Project X HandCrafted Experience Recap & Review - Time Lapse Shaft Creation

Great time lapse! Thanks JB!
As far as the shaft goes, I cannot wait to see how everyone's turns out - especially Chump Fries, as O'Neil has free reign. He is one great artist, I am sure it will be fantastic!

DB TT said:

Larry has finished grinding the shafts and taking specs, they are in O'Neil and Arturo's hands now.

First up Spivey and Stan. We'll post videos of them in work here.

DB

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Awesome!

JB said:

I cannot wait to read some recaps. This event was so much fun and I know you guys will have a different perspective than ddec and I have.

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Working on mine in a word doc. So many thoughts about this amazing event.

Awkward silence said:

I know it will that guy is so talented. Not to mention I think he will be PMing us when he starts them to sure things up as well. I am still gathering myself to write out the full recap of the event but I should have it all done by tomorrow morning.

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The yellow and red accents had me close to scrapping my shaft ideas all together and saying make mine beautiful like Mike's.

Galen Marek said:

The yellow and red accents had me close to scrapping my shaft ideas all together and saying make mine beautiful like Mike's.

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When I saw what he did with my sketch I was blown away. I have a word doc also about a third done that I will be posting tomorrow.

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That video was so cool. What you guys to experience was just incredible, and to chat to some of the best shaft engineers in the business is just awesome.

Day 1 – Project X #thehandcraftedexperience recap

Part 1

Thursday morning arrived and we all gathered as a group at the hotel after a few early text messages from Awkward Silence and Galen that asked us sleepy heads to wake up. We all said a few introductions to one another and speculated a bit about what might be in store for us. Consensus was “we’ve got no clue”. We’d all seen events by OEM’s come and go on the forum but with this being a shaft manufacture we just weren’t sure what to expect. I mean, we knew going in we’d be working with Don on building a shaft and seeing it rolled. We also knew we’d get to do some work with the graphic artist at Project X, but beyond those three items we were going in blind for how the day would play out.

We jump into the rental car and Spivey’s SUV and head to Project X. We pull up to the building and after rolling the dice on which way to the Project X suite, go to the left and park right in front. We grab our test shafts out of the vehicles and head inside. We see Don whom we’ve interacted with on the forum, and are introduced as well to Lauren and Sydney who came from True Temper HQ in Memphis. Sydney is over Social Media, and Lauren is the Marketing Communications Manager. Also JB and Ddec are there to record our continual jaw dropping reactions!

We all gather around a conference table and there is swag out in front of us. A beautiful aluminum divot repair tool with the Handcrafted logo, T-shirt with THP logo, a Handcrafted sticker and a Project X sticker. The divot tool was actually handcrafted in the building as was the screen printing on the T-Shirt. We didn’t know it at the time but there was yet to be some “handcrafting” done on the T-shirts. We dig into the bagel and donuts that are spread before us and settle around the table.

Don launches into a powerpoint presentation that covers factory rules and our agenda for the day. He then dives right into information about shafts and how they are built. You know those Sunday cartoons that show the guy seeking knowledge that climbs a mountain in the Himalayas to find the “all knowing” guru……all of us were the knowledge seekers and Don is THE shaft guru! The live thread would be worth going through again for all the nuggets that Don threw out alone. We then put on safety glasses and head out in the factory for a tour while Lauren and Sydney are buzzing around doing Periscopes and taking pictures. We are introduced to O’Neil, the graphic artist, whom has hair that has to rival hashtag Chad as the best in the golf industry. We then go out to the floor and meet Larry. I notice at that point that all the workers in the factory are wearing the same T-shirt we received with the THP logo on the back. It hit me at that point that Project X was out to wow us. Just all in about us 7 guys! We watch Larry roll a shaft with grace and speed that we would later be unable to duplicate…I blame Ddec! And while Larry is doing that Don is talking through the flags and how they are designed and the ways they can be used in different sizes and orientations to change elements of the shaft. There was so much information. Then out to the factory where we see everything from the ovens, to the paint shop, to the boxed shafts that will soon go out the door, to the refrigerator where the raw carbon fiber is stored.

