I was fortunate enough to win this year's Team Titleist Ultimate Experience, and it only seems fitting that I share all the details with this community (even if it took me longer to post than I would have liked). So here it goes...

In early November I flew out to San Diego with my Dad, who would be my guest for this incredible trip. The next three days would truly live up to the Ultimate Experience moniker. The itinerary looked like this:

Day 1 - Arrive in Carlsbad - VIP tour of the Scotty Cameron Gallery Day 2 - Full tour of the Titleist Performance Institute in Oceanside - Tour fitting session - Round of golf at Shadowridge Golf Course Day 3 - Behind the scenes tour of the Club Assembly facaility in Carlsbad - Surprise! - Round of golf at Omni La Costa Legends Course

So with that itinerary in mind, here are some more in-depth highlights of the trip:

The Scotty Cameron Gallery - For those of you who haven't visited the Gallery, I think it's a must-see next time you're in town. The craftsmanship of every square inch is incredible, with everything including the display racks being hand-made by Scotty himself. Our host was incredibly knowledgable about seemingly every putter Scotty's name has been stamped on, and even gave us a peak at the putter fitting lab. We also got to roll a few putts with some of the unique Gallery creations. Overall, a great way to start the trip.

Titleist Performance Institute Tour - Glann Mahler, Supervisor of the Titleist Performance Institute, led us on a tour of the facility. We started with the golf ball testing range, and it was incredible to catch just a glimpse of what this process is like.

Tour Fitting Session - not surprisingly, this was my favorite part of the trip. I had the opportunity to work with Lucas as my expert fitter, and it was a phenomonal experience. It started with a conversation about what I was looking for, and after some warm-up, we jumped right into fitting the driver. The reason we started with driver was to be able to work backwards with filling in the distance gaps, which makes a lot of sense. Anyway, I had been gaming a TM driver that was a few years old. After hitting that to get some baseline numbers I took some swings with the new TS drivers. All I can say is wow! I ended up being fitted into an 8.5 deg TS2 with a HZRDUS Smoke 60 g X flex shaft. The numbers across the board were dramatically better than my current driver, but what also jumped out at me was just how easy and fun to get consistent results. Moving down the line we dialed in a 13.5 deg TS3 3 wood and an 18 deg TS2 5 wood, both with the 70g version of the same HZRDUS shaft. The final piece in the long gaps gave me a split decision between a 718 T-MB 4 iron, and a 23 deg 818H2 with a Fujikura Atmos HB Tour Spec Blue 8X shaft. Carry distance was almost identical, but Lucas was concerned about the angle of descent with the T-MB. Now I already had a 2018 Newport 2, so I opted to include both the T-MB and the 818H2 in my count of 14 clubs to allow for some flexibility based on course setup. In terms of irons, the best setup for me was the 718AP2's with AMT Tour White X100 shafts. Next we moved onto the wedge fitting, which might have been the best part of the fitting experience. School was in session when Lucas walked me through the different grinds and how to utilize them. Then it was time for target practice at the short game green. I think I had an ear-to-ear grin seeing how useful the SM7's could be for just about any type of approach I wanted to hit. I ended up with a 46, 50, and 54 deg in F grind, and a 58 in the K grind.

Club Assembly Facility Tour - Bryan Lamb, VP Golf Club Operations, gave us a full tour of the Club Assemly and Quality Assurance Operations. Getting to look behind the curtain and see just how the clubs are assembled and what kind of quality assurance testing they go through was remarkable. It's clear that when you have a Titleist club in your hand, you can be 110% confident in the quality and craftsmanship.

Surprise - the Titleist folks had done a good job of setting our expectations that our set of custom clubs would be ready in 7-10 days. But once we wrapped up the facility tour and walked into the lobby, low and behold, both of our new sets of clubs, our new custom bags, and our 6 dozen balls were waiting for us. I was speechless.

Rounds of Golf - in continuing with amazing hospitality and adding to the experience, some of the Titlest team were kind enough to take us out for rounds on their home courses. The first was at Shadowridge Golf Club, following our morning fitting session. The next day, we got the opportunity to put our new clubs into play immediately with a round at Omni La Costa Legends Course. To top it off, Team Titleist was able to get us a few sleeves of the 2019 ProV1's and ProV1x's to try out. I have loved the 2018 ProV1x, but somehow Titleist finds a way to keep improving an already incredible ball.

Overall, everything about the trip exceeded expectations, and truly felt like a once in a lifetime experience. I can't thank everyone at Titleist enough. Everyone couldn't have been nicer, but I have to give a special shout-out to Rick at Team Titleist. I know a lot of people played a part in making this trip a success, but Rick was there every step of the way planning the trip and then being our guide for our time out West. And to the TT community, feel free to ask any questions you may have.

To anyone interested in checking out some of the pictures from the trip, here is the official Team Titleist post: www.titleist.com/.../the-2018-team-titleist-ultimate-experience