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This seems like something that might help those opens to have stronger fields more so than changing much about the eventual Masters field. Maybe not so much for the Scottish Open since lots of top players play that as a warm up for the Open, but for Japan, Hong Kong, South Africa I could see this being a big boon.

"Move to four days of competition reflects LIV Golf’s global momentum and evolution" This is incoherent. "to deliver more action and entertainment for fans" One-third more than 0 is still 0.

LIV ceases to exist. LIV Golf announces expanded 72-hole format for 2026 season as next phase of growth for the league continues Move to four days of competition reflects LIV Golf’s global momentum and evolution to deliver more action and entertainment for fans They are going to have to rename themselves LXXII.

You didn't even know about PCC. You seemed to be unaware of soft and hard caps. Saying that you know and demonstrating that you know are two different things. We know. It could take way, way too long to rise. It's what you're used to, and change is hard. That's the language we used to have here, too. Now it's "demonstrated ability." The new system more accurately reflects the golfer's demonstrated ability. Plus the soft and hard caps that limit upward movement. That's not true. The opposite is closer to true. It's more reactive than the old UK system (a good thing IMO), and it's much quicker to go down than it is to go up, especially if a golfer shoots an exceptional score. This is just math and is factual. This has been demonstrated several times for you. You refuse to acknowledge that you've got it wrong, mathematically, or you're being quite loose with the definitions of some words. Again, pal, post the handicap history or pipe down, because that doesn't make any real sense. The first good score you shoot drops your handicap. The next good score you shoot drops it again. The first twelve bad scores you shoot have the potential to not affect your index at all, if they bump off other non-counting scores. It's just math, man. And you're still a sample size of one, with some strange definitions and you play a lot of golf. I'm also not even really sure I believe you anymore. So, again… Please post your handicap record (like below) for the past year so we can all see exactly what you're talking about or just stop posting in this thread. It's going nowhere. Would look like a bigger version of this (not mine):

LEXXII sounds like a stage name for someone in the adult entertainment industry.

After reading through this whole thread, I actually have no idea what the hell your point is other than your apparently insatiable desire to get the last word in. It's more reactive when you're playing better, less reactive when you're not, which IMO, is the way it should be.

Where are you getting the opinions of the average Brit from? Most people I know are fine with it (or at least not fussed enough to complain about it). I've spent roughly half my golfing life under the CONGU system and half under the US/WHS system. I think WHS is a significant improvement over CONGU for two main reasons - one, it adjusts for how difficulty varies by ability, where CONGU does not and two, it catches up with changes in ability far more quickly than CONGU did. If your handicap was 5.0 under CONGU and you started shooting the course rating/SSS every time you played, it would take 21 rounds to get to 0.4 and would never get below 0.4. Under WHS, it takes at most 8 rounds to get to 0.0 and could be fewer. Similarly if you were 5.0 and started shooting 8 over every time, you'd get to 5.5 in 5 rounds and then you'd be stuck at 6 forever. WHS gets to 8.0 after at most 20 rounds and could be quite a bit fewer than that

Didn't say anything about your understanding in my post. Well, if you are not insisting on alignment with logic of the WHS, then no. Try me/us. What do you want from us then?? You are not making sense. You come here and post in an open forum, question a system that is constructed with logic, without using any of your own and then give us a small window of your personal experience to support your narrative which at first sight does not makes sense. I mean, if you are a point of swearing then I would suggest you cut your losses and humor a more gullible audience elsewhere. Good heavens.

So you play 3-4 rounds/week, post ALL of your rounds, yet these 'three best rounds' from summer JUST fell off?? Give us your score history or should we say, err..the plot thickens?

