, host Tom Brassell sits down with LAB Golf CEO Sam Hahn for a conversation that blends childhood memories, creative detours, breakthrough technology, and big-time wins on the PGA Tour.
If you’ve ever wondered how someone goes from a life in music to leading one of the most talked-about putter companies in golf, this episode is for you.
Falling in Love with the Game
Sam’s golf story starts the way many of ours do: on the course with his dad.
He talks about those early days as a kid, learning the game one swing (and one chunked shot) at a time. It wasn’t about perfection back then—it was about time together, the feel of a well-struck shot, and the simple magic of walking down a fairway with someone you love.
Those formative rounds planted a seed. Even though Sam wouldn’t stay with the game continuously, golf was always there in the background—waiting.
Walking Away… and Then Coming Back
Like a lot of golfers, Sam eventually drifted away from the game.
Life pulled him in other directions, and golf took a back seat. He set the clubs aside, focusing instead on another passion: music. For a while, that became his world—creativity, performance, and the grind that comes with trying to make it in a competitive industry.
But golf has a funny way of pulling people back.
Sam shares how, after years away, he found himself returning to the game with a fresh perspective. No longer just a casual pastime, golf became an obsession again—this time, with a twist. He wasn’t just interested in playing better. He wanted to understand why certain things worked… especially on the greens.
That curiosity became the foundation for what would eventually become LAB Golf.
From Music to Making Putters: A Creative Pivot
Most people see music and golf as worlds apart. Sam doesn’t.
In the podcast, he explains how his background in music actually helped shape his path in golf:
Music taught him about feel and rhythm—two things that matter immensely in putting.
Performing and creating taught him to experiment, to break out of conventional lanes.
The constant pursuit of “better” in music mirrored the endless chase for improvement in golf.
That same creative mindset led Sam to start asking questions most golfers never do:
Why do so many of us struggle with putting, even when our strokes look pretty good?
Why does the putter face seem to fight us—opening and closing when we don’t want it to?
Those questions would eventually lead to LAB Golf—and to a completely different way of thinking about putter design.
What Is Lie Angle Balance?
At the heart of LAB Golf is a simple but powerful idea: lie angle balance.
Sam breaks it down this way on the show:
Most putters want to twist during the stroke. That twist comes from torque—the club’s natural tendency to open or close the face as you move it. Your hands and wrists are constantly having to fight that twist, even if you don’t feel it. That’s one major reason putting can feel so inconsistent.
LAB Golf putters are designed to be lie angle balanced, which means:
When you swing the putter, the face doesn’t want to rotate open or closed.
The putter is balanced around the exact lie angle it’s built to be played at.
Instead of you having to manipulate the face, the putter wants to stay square to your target line.
The idea is to let golfers free up their stroke—remove excess hand action, reduce compensation, and make it easier to start the ball on line, over and over again.
Sam also talks about the engineering that goes into this:
Carefully distributed weights
Unique head shapes
Custom fitting to get the right lie angle for your stroke
The result is a putter that doesn’t just feel different—it behaves differently.
LAB Golf on the PGA Tour: Proof at the Highest Level
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