We then split into two groups. One group stays with Don to configure shafts and the other heads out to do work on the graphic look of the shafts with O’Neil. Awkward, Galen and I are in this group. Awkward goes first and it was an experience watching he and O’Neil work out his design. I think we were blown away by how easy everything went here. 15 minutes in and O’Neil and Mike have it finished and it was just breathtaking. Going to be a beautiful shaft! Then the process goes the same with Galen/Paul. I’m up last and work on my design which was just some general ideas I had previously submitted. O’Neil already has an early layout done and we go to work. He has some great ideas and I go along with all of them. We start to talk about colors and O’Neil mentions something called “pearling”. We head out to spend some time with Arturo the painter and watch him mix paint and “pearl” a shaft with a contrasting color. In my shaft the base is going to be white and there will be gold paint used for the “pearling”. The effect is impressive. At one angle the shaft will appear white and when held at another angle the gold will be visible on the white and shimmer, especially in sunlight.

While we are waiting on group one to finish with Don we get to play around in O'Neil's shaft graveyard. This was one of my favorite moments. Going through shafts and having O'Neil tell us about how and why he'd designed the graphics that way. There were so many great ones that were either one offs or rejected designs. I'd never really thought about the challenge a graphic artist has when decorating a shaft. The workable area is so small that creating something that is eye catching and appealing requires tremendous talent, and O'Neil certainly has it.

Next up I'll go over the process with Don and the rest of Day 1.

Looking forward to reading everyone's thoughts on what they created and seeing photos of the finished products.

Good one Barry! I'm still working on mine. Sorry guys, I'm a bit of a perfectionist haha

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Recap as I sit at work, Monday night.

I drove over Wed am, had a small car issue which was fixed before the twilight round at Torrey Pines South with Alez367, cpljohnst and chumphries (later known as Chump Fries, but not at this point). Fun round, none of us played particularly well, but a nice time with three really good people. Barry and I walked, and had played together before, so it was good conversation.

Wed night, we grabbed dinner at Rocky's burgers, I really enjoyed the food, polished off my 1/2 lb cheeseburger and fries without issue. Good beer to boot. Back at the hotel, I pretty much shut it down before everyone else arrived.

Thurs morning, met everyone. Nice group, good conversation, discussed what we thought the day would be like, and the consensus was "I have no idea." Rolled into ProjectX, met Lauren first off, then Don, Sydney, saw JB and Dean, had bagels, got a powerpoint presentation about the facility do's and don'ts, walked around the facility (which was pretty cool, as Barry wrote), then got down to business. Broke up into two groups, one for the shaft paint design, the other (my group) for creation of the shaft itself.

I must say, Don knows so much about shafts that I had no idea what he was talking about at certain points. He went thru a ton of material about what makes a shaft have its launch and forgiveness characteristics, along with the program that he uses to create different shaft launch and torque combinations, it was geek awesomeness!!

I then had the opportunity to discuss my test shaft (which turned out to be the HZRDUS shaft in stiff). I wanted a touch more height on my drives. After giving him some feedback about other Px shafts that I have enjoyed, he showed me a graph of the test shaft features and the comparison to the other Px shafts. They were pretty close. I asked for a little more launch, where he plugged different material into his computer for the tip flag, and the graph ended up looking like the Px shafts that I like (tour blue, fyi).

The other guys (I forget the order, but it was Stan the Timmy, Ski Bum and Courtney) gave their specs - Courtney really changed his shaft a lot more than the other guys. It was at this point that he got a lot of ribbing, and took it like a champ.

Lunch - big burritos from a place around the corner. Good banter, tasty food. I think it was during lunch that one of the shaft flag cutters came in with a question about a shaft, turns out it was "Chump Fries" shaft, the name had been cemented, as we all cracked up!!