What drives me nuts most about Elite Golf Schools/Milo Lines type instruction is: Claims about the "health benefits" of swinging like they prefer. Claims about how "athletes" should move Claims about the advantages of swinging the way they swing (while constantly listing golfers like Rory, Tiger, Scottie, Jack, etc. as "swingers") Basing much of their "analysis" on 2D video and what they think is happening versus 3D and force plate data. Ignoring facts and data in other ways. I didn't time stamp my notes, but you can pretty much follow along… Jimmy Walker (why Jimmy Walker? Because he has a "not great" swing that exaggerates some of what he sees as flaws?) vs. Viktor Hovland (even though he notes Scottie as a swinger), also notes that Rory has a higher ROC than Viktor at 18:40 (another swinger). Also… Jimmy won a major ("Hovvie" doesn't) in 2016, got Lyme disease in 2017, and this video is from 2018 when he was saying he couldn't practice, couldn't play, etc. Also, there's never been a correlation between Rate of Closure and either distance or accuracy. It sounds like there would be, but there isn't. You have accurate and inaccurate, long and short, and every combo of those players who have high ROC and low ROC and everything in between. No correlation. But it sounds good… Main reason for Riley's "preference" is injury prevention. D'oh! Never shown any actual evidence or support for this, and the rash of players moving away from the "extreme-right-side-bend/rotational" for their health is just ignored, I guess. He will talk about Jimmy Walker's shoulder tilt and "right side bend" at P8, but ignore that Viktor's right shoulder is about 18" below his left at P9. Then he goes into the high ROC stuff I wrote about above. Seriously, again, Jimmy Walker less than a year after a Lyme Disease diagnosis? From 2018? Riley now likes to say that golfers "express the golf club to the golf ball." 😛 Oy. Says Walker's swing is "lots of lateral bend" (right side bend) while the body moves up and pelvis goes forward. See Image 1 where he's comparing himself to Hovland and let's see if you can spot the differences! Riley is not doing ANY of this using 3D, just what he thinks and what it looks like on a video. If only we had measured data on these kinds of things. Word Salad just jumped to level 7. He's now using the words "antecubital fossa" instead of just saying "elbow pit" or "inside of your elbow." Also, you could just call it the cubital fossa if you want to use a medical term, but adding "ante" adds two syllables and makes him look smarter (he thinks?). Jimmy Walker is at P8.2 while Hovland is at P7.2 and he's comparing left arm internal rotation. Riley clearly doesn't know the YouTube shortcuts , and . Opening the chest is a clubface opener. It makes it tougher to square the face. Riley keeps saying Hovland squares the face with heavy rotation of the chest. Oh geez. Now he's saying they're "more or less stacked up" by guessing at where the centers of his rib cage and pelvis are at P5 by looking at an off-angle video on YouTube. We can and have measurements for these kinds of things. See Image 2. You want to know who's actually stacked up late in the downswing? See Rory McIlroy, a swinger, in Image 3. Almost all of the stuff around 18:40 and Rory vs. Viktor is laughable. a) Rory is as "stacked" for as long as almost anyone, b) Rory's high ROC and "swinger" pattern have led to a 15-year span in which he's consistently top 5 in the world, and often #1, and won the Career Slam. Riley doesn't seem to understand how pressure is generated at 21:02. Some of the biggest swayers generate the least pressure in the left foot, and some of the biggest rotators generate the most. He's guessing at Jimmy's and Viktor's pressure/force numbers. Lost steam after that stuff. He doesn't say much in the last six or seven minutes anyway. A summary, which is almost a comment I made on the YouTube video. If only we have actual measurements (3D, force plates). It'd contradict or show to be misleading if not outright false a LOT of what you have to say. Video was great… two decades ago, and it's an effective tool for practicing, etc. largely due to its availability, but you're guessing at things. We have better tools now than video. You guess at things golf instructors (and biomechanists, and others) have actually measured. What's worse, you wrap it in an "injury prevention" package with zero evidence of that (and the evidence at the highest level generally supports NOT moving like Will Z or Joaquin Niemann, who is moving AWAY from being the type of "mover" that you like). There are too many factual errors or asterisks to detail in a single YouTube comment, so I won't bother to list them all out. Also… Rory's had a 15-year career of being a top-five player in the world. Scottie and Tiger, both "swingers," have put up some of the best seasons we've seen in the last 30 years. The two greatest players of all time in Tiger and Jack are both swingers… While Hovland is constantly searching for his swing and tinkering. Jason Day, Will Zalatoris, Joaquin Niemann… etc. are moving away from this extreme-right-side-bend, rotation-heavy "hitter" pattern for health reasons (and quality of play reasons). Image 1: Image 2: Image 3:

What a way to kick off a good discussion! So detailed! We have a lot to discuss here given the breadth and depth of the info you shared. 🙂 Masters, Open Championship change qualifying criteria - ESPN The Masters and Open Championship changed their qualifying criteria by eliminating invitations to PGA Tour winners in the fall and recognizing winners of six national opens on every main tour in the world. Even though it was sold as a "big" change, I don't see it as such. They added six national opens as getting qualifying spots (Scottish Open, Spanish Open, Japan Open, Hong Kong Open, Australian Open and South African Open) The eliminated qualifying spots from the (seven) Fall Series events. I'm trying to tease you there, above, too… cuz you really could have posted more than just what amounts to a complaint about a lack of discussion… while doing nothing to create a discussion. This news dates back to August, too.

