U.S. Open 2025: 'I'm glad that the neighbors didn't call the cops on me'—L.A.B. Golf CEO celebrates small putter company's big win

Anyone who knows L.A.B. Golf CEO Sam Hahn a little bit knows him to be the frenetically passionate energy behind the funny-looking putters that have grown in the last three years from cult favorite to the game-changing leader of the “zero torque” putter trend. When J.J. Spaun rolled in an electrifying 64-foot putt to win the U.S. Open Sunday evening, Hahn saw the dream of any small putter company immediately coming to mind-bending fruition. Surely, it set off the kind of celebration that went well past the wee small hours of the morning, no?

“Best night’s sleep I’ve had in seven years,” Hahn told Golf Digest on Monday morning, calling early from his home near the company’s Oregon base. An entrepreneur in the bar and music business who took charge of the L.A.B. operation in 2018, Hahn said he had a different feeling throughout the ups and downs of Oakmont over the last seven days.

“I mean, literally, it felt special all week,” said Hahn, who had both Spaun and Adam Scott using his company’s putters atop and all around the leaderboard through the entire championship. “There are times when we have putters in contention, and it feels, you know, scary. And yes, this was kind of scary, but both of these guys, it wasn’t like they were new to L.A.B. Golf. And I knew both of them had been putting exceptionally well.”

Spaun, for example, gained more than four strokes on the field putting in Thursday’s opening 66. Scott, who helped design L.A.B.’s Oz.1 putters, has jumped 50 places in his ranking in strokes gained putting since March, while Spaun was 142nd in the same stat in January before moving just outside the top 100 after switching to L.A.B.’s DF3 putter, the distinctive hole-in-the-head shape modeled off the original “lie angle balanced” Directed Force putter that was introduced in 2016. Spaun plays a 34-inch model with a 70-degree lie angle, two-degree shaft lean and a custom TPT shaft.

Hahn, whose wild curly hair and retro cool glasses have become well known to golf insiders and look more the part of a record promoter than golf company exec, watched Sunday late alone in his home as Spaun rolled in 136 feet of putts over the final seven holes. Hahn said it was the two-putt on 17 that was most telling.

“When he made that four-footer on 17, like that was not that was not an easy putt,” Hahn said. “I was so so proud to see him give that eagle putt a go instead of kind of just limping it down there. Under the circumstances, I can't imagine he could even feel his hands at that point. But that was a positive stroke. There are times where you’re nervous about dudes, but I was just not nervous about that. I knew if he had the look, he was going to get it done. He's just had that look all year.”

Hahn played in the pro-am at Colonial with Spaun, the first time the two had spent any time together. He said he learned a lot about how the switch to the DF3 restored Spaun's confidence on the greens and freed him up to get more putts to the hole. Clearly, exactly what he did on the 18th hole on Sunday in the rain at Oakmont from 64 feet away. Spaun’s clincher came moments after Viktor Hovland had missed from a similar line.

“When I saw Viktor's ball just settle right behind his, I had no concern whatsoever,” Hahn said. In fact, Hahn said it reminded him of the 90-foot putt Austin Smotherman made a week earlier with a L.A.B. Oz.1 putter to win the BMW Charity Pro-Am. “The second J.J. hit it, I knew it was going to have a good chance to go in. Then about 2/3 of the way there, I knew it was in, and then I started screaming, and I was by myself and I just started screaming and screaming and screaming and I just couldn't stop. I was just like running around the house screaming and I realized that my porch door was open, so I'm glad that the neighbors didn't call the cops on me.”

Hahn said as good as the moment was, L.A.B. Golf several years ago stopped pinning its hopes on what might happen with a tour player. It’s too fragile an existence, he said, especially for a small company.

“We put our focus where it should have been and then that was honestly when things started to go really good on tour,” he said. “We just decided to keep making kick-ass putters, keep giving a shit about your customers, keep making them happy, and if something happens on tour, that's cool, that’s great, but you can't work for it because there's nothing you can do.”

Still, a U.S. Open win with as dramatic a 72nd-hole putt as there’s been since maybe Tiger Woods’ birdie at Torrey Pines in 2008 kind of validates a brand in a way that no customer word of mouth or Instagram post ever could. Hahn expects a crazy week ahead.

“Historically, we don't pay players, but we're already talking to J.J.'s people and trying to figure out something to make it so that he can get what he deserves for helping us the way that he has,” Hahn said.

More importantly, Hahn said the company already has been working to ramp up production as demand for L.A.B. putters has been on the rise, with wait times stretching for months in some cases. “We used to be able to say, ‘OK, well let's hire five more people and bam, we're caught up, but the scale is just too big now, so it takes some time.” he said, noting that there has been a steady stream of interest from outside investors over the last couple of years but that stuff will take care of itself. “We were already going to be making major moves on production this month, so it's not going to be as bad.”

For now, he’s just going to savor the overnight success that’s been nearly a decade in the making that’s seen almost every putter brand produce their own versions.

“It is a special technology, it is a special company, and, and now there's an immortal moment that included a funny looking putter with a big hole in it, and it feels really good," he said. 

“I don't really personally have a lot of moments where I actually feel accomplishment. There's always kind of the next challenge or the next thing that has me worried, but I can honestly say this is one of the first times I’ve felt this way. This is the first deep breath I've been able to take in seven years.”