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Day 11: 2/16/2025 Rince and Repeat: Just like yesterday I spent several 5-10 minute sessions working on what I learned on Friday.   

Quick update. So, I got the PXG Secret Weapon and I have to say I like it... mostly. (see below) I spent some time with it on the range and I even gathered some data in doors. I'm not going to post data yet, as my swing is still a bit of a work in progress and I'd like to gather some more data after I settle down a little bit more. But here's my review.  First as a driver replacement. ... IMO it is not a replacement, it's clearly more of a supplement... for me anyway. Not long enough to really replace the driver. For me it's about 20 yards short of my driver. It is longer than my 30-wood off the tee. (15 yards-ish) I will say it is easier to hit off the tee than my 3-wood. I get some of my best shots teeing it low, but I also get some of my worst. If I tee it about a full inch off the ground I get very consistent shots. Super repeatable. Amazingly repeatable even with my messy swing. Off the tee, I find it draw biased just a bit. You can tinker with the set up if that isn't your personal cup of tea.  As a 3-wood replacement. For me it's about perfect. It's longer than my 3-wood off the deck (my data showed 10 yards longer) and it has a gentle fade to it, which I love. You do need a clean lie, but I never hit my 3-wood off anything but a clean lie anyway. I found it interesting that I hit a gentle fade off the deck and a slight draw off a tee. I'm sure that's not uncommon. Again, you can tinker with the set up to optimize that if you wanted to... I don't want to.  It's clearly a lot longer than my 3-wood off the tee. Easier to hit off the tee than my 3 wood, and off the deck it's also longer. So, it's a no-brainer 3-wood replacement for me. I will say that over the years I've learned to use my 3-wood for this low-flying-100-yard-punch-out-from-under-a-tree shot.  I'll have to see if the Secret Weapon can handle that duty. But it's going in the bag to replace the 3-wood.  I also turned my 5-wood down from 19 degrees to 17 degrees. ... Incidentally my 3-wood had been 16 degrees. I used to always hit my 5 wood and my hybrid about the same distance. This adjustment helps my gapping a bit at the top of the bag. I can clearly hit my 5-wood farther than my hybrid now.  Overall on the PXG Secret Weapon. The good: It's clearly longer and easier to hit off the tee than my 3-wood. It's a bit longer off the deck than my 3-wood.  It's super forgiving... surprisingly so.  It's uber adjustable. ... Although I do suggest getting fit for it. That will save you having to (or wanting to) buy a weight kit just to try out the infinite number of set ups. The headcover is super cool.  The maybe not so good: Shots out of the middle sound great. Shots off the heal sound great. Shots off the toe sound ... what's the work... clangy? It's very forgiving off the toe and the heal. The flight and the distance are incredibly consistent. But the sound off the toe isn't great.  For me I tend to draw it off the tee and fade it off the deck. You can set it up to be biased either way, but in my hands I think if I set up a draw off the deck, that might induce a duck hook off the tee. ... In fairness that could also be where my swing is at right now.  It's pretty spendy. ... If I really stop and think about it, I paid $450 for a new 3-wood. Granted it's a better performing 3-wood. But for me it's really a 3-wood replacement.

I've got my pain mostly under control and the meds are working.   I'd like to join. 

I would definitely attend if my calendar allows.

Finland: I've played Mid-Night Golf in Finland. Really cool. I looked at the schedule for my week out there and I saw that we were teeing off at 9PM... Feels weird, 9 PM tee time. But it was really great. We finished well after 1AM and sat around and drank on the golf course terrace. It was cool. It's really easy to loose track of time when the sun doesn't set.  Here's a picture of me in Finland hitting my approach on the final hole. It's roughly 1:30AM in this photo.  Egypt: Another cool experience was playing golf in Egypt. The entire course is sand. The greens are called browns, cuz they are just sand with oil poured on them and pounded down a bit. Your ball gets kind of oily when you putt, but the caddy cleans it for you after each hole. You carry around a little piece of fake grass (maybe 2 foot square) and place your ball on it each time before you hit. That is except when you go into a sandtrap. The sandtraps are just areas marked off where you don't get to use your little piece of astro-turf. Sometimes they are dug down a bit to make a bunker, sometimes not.  Spain: No special events or anything, but I played a bunch of golf in Spain in the mid-1990's. At that time Spain's economy wasn't doing the best and Europe hadn't quite switched to the Euro. So Spain was using the Peseta. The country of Spain has some incredibly breathtaking courses. (incredible scenery in general) But because of the conversion from the dollar to the Peseta (If memory serves it was 150 to 1), I got to play them for what I remember as being incredibly inexpensive prices. Gorgeous country and really nice people.  Holland or The Netherlands: I lived for a couple of years in what's called The Flevoland in Holland. It's one of the Dutch provinces and it's all land that was recovered from the sea. So, it's all under sea-level. One of the courses I played a few times out there had flags on every hole to show just how deep the water would be if it wasn't for the dams.