zagraniczniak:
Does anyone know if this happens only when the pin is left in the hole? You can't tell from replays because in replays the pin is shown in the hole even if it was removed when the player took the shot. This feeds into the general issue of whether it is more beneficial to remove the pin or not on approach shots.
Yes, this happens whether the pin is left in or taken out. These shots happen when the ball hits the side of the hole, poorly programmed to be a hard edge whereas in real life it would be soft like the rest of the green. The bug is not that the ball shot have gone in, but that the holed sound is made even though the ball does not go in. This generally serves to infuriate the player by making them feel robbed.
But it is less dangerous when the pin is taken out. It is when you hit the hard hole edge, then the hard pin, that you can get the extreme effects that catapult the ball 100s of yards off into the wilderness.