A New Driver Shaft

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Last month I made a trip down to Carl’s Golfland for a driver fitting with a TaylorMade rep. It went well and I found something that I was consistently hitting well. I was fully prepared to buy a brand new M6 with the shaft I had hit the best. The rep said with my swing speed there is no way I can play a stock shaft off the shelf. Unfortunately (for them), they never put the recommendations in my account, even after I sent several messages.

One of my golf buddies runs a little business called STUD GOLF, doing club repairs and sales here in Saginaw. After talking to him about driver heads (which don’t change much over a few years), I decided to try replacing the shaft in my TaylorMade M2. After all, the shaft is what really matters, even though almost everyone gets geeked out by the newest driver heads on the market. Looking through TaylorMade’s customization options, I found what I thought was the shaft I had hit so well. It’s the Aldila ROGUE Silver 110 M.S.I 60 in a stiff flex and it turned out that Don had one in his shop. It even had the correct TaylorMade tip already on it, so it was an easy swap.

The ROGUE® Silver 110 M.S.I. has a stiff tip-section to provide a mid-to-low launch with low-spin.

After using it for a week and then choking down on it to test for even more consistency, I was blown away. So then I had the shaft shortened by a half inch. One other change I made from the club fitting was to adjust the M2 down from 10.5° to 9.75°, which is producing a better launch angle. This also slightly opens the face, which helps eliminate some of the hook misses (I rarely slice anymore). I’m bombing this thing well over 300 yards!

Over the last decade or so golf club manufacturers are changing everything so amateurs can hit it longer; everyone wants more distance. They keep lengthening driver shafts because it allows people to generate more club speed and hit it longer. The price you pay is consistency though. Length off the tee doesn’t do any good if it’s in the trees or in a pond. The pros on tour don’t even play drivers as long as what is being sold to amateurs. The pros are willing to give up some distance for accuracy to hit more fairways.

If you’re a little wild with a driver try choking down a half or full inch next time you play. The results may surprise you.

A Swing in the Right Direction

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As a member of the Golf Association of Michigan, I get to post my scores in their USGA handicap system, which updates twice a month.

2019-08-01-handicap-history.png

So far it’s been one of those summers where my golf game feels like it’s close. Over the last few weeks I’ve been dialing things in, but a few bad shots each round really cost me. Here’s to hoping I can clean up those mistakes and get back to single digits like last October, especially with a good start by shooting 79 today.

2019 CrossFit Games Predictions

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Men

  1. Mat Fraser
  2. Pat Vellner
  3. Jacob Heppner

Out of all of my picks, I’m the least confident that Heppner will be anywhere this. If Fikowski can make it through the cuts, he could be a big threat.

Women

  1. Tia-Clair Toomey
  2. Sara Sigmundsdottir
  3. Amanda Barnhart

I’m really hoping for a close race between Sara and Tia, but I think Sara needs another year or two to catch up.

Teams

  1. Mayhem Freedom
  2. Invictus Boston
  3. OC3 Black

With cuts getting the competition down to 5 teams, it’s going to be a battle on the last day. With a field full of proper super teams, this could be the best part of the Games this year.

I Would Rather #6

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Would you rather suddenly be elected a senator or suddenly become a CEO of a major company? (You won’t have any more knowledge about how to do either job than you do right now.)

CEO. I have no desire to be in politics.

Would you rather live in virtual reality where you are all powerful or live in the real world and be able to go anywhere but not be able to interact with anyone or anything?

Live in the real world because I haven’t experienced VR yet.

Would you rather have whatever you are thinking to appear above your head for everyone to see or have absolutely everything you do live streamed for anyone to see?

Have whatever I’m thinking appear above my head.

Would you rather be only able to watch the few movies with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 95-100% or only be able to watch the majority of movies with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 94% and lower?

Watch the movies with a score of 94% and lower.

Would you rather wake up as a new random person every year and have full control of them for the whole year or once a week spend a day inside a stranger without having any control of them?

A new random person every year.

Would you rather know how above or below average you are at everything or know how above or below average people are at one skill/talent just by looking at them?

Know how above or below average I am at everything.

Would you rather live until you are 200 but look like you are 200 the whole time even though you are healthy or look like you are 25 all the way until you die at age 65?

If I’m healthy I’d take living to 200!

Boldport: Juice (FAIL)

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I started this build a couple of weeks ago and “finished” it today. It is supposed to be a battery replacement kit for use in prototyping if you run out of batteries. It was project #12 in the Boldport Club.

Mine, did not turn out to be a useable device, because I shorted the connections in the USB connector, which I put on last and should have done first. If there’s one complaint about the Boldport Club kits it’s that the instructions are lacking. I messed around with different desoldering techniques to try and correct the problem, but I might have been fighting a losing battle depending on how deep in there the shorted connections were. I figured something was screwy when the LED never lit up. Then when I connected a 9V battery as the power source instead of USB I knew something was really wrong. With a multimeter I was only getting millivolt readings from the board. I felt the battery and it was really hot, so I disconnected to read the battery it was down to less than 9 volts already, when it had started close to 9.5! That’s when I called it quits.

I’m almost positive I thought this kit was something else when I ordered it with credits I had. I can’t see myself using this during a project if it had been a success, so I’m not too disappointed. Even though it was a failure I figured I’d still post the video. Since it was just over five minutes long at 20x speed with all of the footage I didn’t even bother to do any editing. The camera had filled up somewhere during the desoldering complications and I was too frustrated to bother with getting a new SD card. Enjoy! Or not.

Boldport: LIGEMDIO

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A couple of weeks ago I assembled one of the BoldPort Club kits I had piled on my desk. This one was project #8, titled LIGEMDIO. It’s an LED tester and the name comes from the first letters of Light Emitting Diode, LED.

It was a cool little build after I swapped out to an old soldering iron and it’s a project I’ll actually get some use out of. Would have been nice to have when I tested all of the LEDs for the 8x8x8 cube.

Link Dump – 2019/07/25

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