LUG Newsletter: Edition 3 | August 1, 2025
Audi RS e-tron GT Performance / Newton Golf / La Quinta Resort and Club
Welcome to this week’s edition of the LUG Newsletter. This go-around started in New Jersey with a test drive of a very fast EV; checked in down at the Orlando Convention Center with a look at new golf technology; and wrapped up in a historic hotel amidst the deserts of Palm Springs.
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LUG NUTS
Take a look at my latest review of the 2025 Aston Martin Vantage Roadster after a day-long media test drive in and around Palm Desert.
If you’re a golfer more akin to Corey Pavin than Tiger Woods, the folks at Nicholas James have an entire line of clothing just for you. The company offers menswear for golf and general wear for men 5’9” and under.
As summer annoyingly gives way to autumn, Le Collectionist (a luxury villa rental company with more than 2,000 homes across more than 30 destinations) is offering special fall offers across its portfolio.
Speaking of Aston Martin (again), check back in the coming weeks for a review of the 2025 Vanquish Volante – as wonderful as the Vanquish, only with more fresh air.
Making its first venture away from golf into another sport, PXG is taking the technology that builds the best irons in golf and offering new XP1 and XP2 Pickleball paddles.
If the ultimate in remote travel adventure appeals, you can head to the heights of Asia with Shakti Himalaya. The collection of lodges throughout the Indian Himalayas offer cultural connection and ecological studies in place of traditional, stationary luxury. The company added Prana and Panchachuli, lodges in Kumaon at the foot of Nanda Devi (India’s second-highest mountain).
CARS: 2025 Audi RS e-Tron GT Performance Review
As the dawn of fully electric cars cracked over the gearhead horizon, performance enthusiasts began to grumble. They gathered in sour-faced clusters like trolls in the tunnels that lead to raceway infields and bemoaned the loss of speed and noise – grieving the wonderful concept that driving is not primarily for transportation, but rather for enjoyment.
These days, EVs of all varieties are trying to get their footing. Facing endless questions of range, durability, charging convenience and affordability, However, if there’s one market segment where the charge and go fleet is increasingly more welcome, it’s in the high-end, luxury, supercar realm. Those owners can afford their own chargers for cars that engineers make into remarkably fast silent assassins.
Traditionalists who feared green-friendly vehicles would leave sports cars and machines built for speed in the natural history museums alongside skeletons of the Allosaurus failed to grasp the concept of torque in place of just muscled-up horsepower. An internal combustion engine needs a little time to get motivated – even with 21st century turbocharger technology in effect. A well-engineered electric motor can send down power and grip through those tires to that pavement with more urgency – even immediacy.
With that in mind, say hello to the 2025 Audi 2025 e-tron GT Performance. A fully electric supercar running around $168,000, the machine parks atop the electric branches of the German automaker’s model tree. Engineered with a more dense battery pack, and armed with an on-demand “Boost Mode,” the sedan produces a maximum of 912 horsepower and a 0-60 mph time of 2.4 seconds. That easily makes it the fastest and most powerful mass production model Audi ever produced.
Again, beyond that impressive horsepower total, it’s the car’s staggering 757 lb-ft of torque that fire it into the paved stratosphere without the slightest hesitation.
The Performance version is not to be confused with the straight-up 2025 Audi e-tron GT. While hardly a mild-mannered road presence, the lower trim of the e-tron GT pairing starts at $125,500. Tragically, it makes you wait an entire 3.3 seconds to get from 0-60 mph. It’s exciting to think of all the things you can accomplish with the extra .9 seconds the Performance saves you.
The driving experience is balanced, grounded and utterly smooth. All the while, the Audi RS e-Tron GT Performance is not merely fast with a sadly limited top speed of 155 mph (…Let me MPH go! C‘mon…), but it’s also quick. Startling quick. Jerk your head back into the uselessly small back seat quick. Pulled back G-Force face quick. Wonderfully quick. Worth the money, if you got it, quick. You get the idea.
Of course, there will always be purists who believe only “suck, squeeze, bang, blow” can ever really define driving. That’s all well and good. Love wants what it wants. Someday, you’ll only find those folks on the weekends at track days where they’ll indulge in happy nostalgia.
