rockstarmode

I also do all of my own club building, and I'd say shafts can improve your game, but the effect falls into two broad categories based on your skill level.

TL;DR If you don't actually know how to interpret the changes your equipment may have on your ball flight, or cannot generate a repeatable swing, then you'll just be shooting in the dark. A fun hobby for sure, but it won't help your game.

Most players at all skill levels will benefit from being fitted with clubs that suit their swings. Having a shaft too heavy or too stiff doesn't help slower swingers, etc..

That said, I believe that once a player is in the ballpark for having a mostly correct shaft for their swing, they won't get any real improvements from further tuning this piece of equipment until they develop a repeatable swing.

If your clubs are the right length and in the right neighborhood for stiffness and weight, but your index is higher than ~8 you'd be better served by spending your money on lessons or playing more golf.

In my experience I started noticing the small things in my clubs at around a 5 index. Swing weights, lies, shaft weights, flex points, grip size, shaft weights, tipping/flighting, etc.. IMO here are some the changes I've made in descending order of how much effect they've had on my game as a single digit:

1. Driver. My on course swing speed averages ~117mph, but just having a stiff shaft wasn't optimal. I ended up going with a very light 60g shaft, but in tour extra stiff. Cut to full length, tipped, 4g added to the face of the club.

2. Grips, I went to midsize grips +2 wraps around a 16 index. I'm now using the medium JumboMax ultralights on all of my clubs except putter. This helped me tame my occasional hook a bit, and my hands aren't sore the next day. My swing speeds also went up a bit, I think due to a lighter grip pressure.

3. Swing weighting every club in the bag, but with a particular focus on the irons. My irons were ordered directly from the factory and I played them for years before developing golfer's elbow that just wouldn't go away, even with weeks of rest. Once I got around to measuring the swing weights I noticed that they were inconsistent, and some were too light by as much as 4 weights. It turns out I was holding off releasing because the club heads were too light, and the ligaments used of hold the club head off are the ones that were inflamed. Fixing the swing weights cleared up my injury within a few weeks.

4. All the other stuff, notably tipping my irons to promote lower ball flight.

Also, I do not recommend making any of these changes without either discussing with your coach, or learning about ball flight and buying a high quality launch monitor that records spin numbers along with all of the other impact conditions (including face angle, attack, spin loft, swing direction, etc..)

I hear you, it's definitely a zen state.

I live walking distance from the ocean, so it's nice to set a pellet up and monitor it from the beach. Run back when it's time to wrap/spray/etc, and then hang on the sand until the internal temps remind me it's time to head home and rest everything in a cooler.

All of my sausage, fish, and jerky goes in the vertical smoker. I have to manually tend the fire on that, but the temp swings and fuel consumption are much more stable, so it's generally quite a bit easier than minding my normal offset.

Chilling in the yard to tend fire and empty a 30 rack with the neighbor is fun for sure, and my stick burner develops better bark than the pellet, even if I use wood in it. So when I want to go all in on a competition, or I'm doing like 8 briskets at a time for a huge event I'll run the stick burner. Otherwise it's something in the pellet smoker.

I generally agree with this order, but my journey took me in a different order. After having propane forever I moved to a Weber and the snake method, but then I went with an offset with a real fire box.

After getting really good results but not always having enough time to stoke the fire for 12+ hours I bought a very high end pellet smoker that I converted to also use charcoal and wood.

My stick burner gets used maybe once a year now. I'll go pellet at least once a week, and charcoal or wood in the converted pellet at least once a month. I also can build a makeshift konro inside my pellet smoker, and I use that all the time.

Oh right, I also have an offset vertical smoker, and hunt a lot of my own protein, so yeah, it's a deep hole I've dug into.

In most areas of the US that take BBQ seriously, grilling != BBQ.

Grilling means direct heat, BBQ in those areas refers to indirect heat, usually with some smoke component.

and I sharpen those every 30 minutes

I'm sorry, what?

If I sharpened my knives after every 30 minutes of use I wouldn't have any steel left after a couple of months, tops. My knives are shaving sharp, I use them for several hours every day.

If your knives hold an edge and are profiled correctly, sharpening every 30 minutes (even a quick touch up) is entirely unnecessary. Professional meat cutters and fishmongers annihilate cutting for 10 hours a day and require razor sharp tools, and they don't spend even close to as much time as you've claimed touching up their edges.

Don't get me wrong, I love sharp knives, but either you're exaggerating or doing it wrong.

I live near beach, it's pleasant year round. Much of my living space is permanently open to the elements, the rest of it has sliding/french doors and large windows that are open most of the time the dwelling is occupied.

It's definitely a shelter.

That said, stuff from outside sometimes gets inside. I clean, no biggie.

I'm guessing it was a rear projection TV, maybe a DLP

The weather where I live on the California coast is between 55°F and 85°F year round. Earlier this week it was foggy at 60°F, yesterday it was 80°F.

I know I'm probably in the wrong sub, but this is a misrepresentation of gun ownership in the US.

Three-in-ten American adults say they currently own a gun, and another 11% say they don’t personally own a gun but live with someone who does. Among those who don’t currently own a gun, about half say they could see themselves owning one in the future.

Source

Absolutely. You can buy caffeine by the kilo and incidentally it sort of looks like really stepped on coke.

But I'm not kidding about the accurate scale tho. I LOVE caffeine, but the last time I tried to eyeball 200mg I ended up feeling like I was going to die.

Exactly. Home carbonated filtered water and anhydrous caffeine. Just make sure you have an accurate scale.

Sharks fan, that's rough. It can get better.

Signed,

-- A Detroit Lions fan of 40 years