I think this just means that 21 rounds ago you had a better day in the office. That's now history, so your handicap goes up a little. We don't do decimal points of shots, so sometimes 0.3 will change your course handicap and sometimes it won't. You happened to hit two fairly unusual events at the same time and this happens. I find if I have a good round, I watch for when it's going to drop off and when it does I know my handicap is likely to go up unless I have a very good round. Conversely there are days where your 20th score ago was not a good round and then you have a freebie - whatever you shoot today your handicap isn't going to change upwards. So you take the rough with the smooth. I've lived under both systems and the new one is so much better at keeping up to date with changes in ability than the old one. That's a good thing.

I don't know that these were the "best", but they were definitely the closest..... to each other. Those were my ball and Mary Anne's ball, maybe 6 feet from the hole, and actually touching. We both missed the putts!

I'll say again… you have a different definition of "temporary" and "speed" than I do. For your handicap to go up FOUR shots means you were through the soft cap and approaching the hard cap. If you did it over 15 rounds (leaving five potentially lower scores), then you played REALLY bad golf over that stretch because it's likely that only three or four of the best of those 15 rounds were actually counted, so if the three or four best scores RAISED your handicap five shots (three at 100%, 2 at 50% once you hit the soft cap), then that's some BAD golf over an extended (not temporary) period of time. And here's the thing… play 15 good rounds, or even just EIGHT, and it'll DROP again, even faster. Handicaps still drop faster than they rise, not only because of the way we calculate it (best 😎 but because of the caps. Right… it's not like you're not needing the shots. You're playing really badly, and your handicap is still lagging behind your play.

Those appear to the the Fast Twist 3.0 style, according to the Softspikes page: Golf Spikes – Softspikes Softspikes offers an excellent selection of innovative golf cleats and accesories. Just click on the appropriate picture below to learn more about our products. Here's another reference I've been using the Softspikes Tour Flex cleats for a while, they seem to last a little longer than some other cleats.

Just let me know where you work. I'll send your boss some links of Lexxii and Greg Norman getting a golden bukkake from your spoofed email for you

Why? Because you said so? I’m on the board of directors for my AGA. I’ve been a course rating captain for almost 15 years and I’ve been to multiple national course rating seminars. I ran a GHIN eClub and am a rules official that has worked at national championships. You are saying things that are factually and mathematically incorrect. Like that, demonstrating a continued lack of understanding and knowledge.

When I go to the range, there are a couple of things I might be trying to achieve. One is just keeping myself moving, so I don't get too far out of whack. The other is often seeing where the ball is going when I just make a swing without any thought and then trying to adjust that, so I might be working on my strike or clubface control and what not. I would have always considered that as block practice if I'm using one club and just hitting balls to the same target. I'll switch clubs and types of shots from time to time so I don't get too repetitive, but still not sure I'd call that random practice. To my mind, random practice would be hit a driver between those two posts, then hit a 7 iron to that green, then hit a 50 yard wedge shot, then a three wood off the ground, then a low 6 iron, then a big fade with driver around x target. That kind of thing. Sounds like that's wrong though? That and if I'm hitting 7 irons over and over to the same target, it might well not look like they're all going at the same target. 😂 So my practice may look fairly random even if I'm trying to repeat the same shot over and over.

LIV players? Meh. I think @Ty_Webbseems to have nailed it. Also, I think the Masters itself will benefit from a stronger international flavor. I like this a lot.

And that is why I wont google it from my work laptop!

Who????? I am not googling "lexi".

Day 13 (22 Nov 25) - Played in club Thanksgiving 2-man Scramble tourney (9 holes straight scramble, 9 hole Texas scramble) - was a fun exercise is playing from yardages shorter and longer than usual. Did have a great closest to the pin hole (called the turkey hole) - was closest and came away with a fresh dozen of balls of my choice…came away with some Bridgestone Tour B RX balls….