After lunch we joined O'Neil (graphics artist) to discuss paint, design, and customization of each shaft. Sydney and Lauren started setting up the back drop for interviews. The other three guys finished up shaft creation quickly, and joined us around O'Neil's desk. BTW, he has great hair - it may have its own twitter feed. Better than Hashtag Chad's coif, in some people's opinion (mine). I gave O'Neil my idea, he changed it a bit, added some really cool features and graphics ideas, which I will not get into until the shaft is done and in my hands, but his ideas were great!!

Sydney and Lauren proceeded to interview the seven participants and Don, with some really funny lines being floated around (it is a shaft company, so the shaft jokes were fast and furious). Courtney had some classic comments, all with a straight face, which were hilarious!! Eventually we finished the interviews, concluded the day, and headed back to the hotel.

Dinner was at Ballast Point Brewery, tasty food, good beer, met a few more folks from ProjectX, good conversation, I sat next to Don and across from Sydney and Lauren, we talked about the south, Memphis bbq, and other small talk. Don joined for one last beer after dinner, we closed the restaurant down, headed back to the hotel.

Friday - The opportunity to roll our own shafts had never been done by anyone outside of ProjectX before. Lauren told us that no person had ever sat with Don and had the kind of experience that we had just finished the day before. I was really stoked about that. THP comes thru like a rock star on this event!! Larry, the master shaft roller, supervised and assisted in our shaft manufacturing, as Periscoped (?) by JB. Not going to lie, I figured that I would screw it all up, Larry really helped me and we got the shaft rolled.

We all had an opportunity to discuss our color schemes with Arturo, the painter, who gave me some input as to how the paint color and design would work some ways and not in other ways. O'Neil and Arturo discussed the creation and pearling of my shaft. I saw what was a rough practice draft of what was to become my shaft design, which looked fantastic! Finalized design and colors, then went back into the shaft rolling area to watch the others finish their creations.

After the shafts were rolled, we re-convened in the conference room, said goodbyes, but not before Don walked in with two long metal suitcases (think Matrix style) which contained OUR NEW SPEC'D SHAFTS, COMPLETELY UNPAINTED AND UNMARKED!!!!! Tips and grips were on them, Don says, "These are for today's round". Unbelievable!!! The folks at Px had cut and rolled them on Thursday afternoon and cured them Friday morning, so we could play our round with them!!

We chose teams randomly, and Chump Fries and Don were paired up - which cracked everyone up!! Winning team of the afternoon round would receive their shafts first. The seven of us jumped into our cars, headed to a driving range about 20 min north of the ProjectX location to try out our shafts and get warmed up for the round. Not a bad range, not great, but a cool place nonetheless.

After driving to Balboa Park Golf Club, a pretty tight, pretty short course in the hills of SD. Good mix of holes, nice greens. My partner was Stan the Caddie (Tim) and we were joined by Awkward Silence and SkiBum Golfer (Mike and Ryan). We all started out pretty well, had a rough patch in the middle of our front nine, straightened things out by the turn, where we switched it up. Courtney and Don joined us for the back, I found my game, Tim and I brother-in-law'ed it pretty good, we ended up winning the low best ball, and would receive our shafts first!

I had to get back to Phoenix, so I said my goodbye's, jumped in the car, and headed home.

I have to admit, this event was beyond what I could imagine. Like other THP events, the people were great, the golf was a blast, and the food was terrific. However, these small, intimate events have such a great feel to them, and are genuinely unique, that they really do not compare to anything else that I have experienced. The people at ProjectX were so nice - they pulled out the red carpet for all of us, they were excited to host us and they treated us so well, that I cannot imagine what next year (which Don dropped in his interview on Wednesday) will entail!!

Thank you again to Josh, Morgan, Mike, Dean, Don, Lauren, Sydney, O'Neil, Larry, and Arturo, along with so many other people, for creating and hosting this event. This is a one of a kind experience, I am honored to have been invited to participate! To the other participants - So great to have gone thru this experience together, I feel like my family has grown a bit because of it!!

Day 1 Part 1 At the Factory

For starters I wanted to say a HUGE thank you to Don and his staff at Project X and the staff of THP. All of you came up with a truly unique and one of kind experience that I will hold on to forever. The entire event was flawless and I can’t imagine a better way to get #OutingApproved.

