Bob Labbe’s putting system starts with a number most golfers never assign to themselves: individual power factor. On this episode of Golf Podcasts USA, he discusses Putting by the Numbers, his quantitative method to lag putting, and explains why the same stroke length can send the ball different distances for different players.

For the Kauai Golf Podcast audience, the useful part is how practical Bob tries to make the math. He is not telling golfers to rebuild their grip or copy one putting style. His focus is on measuring what happens when a golfer rocks the shoulders, retracts the putter a set distance, and rolls the ball across surfaces with different resistance.

The method began after Bob sold his second air pollution control company in 1996. Once he had more time for golf, he committed hard: 18 holes three days a week, plus three additional practice days. His long game improved, but long-distance putting remained the problem. Too many three-putts and four-putts pushed him toward the engineering question behind the book: if a golfer applies a known amount of force, can the resulting distance be made predictable?

That led to individual power factor. Bob says that, for him during the summer, one inch of putter retraction on the green produced about 20 feet of ball travel. But the number changes by surface. In his examples, the green, fringe, fairway and first cut rough each require a different calculation because each creates different frictional resistance. A putt that begins off the green is not treated as one vague feel shot; it becomes a sequence of measured sections.

Bob also stresses that the method still requires execution. The number gives the golfer a plan, but the stroke still has to match the plan. His argument is not that feel has no place in golf. It is that a repeatable, linear system gives recreational and amateur players a way to approach lag putting with more confidence, especially when they do not play every day.

He spent roughly 25 years proving the method before writing Putting by the Numbers. In the episode, Bob says he wanted to be certain the system was real, accurate and repeatable before putting it into a book. He also notes that the book was available in multiple formats, and that the e-book had a 99-cent promotion on Amazon during August.

The larger takeaway is simple: Bob sees putting as too large a share of the scorecard to leave long putts entirely to guesswork. His goal with Putting by the Numbers is to help golfers turn lag putting into a practiced, measurable routine that leaves shorter, more manageable putts to finish the hole.

Heard on Kauai Golf Podcast, part of the Golf Podcasts USA network.
​More Kauai golf coverage at golfpodcasts.org.

The most useful part of this network update is the system behind the shows. Brett Smith explains that Golf Podcasts USA is rolling out a publishing tool built to make the work of talking, uploading and distributing content easier across the network. For the Kauai Golf Podcast audience, the episode functions as a behind-the-scenes look at how one recording can move through the broader platform without turning the production process into a bottleneck.

Smith says the network now has golf content for all 50 states, which is the larger framework this Kauai page fits into. The goal he describes is straightforward: create and distribute local golf podcast content at scale while keeping the workflow manageable enough to publish consistently.

The timing is part of the story. Smith notes that Golf Podcasts USA started in November 2025, and this update was recorded in August 2026. In that short window, he says interest in the category has changed sharply, with Google Trends showing searches for “golf podcast” at an all-time peak.

He also points out that the five-year trend had been mostly flat before the recent spike. That makes the current moment feel different from the long stretch that came before it, and it helps explain why the network is putting so much emphasis on its publishing process now.

On the distribution side, Smith names the major platforms where the network is active, including YouTube, Spotify, Instagram and TikTok. The episode is less about a single topic in golf and more about how Golf Podcasts USA is positioning its network, its tools and its all-state content library as demand for golf podcasting rises.

Heard on Kauai Golf Podcast, part of the Golf Podcasts USA network.
​More Kauai golf coverage at golfpodcasts.org.