To be honest I don't really care about individual one-off sample sizes. You could create all kinds of strange scenarios where a 16 differential when you had a lot of great golf is bumped off by an 18 differential and thus your handicap goes up. I think mathematically, too, it's really difficult for your handicap to go up one shot by playing to your handicap Let's say that you were a 14 who has now gone to an 18 (which means the best 8 of your last 20 have actually averaged 19, because that additional stroke was credited at 50% once you hit 17). So, to drive your index up the last full shot until you hit the hard cap…: Playing to your handicap would be shooting an 18.0 differential. For two differentials to boost your handicap by one shot: The rise is capped at 50% It's 2 of 8 rounds that count, so their individual contribution to your index is 0.25 This gives us the formula of 1 = 0.25 * 0.5 * x. Solving for x, your two replaced rounds would have to be 8 points shots lower, or 10s. In other words, in this example, you were a 14.0: 10, 10, 14, 14, 16, 16, 16, 16 = 14.0 differential You're now a soft capped 18.0, keeping the 10s: 10, 10, 22, 22, 22, 22, 22, 22 = 19.0 average, for an 18.0 differential Playing to your handicap is an 18.0, so let's replace the two 10s with two 18s: 18, 18, 22, 22, 22, 22, 22, 22 = 21.0 average You get the first three at 100%, so 17.0 The next two come at 50%, so 4 shots (21) becomes 2, and thus 17.0 So, unless you have a situation where the two differentials coming off are about 12 shots worse than the scores you've shot lately (10s -> 22s), and you replace them with 18s… it's really, really difficult for your index to rise a shot in the soft cap phase by playing decent golf. Even if you replaced the 10 with a 14 - your old index - you'd see this: 14, 14, 22, 22, 22, 22, 22, 22 = 160 160/8 = 20.0 - You get the 14.0 to 17.0 for free, and then the other three shots are at 50%, so 1.5. You'd be an 18.5. That's only half a shot. And it'd require you to shoot your old index in amongst a run of 22.0 differentials, and for the oldest two scores to both be 10.0s. It's highly unlikely. And even if it's an accurate version of what's happening… you're one person. It's one sample point. One data point. Most people don't go from having 10.0s and then consistently shooting 22.0 differentials for six of their BEST rounds out of the last 18 rounds. Again, I wouldn't call that "temporarily slightly worse form." That's a big difference. If you want to continue the discussion, please post your handicap record showing the last 40 rounds, scores, ratings, and differentials (or at least 35 to the point where you said you'd played 15 rounds).

Sorry to hear you're going through this. Shoulder injuries are so frustrating. Hopefully this second injection with the more targeted approach does the trick. Wishing you a solid recovery and hope you're back on the course soon.

The thought the thread was going to about the disgusting behaviour of the American fans during the Rider cup

I know. Please read what I wrote. We have slightly different definitions of "temporary" and "drop of form." To get soft capped, you're playing significantly worse for a fairly extended period of time. You should try to be more open to change. 😄 There are reasons why the UK changed to this form. It was not because the USGA blackmailed them with dirty pictures of UK golfers taking 5 hours to play a round of golf and riding in buggies.

He's from the UK. Under the old UK system, a handicap going up 4 whole strokes would take a long time. Only changes in competition rounds, of which you might have 12-15 per year. Then from 18 to 22 you'd have to shoot more than 4 shots worse than your handicap (up to 20) and 5 shots worse (above 20 to 22). Any single round that's better than your handicap brings you down by 0.3 (under 20) or 0.4 (20 or above) per shot better than your handicap. Even if you played absolute rubbish every time you go out, it would take you upwards of 2 years to go up by 4 strokes. On that basis, 5 weeks is extremely quick.

The league golf season is now over, and we were able to successfully navigate this whole Handicap vs Index confusion successfully. Several explanations, emanating from some of the posts in this thread, were published in the league newsletter explaining that what people think is their "Handicap" is really their "Index" and the number of strokes they get each week, their "Course Handicap", is based on the index and slope numbers printed on the scorecards - those numbers reflecting the relative difficulty of the several courses we play. The course handicap formula was also listed with the advice that everyone should calculate their own course handicap before each round. I don't know how many actually bothered to do this but after that, I didn't hear any more complaints or questions. A nice byproduct of this system is that we were able to allow those 70+ to play from the senior tees without worrying about anyone having an unfair advantage or disadvantage. The fact that we do the calculation ourselves from only league scores and don't use GHIN makes this even more fair.