I was fortunate enough to live only an hour and half from San Diego and chosen for this event, so I was able to wake up early Thursday morning and hit the road. As you could guess the first person I met was indeed the now infamous Chump Fries (at this point he had not quite earned that moniker yet).We exchanged hellos and I went up to meet the rest of the guys.
Our group really had no idea what to expect for the day and for most part neither did JB. We were instructed to bring our test shaft and that’s as much as we knew. We pulled into a commercial complex where the True Temper building stood and as we walked up to the front door which could be seen open and welcoming the THP crew.

The first day started at PX HQ and we were met with donuts, coffee and swag. I am in love with that custom divot tool. I was fixing pitch marks like it was my job. Don proceeded to give us a break down of how the day would go. It was now time to tour the building and see where all the magic happens. The first stop was O’Neils desk. Let me start off by saying that he does amazing work and PX is so lucky to have a talent like that designing for them. I want to say that a twitter account was created for his hair during our stay but I cant confirm that, even Hashtag would agree it should happen though. Next we were moved into room where the materials are cut, put together, and rolled by some of the best in the business. Don informed us that some of these employees have been doing this for 30+ years. That brings me to Larry, who is shaft making genius and could roll them in his sleep, I will speak more about Larry later.

To give us a good idea of how its done Don had Larry roll a shaft right there for us see, if you blinked you missed it, and at this point the nerves set in for me. Im thinking holy sh*t I have to do that tomorrow? No way! Once Larry finished rolling the carbon Fiber “flags” around the mandrel don took us to the next process. The next set of doors opened us up to the main factory floor where all moved and stood around a machine that I can only describe as a shaft mummifier. It put this thick clear material tighly spun around the shaft. This is done to keep all the resin intact and to clear out any remaining air bubbles. (I think).

We would go on to see where the shafts get painted, badged and prepped for shipping. More on the paint room later. One of the more awesome things we got to do on a list of awesome things was screen print t-shirts. This was such hands on experience, not only were we doing something truly unique and special but we are given the reigns to try yourself as well; still hurts my head to think about it all. The tour would finish up and back to the conference room we went. Next up we were split into two groups. Team efficient (Galen/Paul, cpljohnst/Barry and myself) and Team Slow (Chump Fries, Spivey/Dave, StantheTimmy, Skibum/Ryan)

Day 1 Part 2 Group Stage to Follow…

The level of detail in these reviews is awesome, thanks to the guys for taking the time to write them.


All though if these guys each cranked out 500 words I am worried that Chump Fries, recap might take down the site. JB might need to up the space on the server.

DB TT said:

The level of detail in these reviews is awesome, thanks to the guys for taking the time to write them.


All though if these guys each cranked out 500 words I am worried that Chump Fries, recap might take down the site. JB might need to up the space on the server.

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These guys actually have done such a great job that I'll probably just offer a few anecdotes from my experience

#HandCraftedExperience Recap- Part 1

What an incredible event! This was truly one of the most memorable experiences of my life. Doing my best to recap this amazing event. This is my Wednesday/Thursday recap.

Wednesday:
After a long day of work and travel I landed in San Diego around 11 PM. After getting my stuff Barry (cpljohnst) and Ryan (SkiBumGolfer) picked me up and off we went to the hotel. Right off the bat I knew these were 2 great guys. I think I talked the entire ride, I was just so excited to talk about this event with these guys in person, haha. After getting to the hotel went to the room and went to bed so I’d have some sleep for the next day.

Thursday:
We all arrived to Project X Headquarters around 8:50. We walk in and I see JB and Dean. We were also greeted by Lauren and Sydney who run the media relations part of Project X. These 2 were superstars the entire event! Also, finally got to meet Don. After all the hilarious posts Don made I knew he was going to be fun and right off the bat he was the same guy in person that he is on the forum. They had breakfast for us and also some awesome t-shirts, divot repair tools and decals for us. We all sat in the Conference Room as Don talked to us about golf shafts. Listening to Don talk about golf shafts is absolutely amazing. He just drops knowledge bomb after knowledge bomb. You can tell how passionate he is about his work and it’s no surprise that he’s at the top of the golf shaft industry.

