L.A.B. Golf waited four years to update its popular Mezz. Here’s what changed
Putter models rarely get to sit still for four years. The category runs on annual refresh cycles, and a shape that goes untouched for that long usually means one of two things: it's been forgotten, or it's too important to mess with.
L.A.B. Golf's Mezz.1 falls into the second camp.
When it launched in early 2022, L.A.B. was still best known as the Oregon-based company making odd-looking putters that stayed square on their own, due to its unique design that balanced the putter head around the shaft's lie angle, as opposed to the shaft axis itself.
What made the Mezz unique was the fact that it gave L.A.B. something new: a fanged mid-mallet sized between the hulking DF 2.1 and the B.2 that felt comfortable to pros on the highest rung of the food chain.
The tour took notice quickly, and so did amateurs. Adam Scott put a broomstick-length Mezz in play ahead of the 2022 WM Phoenix Open. Charl Schwartzel won LIV Golf's debut event that June with a long Mezz.1. A year later, Lucas Glover went back-to-back on the PGA Tour with a long-handled Mezz, and the putter went mainstream.
According to L.A.B., the company sold 130 broomsticks in the first seven months of 2023. In August alone, after Glover's wins, it sold roughly 2,700.
To date, Mezz.1's pro résumé boasts more than 1,100 events, and it still turns up on tour practice greens today. So the question with Mezz.2i, the first update to the model, was never whether L.A.B. could make a new Mezz. It was whether it could make a better one.
"The original Mezz played a pivotal role in establishing L.A.B. Golf's presence on tour," said Cameron Day, L.A.B.'s senior vice president of product. "Rather than reinventing what already worked, we focused on making every detail better."
The core idea hasn't changed. Like every L.A.B. putter, Mezz.2i is built around Lie Angle Balance, which in plain English means the head is weighted so it has no natural tendency to twist open or shut during the stroke.
What has changed starts with the "i" in the name. It's become L.A.B.'s tell for a face insert, following the DF3i, OZ.1i and VZN.1i. Here, a deep fly-milled 303 stainless steel insert sits in a 6061 aluminum head, a pairing L.A.B. says delivers a soft feel without going mushy at impact. That balance matters more than it might sound.
When L.A.B. put an insert in its flagship DF3, the goal was fixing complaints that the original felt too soft and slow off the face for some players. Mezz.2i is chasing the same middle ground: soft at impact, with enough response to judge speed.
Most of what's left for this putter release falls under the heading of polish. Set Mezz.2i next to the original and the outline looks tidier, the head settles a little differently behind the ball and more of its weight has been shifted to help on mishits. Golfers also get a wider menu of sight lines to choose from.
Then there's the ball pickup feature. The Mezz.2i gives golfers the ability to scoop or pick the ball off the green without bending over, which won't show up on the list of performance benefits but will likely get plenty of use.
As with every L.A.B. model, golfers can spec nearly everything, from lie angle and length to head weight, grip and color. Each build is still balanced and put together by hand, and goes through as many as 10 steps before it leaves the shop.
The Mezz.2i is available on the company's website, with stock models at $499 and custom builds starting at $599. It reaches retail shops Nov. 17.
The most telling detail is what L.A.B. didn't do with its latest Mezz. After four years and more than 1,100 events, the company made what it believes is an upgraded version instead of a different one, which is about as un-L.A.B. a move as there is for a brand built on looking unlike anything else on the green.