As a dad with two younger kids, I have had my kids on the course, only if I'm guaranteed to be playing alone. Otherwise I would be too worried about ruining someones round. Personally, I wouldn't care if someone brought their kid, even if they were a slight distraction, It might be the only time the parent could get out and play.

I don't know that Phil is as smart as he thinks he is.

Do they run out on the course and kick sand from the bunkers on the green and yell at rules officials?

Tech Talk with Dean Snell - Episode #01 Join us as we launch a new Q&A series with Dean! Submit your questions and each week we will answer one or two to continue educating golfer's about golf ball technology and other questions about the game! This...

I'm planning on traveling and was thinking of shipping my clubs instead of taking them with me in the airplane as I have layovers and that would be an 'extra' luggage for me. I've looked into ShipPup and ShipSticks, I got a better price with ShipPup but they seem to be newer on the market. One of my buddies used it a few times with no issues, was wondering if anybody else here used ShipPup? I know about ShipSticks, was just looking into alternatives as I have had a few issues in the past with them when a shipment was delayed. To be fair, it wasn't probably their fault, more carrier fault. And their prices seems to go higher…

Edit (2017-10-29): I've updated the site with a plugin that provides a simpler to use, more feature-filled member map. You can access it here: https://thesandtrap.com/membermap/. The original post is below, but please, use the new Member Map. I stole this idea from another site, I hope you all will enjoy it. In reading some of the threads about member get-togethers, I thought about how far some of us will travel to attend. Which in turn made me wonder about where some of my TST friends live. So I created a map in Google Maps, and added my home golf club, as well as my primary vacation spot. The link is here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1NwaKZanJPQ1wXT_ysLN7csLjEZg&usp=sharing I think it would be fun if the members here wanted to add themselves to the map. The directions from Google are: Open a new or existing map in My Maps. In the left panel, click the layer you want to use. The selected layer will be blue on the left edge. Search for the business, address, or point of interest that you want to add. ... To add that pin to your layers, click "add to map" Once you've added it, you can edit the name to indicate your user name I'm not looking for home addresses or anything so specific, maybe a home town or home course. We might find out that we have online friends who're much closer in real life than we ever thought. I hope I've set this up so that anyone who uses the link will be able to add themselves, without having to sign into a Google account. If you have problems, let me know and I'll try to work them out.

I put in my "home" course (Falls Road GC, Potomac, MD), although I usually rotate among the area munis.

Not sure I did it right, but I tried.

Its in there now, I think you had it already. Either that, or someone else put it in before you did. Thanks for playing along.

I guess I am too dumb, but could not add The Vineyards Golf Course, Escondido CA. It came up with some golf shop on Auto Park Way.

Added my general location as well. I dont really have a home course, I typically play anything within an hour or so from my location, but would drive a little further if it was for a meetup or something

So you are! But you never know when someone from TST will travel to Argentina for business, look at this map, and decide to get in touch with you. This was really my ulterior motive in starting this, I might find more friends to play golf with when I travel.

Wow, this is going quickly, thanks to everyone who's pit a pin on the map already. I'm going to suggest that everyone rename their "pin" using their own user name, and THEN the name of the course or whatever. The reason being, if we get lots of pins, clicking on one might get us the name of the golf course, but not the name of the TST member who plays there.

I did the same.

Great idea, I added my "home course" as it were, basically just the course I play the most.

How do you attend to and prioritize Purestrike 5SK, TST, LSW, Evolvr, Analyzr, your golf instructor business in Erie, etc? Does one of them ever conflict with another (publishing a book might conflict with instruction of 5SK, for example)? Not sure exactly what my question is, but it just seems with all these things going on that while they are complementary in many regards, there must be stories you've had where one might've had to suffer at the expense of another.