After Don was done with Golf Shaft 101 we took a tour of the facility. The one thing that stood out to me was how happy every employee was. Everyone there was working hard with a smile on their face. It was also really cool seeing them all wear the THP #HandCraftedExperience t-shirts. They’re like one big, happy family over there and it’s all these people (Larry, O’Neil, Arturo and many more) that make this company what it is.

The tour was so much fun. Getting the chance to see all the things that go into making a golf shaft was such a cool experience. Larry can roll a golf shaft so quickly, appreciated how quickly he could do it after doing it myself the next day. Arturo is the paint guru and can make any color you want. It’s a great team they got over there and was a great to get a behind the scenes look at all that goes into making a golf shaft.

After we were done we found out our test shafts were modified Hazardus shafts. Then we split into 2 groups. One group went with O’Neil for graphics while the other group stayed with Don to work on the specs of the shaft. I was in the group that stayed with Don along with Ryan, Dave (Spivey) and Chump Fries (Courtney). When it was my turn I told Don I wanted something that felt a little lighter and launched a little higher. Don punched some numbers into his graphs. He was explaining what was happening while he was working but that all went way over my head. The shaft came out to be about 64 grams with 4.0 torque on Don’s chart. There were a ton of additional numbers but those were the terms I actually knew. Last in our group was Courtney. He pretty much wanted a shaft that was completely opposite from what we got as the test. But Don went to work and secretly I think he really enjoyed the challenge. 45 minutes later (all others took about 10-15 minutes) Don had finished Courtney’s very unique golf shaft. We had lunch and one of the best moments of the entire event happened. One of the workers came in and asked Don "Who is Chump Fries?" His shaft was so confusing the worker needed some clarification and the fact that Don had written Chump Fries on the sheet really made for a priceless moment. We all got a huge laugh out of this then switched groups.

My group went to O’Neil who does the graphics for Project X. O’Neil is a great guy with legendary hair. Hashtag is nervous that he no longer has the best hair in the industry. When it was my turn to design my golf shaft I knew pretty much exactly what I wanted. I wanted it on a white base. I initially thought I wanted to go matte but after O’Neil showed me some gloss white shafts I went with the gloss. I had little shamrocks going around the top under the grip. Half the shamrocks are black and gold for the Saints and the other half have navy blue pinstripes for the Yankees. I had “Project X” in black and gold. Above the Project X logo in black they wrote “HandCrafted for Tim.” On the other side underneath “Project X” I had “Created on 8-20-15” followed by the THP logo. This was in navy blue. At the tip of the shaft I had them put the specs in black like they usually have on the HandCrafted shafts. After we were done all 7 of us did a quick interview about our experience. Just like the rest of the trip, poor Courtney had some answers that came out hilarious. But like the champ he is, he laughed along with everyone else. When we were wrapped up we headed back to the hotel to relax for a couple hours.

At 7:00 we met up with JB, Dean, Don, Lauren, Sydney and couple others from the Project X team at Ballast Point Brewery. What a great dinner; amazing food and so many beers to choose from. JB really went all out for us. So many funny stories being told the entire time. We all had a blast. When dinner was over the 7 of us and Don stayed for another round that he picked up. We wrapped up around 11 and went back to the hotel.

What a fun, whirlwind of a day. The way Project X treated us was incredible. We got an experience not even pros get. Don had told us not even the pros on tour design their golf shafts to the exact specs they want. Didn’t think anything could match everything we did on Thursday. Then Friday came…

(Friday recap coming soon)

Tim awesome write up man.

