About

I started my journey with golf nearly 20 years ago playing golf for my high school team. My first job was as cart-boy at a local club and the best benefit of that job was the privilege of playing for free on Mondays. Little did I know then that this job would turn into a lifelong passion. The job allowed me to gain exposure to the game of golf from several angles. The head pro at the club taught me a lot about changing grips, shafts, wedge & iron grinds and I became hooked as a club tinkering nerd. I had the opportunity to play college golf, but as we all know that is a very competitive field. I decided to play for leisure, focus on my career and received a Graphic Design degree from the University of Georgia.

Once I started my career as a Designer, I was exposed to 3D printing and the world of CAD modeling was something that I had always wanted to explore as an art kid. The MinotaurFirst putter that I made (in 2018) I started printing things in plastic, but those small steps into 3D design and 3D printing would eventually lead me to dive deeper than I ever thought I would into the world of machining & CAD design. The first putter that I made was actually 3D printed. It was mixed materials to drive the weight up and was as intricate of a design that I could make at the time. That model was called named the Minotaur due to the half plastic, half metal contstruction. I quickly realized I would be limited with the materials that I had access to, but I was drawn to a (somewhat opposite) style of putters that were “handmade”. At the time that I started making putters, there was a huge push in what people were calling “handmade” putters. I thought to myself, I’m a creative guy who grew up in a fabrication garage – I can figure out how to do that. I found out quickly that these “custom shops” weren’t actually using their hands & grinders to make these putters and to make my own I would need to purchase a small milling machine to do the job. I bought a small manual mill and transformed that machine into a small, dangerous monster that I call the Frankenmill. The Frankenmill Real machinist shudder I modified the machine to have a motor that has 4x the original power, but it remained a manually driven machine. This meant that I would stand in front of the machine and turn handles with my hands to get the axis to move tiny distances with each turn. This was all to stay in line with “hand making” putters. When it came to the metal the putters were made from, I took this a step further by melting the metal for them in my backyard forge. I would melt the copper or brass at temperatures over 2000ºF and pour it into molds that I made. That is actually where the colors (orange and yellow) of material in the Noah’s Lab beaker come from and the term "lab" in Noah's Lab. Remember the 3D printing that I mentioned I was tinkering with? Well, that’s how I made the molds that I would pour the metal into. Molten Metal Copper at 2000ºF If you’ve never seen what pouring copper or brass looks like, imagine pouring water out of a cup into a putter shaped container… except its molten (liquid) metal. It is very limiting regarding the shapes & contours you can make when you create putters/parts like this, but my creative fuel was ignited. It was very time consuming making these handmade putters, not to mention very, very dangerous due to the fumes and extreme heat from the metal when pouring the metal in to the molds. Each of those putters took months to make and it was particularly awful when I would be nearly finished milling and a void (hole or pocket) would reveal itself in the head from the pouring of the metal. I started to realize that this wasn’t the way that I wanted to continue to make putters, so I began to look into more modern techniques. You can see those handmade putters on my Instagram feed (near the beginning). Moving away from the handmade side of things, my mind began to venture into the world of milling machines that were controlled by computers and using billet pieces of metal stock to start with. Those machines are commonly known as CNC Machines and the options are endless when you move into these types of machines.

Now that I start with billet stock, instead of stock made in my back yard, my scrap rate (and subsequent manufacturing time) has reduced tremendously. My inner nerd, who was melting metal into liquid form, was still schemings ideas on how I could differentiate myself from other putter makers. Some makers you’ll see contract their milling out to machine shops, some copy designs from Tiger’s wand, and some will charge you thousands of dollars because of the payments on the CNC machines they've purchased. All of these factors had me questioning if I could create something different. I would go on to build my own custom CNC machine to make my putters with. That short sentence does not capture the true essence of the effort that it took for me to build the machine (remember… I have an Art degree), but it was a risk that I took on.

As I was building the machine, I began to conceptualize and design new models in CAD software. One of the driving thoughts for the models I would create is to contour everything. Meaning curves would be an integral part of the design. When I was hand making putters, contours were nearly impossible to do repeatedly when you have to move the machine's table by hand. When I started on my first putters, I only dreamt of making contours like you’ll see in the models today. Hopefully, you’ll like those contours as much as I do! 

Hey, if you're reading this, you've found me somehow, I'm thankful you did. Better things are coming soon.