You've probably seen me write something about how I can play good golf with my wife's clubs, which aren't fit for me at all. And I just answered a thing wherein I talked about how little I care about equipment. What irons do you have now? What ways are they holding you back? Are they worn? Do you like them? Are you looking for an excuse, or is there a real need to get new irons? Can you afford new irons? Perhaps you like the heads, but just need new shafts? Or even just new grips? I can't really answer that question for you, except generally: I think that as you get better, SGI irons can hold you back to an extent. If you're looking to keep improving, something in the AP1/AP2 line of clubs (not Titleist per se, I'm just familiar with them and am using them as an example) - a sort of mild GI club - would probably be good. It'd give you enough feedback to let you know when you're mishitting the ball a little, still help out a little, and still let you control trajectory a bit more than the SGI irons you say you currently have.

I would add as another positive quality - you are very thorough. Your responses to questions and the advice you give do not have short cuts. Your posts in general have a lot of thought behind them and are complete. This site is an example of that as well.

Biggest obstacle? Me. But seriously, and I said I'd be honest, and so here's some of that. Over a decade ago when I first started the site, I was a dick. I was 25 or so, thought I knew everything, etc. I was a jerk. Plain and simple. No two ways to say it. Not always, and there were clearly bigger jerks than me. Curiously, even back then, I still didn't ban people much, though. I'm not one anymore. Though many, many people will disagree with what I just wrote, I'm capable of judging that for myself, particularly when I know enough other people I've met in person, or people like @mvmac who have seen the behind-the-scenes stuff that people do, and who will back me on that. Oh, don't get me wrong - I can still act like a jerk, but you have to really do something to warrant it these days, and by "really do something" most of the time I only really even mean to my wife or daughter, because I've learned over the years to not really care about things done to me. I can take it, and often choose to just move on. I don't get worked up over things. There are things that matter so much more in life. (I feel the same way about sports more and more, too - I root for my favorite teams, but they don't really affect my day-to-day life, so there's a limit to how much I care.) Yet if the point of communication is to be understood - as I will tell people it is - then sometimes I feel I fail at that. Whether it's because people are looking to take what I say a certain way, or they think using big words makes me appear snotty, or whatever… I sometimes fail to communicate properly how I feel about something, or the manner in which I'm typing something. I think a lot of people picture an angry dude here banging away at keys when they read some of my answers, and the truth is that if emotional scales run from 1-10, I'm pretty much a 4-6 99% of the time. This stuff doesn't really matter in the long term, particularly with people who are such strangers they don't even share their names (pet peeve of mine… the Internet is great and all, but I've always believed in putting my name on things, as it makes you more accountable). It doesn't matter in the long term - family matters, being happy matters, etc. I couldn't care less whether some guy in upstate New York thinks I'm right about something. I do want to help people play better golf - it's one of the ways I feel I can make the world a better place - but there's a limit to how much I care about strangers on the Internet, and it's pretty low. I think those who have met me - and in particular @mvmac who have gotten a peek behind the curtain - can see that. Those who have met me in person will attest to how much I care about THEM - real people. Oh, don't get me wrong - I'm still direct, and appreciate the same in return. People will sometimes accuse me of having a thin skin, but the total opposite is true. If you're calling me names during a discussion, quite honestly, you're losing. I'm probably disappointed. Contrary to some opinions, I love having debates. I like discussing things. I like differences of opinion, because at the end of the discussion I'll either have strengthened my position or modified it slightly, and both are an advance. I'll say it's my scientific background, but the opposite is probably true: I gravitated toward the sciences because I liked the fact that "the truth" was revered, and people didn't take being wrong personally. But regardless of which is the chicken and which is the egg, that's still true about me today: if you can show me I'm wrong about something, I'm much happier about that than when you agree, because if I'm actually wrong about something, it's a gift - I can instantly upgrade my knowledge. If I just have a bunch of yes-men around, well… I'm never challenged, and never grow. The other toughest thing is related: other people. I sometimes don't know what other people are thinking, and yet, I tend to be endlessly fascinated by the motivations behind people, what they're thinking, etc. This often means I can't let something go, and move on. This combines with the fact that I love discussing and debating things. Philosophers did it, and it's a way of discussing and learning things. I like doing it. But again, people often take doggedness there not as intended - me trying to suss out a good argument - but as something negative. So I kind of suck at reading the minds of others in determining where that point lies. Plus, other people are different. Some people are easily personally offended when you disagree with them about something that's purely opinion. Others have a hard time admitting they're wrong, or they goofed. We're text-based, so we lose all facial expressions, tone, etc. That's tough, on everyone. Since I've spent awhile now bashing myself, I will just add a few positive things quickly, and then answer the second part of your question by not really answering it. Those who have met me in person, by and large, tend to like me. And while I don't "need" for them to like me by any stretch of the imagination, it's good to know I'm not the way I'm always perceived to be by people who don't see my face, hear my tone, etc. I'm really good at what I do. Those who know me also know that it's not bragging, because there's not really much competition against which to judge myself in the field of golf instruction. Those who don't know me will take BOTH of those sentences as "proof" of my ego, but they'd be wrong and they'd admit to it if they knew what I knew and saw the things I've seen. I put a lot of effort into the site, and trying to help people, and it's basically all free. The Supporter memberships are basically "donations" as there aren't really major perks (well, they do get Member Reviews) for them. I think people under-appreciate how much I put into this site. Yeah, we make a few bucks, but I could make more doing other things. I just wouldn't enjoy it as much. Bah. This isn't answering the question, and contrary to what some think I hate saying good things about myself (my brain is hard wired to see the things that need fixing, not to recognize what's fine or good), so I'll stop there. Oh, one more of the bad things: I don't care that much about equipment. I feel that's a big part of what led to GolfWRX being the larger site. (That and they have very little moderation - it's seriously brutal at times, including death threats, the works…) If I cared more about equipment, I might have cultivated a larger audience willing to spend $700 on a Tour shaft they hit no better than the $40 stock shaft their driver came with… I just don't. Even back when I started TST, I must have known it was more about the meat holding the metal rather than the other way around. The second part of your question… Greatest achievement in TST history? I don't have one, and instead of giving you the corny "it's yet to come" type of bullshit, I'll just list some of the things of which I'm proud: I'm proud that this site exists after 12 years or so. That's a really, really long time. I feel I've helped a lot of people enjoy golf more, and thus, enjoy their lives more. Though people rarely stop to say thanks, I take continued posting here by people, Supporter memberships, and so on as "thanks." It's been rewarding in that sense. I'm proud of the 2015 Newport Cup. @mvmac did a bit more of the work, but the event was great. I really enjoyed meeting a bunch of people, and it cemented some good relationships. We had a really good time. I'm proud of the transition from Huddler. People, not even Mike, know how big of an undertaking that was. It went off almost as well as it could have. I'm proud of the staff. We've had very little turn-over. They're all top-notch people, and they do it for the same reasons I do what I do: they're passionate about the game of golf. I'm proud of the future. Does that answer your question?