I've been trying to organize my thoughts as this truly was a unique and one of a kind experience and I want to thank Don and the staff at Project X as well as The Hacker's Paradise for putting on this event. The drive down from LA was funny as I just got into my truck and started driving down to San Diego with no idea what hotel I was heading to. It wasn't until Awkward Silence texted asking for the address that I realized just driving to San Diego and yelling member user names out the window wouldn't work. With that resolved I was greeted by Chump Fries and brought up to meet the rest of the crew. I was a bit intimidated as all these fellas look and come across as well educated professionals and I'm a three time college dropout forklift operator. That said everyone one there was incredibly friendly and welcoming and the conversation came very easily. Naturally the topic veered towards golf, our tester shafts and what to expect (we had no clue) and next thing I know it's time to head over to Project X.

Once we arrived I nearly walked into the wrong business (something I would repeat the following day as well) but once that was sorted out we walked into a conference room where we met Don, JB, ddec, Sydney and Lauren. When we took our seats I was excited to see a Project X divot tool, stickers and a cool t-shirt waiting for us. Don is a human tornado. He's energetic, friendly, passionate, honest and has a subversive sense of humor so I liked him right away. One thing that struck me about the entire group was everyone's sense of humor. Very clever and subtle and it showed through later on as we got to know one another more. In comparison I was the one telling ill-timed fart jokes. So after going over the rules (keeping our toe rings covered until dinner) we toured the facility which was an eye opener for me. I'm not sure how I imagined graphite shafts were made but it never occurred to me that hand rolling them around a piece of steel then cooking them at 300 degrees. It was interesting to see different types of graphite being put in strategic locations to obtain the desired playing characteristics. Probably the coolest part was seeing the handmade loading zones being made. I'm still upset I didn't request a loading zone on my prototype shaft. Lucky cpljohnst! It was pretty cool seeing everyone in the THP event shirts and the staff was very enthusiastic. While one employee did hand me a hastily scrawled note saying "please help, we are being held against our will" I turned the note over to Don.

We split up into two groups and my group was sent off with O'Neil where we discussed the shaft graphics. Awkward Silence went first and O'Neil already had a sweet mock-up waiting. I immediately regretted my black and white design but when discussing it with O'Neil his enthusiasm and input put me back on track. We decided with a matte black shaft with a glossy white 10" Project X logo near the grip and silver THP logos randomly dispersed from the grip down and fading into the Project X logo. I also requested the diamond with the shaft specs and O'Neil suggested a pearl coating that would give the shaft a unique look when in the sunlight. I was happy with the design and finally cpljohnst designed his shaft which I suspect will also be a winner having seen the final mock-up before we returned to the conference room. I think the three of us got a real thrill looking at the rejected prototypes. My personal favorite was the black with green computer chip style which was shelved when Aldila brought out the Rogue. I warned O'Neil that he might see me leaving the building unable to bend my knees.

We also met with Arturo who showed us some color combinations especially how different pearls affect different colors. It was pretty cool watching him at work and taking his color schemes outside to see them in the sunlight. We all left happy with our color set-up and then we went back to the conference room to discuss the specs of our shafts. For me the tester shaft felt incredible and I didn't really need much tweaking. I asked that the torque, weight and launch angle remain the same but that the shaft be stiffened slightly. So what I believe I ended up with is a 67 gram, 3.8 torque, mid-launch X-flex. We were told our tester shafts were modified Hzrdus Red. Something that blew my mind was that when changing characteristics of the shaft, about a quarter of a million calculations were made to make sure the playability of the shaft remained the same. We were regaled with tales of Chump Fries efforts to design the perfect shaft and what went into bringing it to life. Now it must be said that Chump Fries was the victim of repeated ribbing but he took it like a champ and it was all done in fun. Anyone who can be a good sport like that is good by me.

We all reconvened around O'Neil's desk while he worked on shaft designs with the rest of the group. An impromptu interview location had been set up with a background and lights and I immediately became nervous at the prospect of being interviewed. Namely because the camera adds ten pounds and I'm already (according to Spivey) built like fire hydrant. Chump Fries was our courageous guinea pig and he did remarkably well despite being asked to describe his shaft. The interviews were well done by the fellas and we all got a good laugh out of them. That said I don't recall a single answer I gave during mine and am grateful the interviews have since expired.

