Oh, you're too kind Russ! I was just trying to keep up with you...
Tough-It-Out is something else entirely... I'm already drooling over the possibility that Icon might give us an equipment-restricted Starter Clubs and Balls-only version of the Craziness tourney. Would love to see if anyone could shoot par under those conditions, lol!
I got thrown for a loop today by seeing the "Very Slow" designation for green speed. IIRC every other round had been the "string-tag null", even for the slow ones. Sure enough, my first putt from 6 feet flew 6 feet past, and I opened with a 3-putt bogey, yuck... Eventually, it started to make some kind of sense, and I was pretty pleased to break 80 with a strong back nine: 79 was my score.
Top 10 is my goal in these tourneys, and it's getting harder and harder given the quality of the field that's learning about these fun challenges. I'm just honored to be on the same leaderboard as all these top players. I'm expecting to fall out of top 10 this time, but no matter, it's been wonderful fun. And I'm full of admiration for our leaders, Icon and Priestess have posted truly outstanding scores. Good luck to those chasing!
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I'll second Steven's request for much stronger winds if that's possible. That would be something to see!
One dream I've had about increasing the difficulty in the game play, is to do something that was an option in the Links game years back, namely to turn off the putting grid entirely. Just as it was tremendous fun to play blind unevens for a couple of days a few months back when a bug meant you couldn't see your lie properly, I can imagine it would be a fantastic challenge to putt blind, essentially from memory. I bet we'd be quite surprised at how well we could remember the breaks.
Finally, I'm delighted that so many of you seem to have embraced the challenge of unevens through this, and other tourneys. I'm sensing a widespread acceptance of this format amongst the top players, as a way to truly test our shotmaking skills, and our course management.
Shocking news: "Top players are more interested in some tough conditions, which spread out the field, than in protecting their averages." Who'd have thought it! :)