I switch out now and then. I typically don't review too many clubs, partly because it might be seen as biased even though I specifically exclude reviews of putters and wedges (Edel ) and, well, shoes too (TRUE ). So, my current set of clubs… Driver: Either the Callaway BB Alpha 816 Double Black Diamond or the Titleist 915D3. I think the shafts are similar, and both are about 73 grams. The BB requires a solid hit but has almost no spin so the ball really rockets out there. The 915 is a bit more forgiving and still hits it far, of course (all good drivers if properly fit go the same distance these days, and have for awhile now… it's just physics. The only trick is getting good launch numbers). 3-Wood: Copy and paste my answer from above. Both are slightly stronger lofted - I think 13.5° for the Titleist, and 14° for the Callaway, but I used the hosel to add loft to both. I don't use my 3W off the tee very much, but I still don't mind a slightly deeper face as my misses tend to be up and down versus heel to toe. Hybrid: Titleist 915H.d in… 18°? 17.5°? I think I bumped the loft on that up a little bit. It fits the 5W/2I gap. Irons: Miura Tournament Blades, KBS Tour 7.0 shafts soft-stepped once. 3I-9I. Wedges: Edel wedges, as seen here: Putter: An Edel, custom fit and weighted of course (below). I have an E-1 on its way too that should look almost identical. I'm lucky enough that my putter head and hosel and line combos are available (or very very very close) to what's available in the E-Series: That's about it. How long do I go? I cycle new irons in and out sometimes. Sometimes I have to give feedback to another staff member for a review, sometimes I will just play another set for awhile. For example, the Callaway Apex blades, the Hogans were in my bag for awhile over the summer.

What do you have in your bag (clubs).... And how long do you go before switching to a different set?