Still, it’s sad many of them miss out on the rare performance capabilities of engineering achievement like the RS e-Tron GT Performance. The jury is out on how electric speed rides like GT Performance will stand up over the years and through the resale market. As of now, this particular Audi is a thrill to drive and a testament of how surprisingly appealing the future of driving can be in a world hellbent on crushing visceral fun wherever it’s found.
GOLF: Newton Wants to Give Players the Shaft
In this era of AI and assisted design technology, the realm of golf equipment drowns in numbers. Whether it’s digits and decimals spinning around terminology like MOI, smash factor or other buzzwords, club makers look to document their design improvements in mathematics.
The minds behind Newton Golf and its Motion Shafts are only worried about Miles per Hour.
If properly applied amongst elements like path and face position, swing speed equates to distance – especially with the driver. It’s a natural enough marriage of physics, assuming the quicker the club moves through the downswing and release, the harder the ball is hit, and the farther the shot will travel.
However, the modern golf club is not an inflexible cudgel. You’re not swinging a baseball bat or a hockey stick. The thin graphite (formerly steel in age’s past) driver shaft has a spring function that collects and releases kinetic energy – essentially producing a whip effect that adds impact.
The Newton Motion Shafts work to add speed to a golfer’s swing by improving and enhancing that whip factor through proprietary materials and enhanced engineering. The resulting club elements are easily swapped in for the original shafts sold with the likes of PING, PXG, Callaway, Titleist and their ilk.
If you wanted to test the Newton’s ability on your driver of choice, you’d be best served to gage your swing speed accurately. Any launch monitor or simulator should provide that number. With that data, you can select the proper flex from the Newton product range as it’s ranked by speed categories.
While the Newton Motion idea promises to add some speed and power to anyone’s driver, the nature of the product and the reality of Father Time’s toll link Newton and the older golfer by fate. Even the strongest player loses strength and flexibility as he or she ages, but the right equipment can make up for that loss to some degree. The best proof that Newton Motion tech aids such senior players is its newfound popularity on the PGA Champions Tour (formerly the Seniors Tour).
According to Newton’s own stats, as many as 40 players on the Champions campaign switched to a Newton Shaft to enhance swing speed or reclaim lost distance. While your results may vary, the Tour success is the strongest proof that Newton is onto something with its Motion design.
In addition to the driver options, Newton now offers the same technology for 3, 5 and 7 fairway woods or an all-purpose shaft for rescues/hybrids.
TRAVEL: Exploring the Past and Future of La Quinta Resort and Club
Palm Springs and its surrounds are their own universe in the desert. Far enough from Los Angeles or Las Vegas to avoid the crowds of the former and the tackiness of the latter, it offers residents of both an appealing vacation escape with ideal weather for most of the year.
In keeping with that status, Palm Springs claims a seemingly limitless collection of resorts and escapes ranging from the luxury/five star level to more approachable, family-friendly destinations. On the high end side of that market, the La Quinta Resort and Club is the grand dame, combining elite modern amenities with a rich history closely tied to Hollywood glamour.
Part of Hilton’s Curio Collection of luxury hotels, the property was founded in 1926 and now spreads over about 45 acres. Through the years, it became the “Escape from LA” home for movie legends such as Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, Shirley Temple, Ginger Rogers and Frank Capra. You can still visit some of their on-property homes (often used as event spaces). It’s this kind of history that gives the place so much of its atmosphere.
The resort includes the full service Spa La Quinta, a salon, fitness center, indoor and outdoor yoga and the now-essential blend of tennis and pickleball courts. A myriad of pools (both public and private for some classifications of suite) dot the grounds. A daily list of activities is available for guests, while the active types have access a variety of hiking and bike paths in the surrounding landscape.
La Quinta offers a staggering 24 categories of rooms and suites from simpler, one bedroom lodging to the King Hacienda Grande with a full yard and private pool to the King Eisenhower Suite where the titular late five-star general and President stayed while on vacation in retirement.
This Palm Springs gem offers the visiting golfer the supreme advantage of nestling in next to PGA West – golf’s headquarters on the left coast. The facility offers five championship courses and the PGA West Academy. Including The Stadium Course (used for tournament play); The classic Mountain Course; The Dunes Course; and tracks designed by Jack Nicklaus and Greg Norman, the dedicated player can play for days and experience the Pacific side’s top challenges.
In 2024, La Quinta began a new renovation program to update the venue’s decor and infrastructure – while PGA West recently wrapped up its upgrades last year. The results guarantee both of these special places will enjoy a future as rich as their pasts.