After relaxing at the hotel for a while with our complimentary beer, chips and salsa we headed over to Ballast Point which is a seriously happening place. The food was incredible and I LOVE craft beer so I was a happy guy. I think my favorite was the Double IPA. There was a lot of good conversation and laughter and after a final round with Don, we called it a night and ubered back to the hotel. I couldn't have asked for a better day and we pretty much crashed once we got back to the room.

Great write up Galen! And your sense of humor is right at the top dude! It was fantastic to meet you. Don't know if we ever told you but watching your beautiful swing several of agreed its like Angel Cabrerra's. Smooth but so so powerful!

cpljohnst said:

Great write up Galen! And your sense of humor is right at the top dude! It was fantastic to meet you. Don't know if we ever told you but watching your beautiful swing several of agreed its like Angel Cabrerra's. Smooth but so so powerful!

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Thanks! But hey guys don't let the other attendees fool you. They all put it out there. cpljohnst just hits double the fairways the rest of us do.

Youtubing Angel Cabrera right now!

Galen doesn't say much, but when he does it's golden. I might have to change my screen name to Human Tornado.

Day 1 - Part 2

After paint my group switched to meeting with Don. This was really fun. Watching Awkward, then Galen go through the process with Don was very cool. Don would take what they asked for and adjust numbers in the software and we'd watch things change on screen. There was a graphic that would superimpose itself over the profile of the test shaft so that we could see where the changes were in the shaft. When it was my turn I told Don that the test shaft had performed well for me some days and less well other days. I was mostly getting mid or low height balls with the test shaft and that I'd like a little higher launch and maybe a touch less stiffness. I then let him know I'd been fit into the LZ at a fitting this spring and that shaft was working great for me, so Don say, "why don't we put a Loading Zone in here for you?". Tap, tap, tap and blam I'm finished.

Lunch was some giant burritos that were fantastic. I went with Carne Asada with quac. Oh Yeah!

We later took our T-shirts back into the factory and we all screen printed a logo that O'Neil had drawn up for the event. The Handcrafted Experience 2015 logo complete with flip flop and a taco! (JB did not approve of the footwear chosen for this).

Next came interviews one at a time with Lauren and these were a lot of fun. Lauren asked each of us what was our favorite thing or thing that most surprised us and for me it was learning that even tour pros do not get this level of customization with their shaft profiles and certainly with graphic designs. Just still in awe that Project X rolled out this kind of red carpet for everyday golfers like us. Truly something special!

We headed back to the hotel to get ready for our dinner at Ballast Point. We took a very entertaining Uber ride while Galen told us about some of his hobbies. The driver was trying to hold back his laughter, it was classic. The beer at Ballast Point was just over the top good. I started with an Oktoberfest Martzen which was awesome and then went with a whole lot of other varieties, switching every time the waitress took my order. Between full beers and the tastes we shared with each other I sampled at least 12 different beers. Just so solid! The food was fantastic too. Chips and salsa and quac, plus beer pretzels for apps. A dinner menu with three choices and I went with the shrimp. Followed by some yummy bread pudding. I sat by JB, Ddec, SkiBum and Chump Fries. We had some great talk on our end of the table. This dinner was awesome! Afterward Don treated us to another round and I got to talk a good bit to Spivey and George the steel shaft guy.

When it was over we headed back to the hotel with another Uber. Feeling the effects of the beer I went into one of those "I Love You Man" moments with Chump Fries and told him I'd play golf with him anytime. Even though I was drunk it was very true!

Next up Day 2.

Loving the recaps guys. I have to tell you, it was fun watching you all on periscope. I can't believe how amazing this looked to be.

Great recaps so far everyone. Galen, yours as usual had me laughing my ass off haha. I feel like a slacker as I haven't gotten my recap up yet, but I will get it finished by the end of the week for sure.

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Greatest account name ever.

Project X HandCrafted Experience Recap & Review - Time Lapse Shaft Creation

Project X HandCrafted Experience Recap & Review - Time Lapse Shaft Creation

@stanthecaddy getting some gold


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