A 29-year-old Collin County entrepreneur is capitalizing on the popularity of expensive, one-of-a-kind golf clubs with a company that makes and sells custom putters costing thousands of dollars apiece. The entrepreneur, Tyson Lamb, and his mother, Tana, are two of five full-time employees at Tyson’s Allen-based Lamb Crafted Products. The company launched five years ago in Tana’s garage.
Today, Lamb is struggling to keep up with orders for his putters, which start at $1,250 per club and range all the way up to $5,000 for one personally crafted by Tyson himself. “I’ve been working a lot of 100-hour weeks, but for the first time in my life I have a direction and a purpose,” says Lamb, an experienced and proficient metalworker. “It’s exciting to see what I can do with these products.”
At least part of Lamb’s success is due to his mastery of social media on his company website and with his Instagram and Twitter pages. All were on full display in January at the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando, Florida. There was a long line at his small booth when the show opened, and Tana was forced to limit the crowd to two buyers at a time. “Otherwise,” she says, “it would have been a mob scene, and the product would have all been gone in 10 minutes.” As it was, all 50 high-end putters sold by the end of the show’s first day.
Tyson says he crafts the putters with an attitude like the makers of custom watches. “People don’t wear watches to tell time,” he says. “They wear them because they look cool and stylish.” Garland’s AJ Fischer, one of Lamb Crafted’s first customers, agrees. Tyson’s “touch in designing something custom for each person or each order is amazing,” Fischer says. That’s “why he has been so successful with his products.”
As busy as the company is, Lamb Crafted is growing. With an 1,800-square-foot warehouse in Wylie—and a new, three-warehouse complex on the drawing board—the company recently announced an exclusive licensing deal with the NBA. Last year—four years after the company produced its first custom putter—marked the first year it has turned a profit, Tana says. The company had gross sales of about $800,000 in 2017, with 200 putters produced, along with an array of unique “donut” putter covers, custom ball markers, and divot tools (they range in price from $55 to $230 apiece). Lamb Crafted is debt-free and is backed by a single “silent party” local investor, Tana says. The revenue goal for 2018 is $2 million in gross sales on 400 putters produced, plus other golf-associated items.
Tyson, who began dabbling in metalworking in shop classes at Allen High School, is the company’s creative director. Tana serves as operations director and president. Tyson’s grandmother, Judy, assists with shipping and distribution, and his sister, Addason, helps with front-office tasks and answering the hundreds of emails the company receives each week. Tyson’s father, Chris, CIO for the Wylie Independent School District, occasionally does some website and photography work. Ben Wortham is the lone non-family employee, helping Tyson with manufacturing.
“I talk to 60 percent of the people on the phone who want a putter and get to know them personally,” Tyson says. “I want everybody to have the putter they want. But even [retired hockey superstar] Wayne Gretzky had to wait six months for his putter. You can’t just jump to the front of the line.”
With one exception, maybe. At the PGA Show in Florida, Eric Trump—the president’s son and the CEO of Trump Golf Courses—walked away with a Lamb Crafted “donut” putter cover without queuing up.
