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WGT Kiawah Championship

• zagraniczniak 1,984 Posts

  Tue, Aug 14 2012 3:08 AM

  Fabien,

  Interesting. A few observations from watching the PGA at Kiawah:

  1. The heavy winds at Kiawah could be a lot heavier, much like other seaside courses (St. A's, St. G's). Understandably, inland courses have lower wind on average.

  2. The winds should reflect the prevailing winds at that course (and the general variations from the prevailing winds), to the extent that there are prevailing winds.

  3. The prevailing winds should be consistent from hole to hole of the same course (subjet to the normal range of variation, swirling and gusting etc.) The courses are designed and played with this in mind. Because every course is laid out on real land covering the site, whether the wind is with you or against you tends to average out over the course of the round.

  4. In a tourney like the current Kiawah championship, the winds could reflect those actually encountered by the players. Thus, for example, Thursday had low wind, Saturday had high wind, and Sunday had moderate wind.

  5. Unplayable lies should be factored into the game - not just losing your ball. Freak situations like Rory's ball landing in the tree on the 3rd hole at Kiawah, or golf balls getting stuck in the trees at Olympic, could be built into the game (on a random basis tied to the rareness of the occurrence).

• brysoni23 693 Posts

  Tue, Aug 14 2012 4:08 AM

  genorb:

  One could take into account the real fairway orientation. At hole 1, the wind direction would be random (or within a given quadrant for all players) and for all other holes, the wind direction would be determined from that random direction and the real fairway orientation.

  Holes 14,15,16,17, at STA come to mind.

  If you tee off on hole 14 and the wind is Right to left pointing at (9pm) then it should be blowing in a similar direction on holes 15,16,17

  

   

• stevereilly 5,915 Posts

  Tue, Aug 14 2012 7:00 AM

  I don't know if there is any truth in it,  but I think that certain top legends from a certain top country club may have inside information as to when during a tournament round, the winds will be at their most favourable.

  I'm not saying that they play with less wind, but I'm sure that if a round starts for example 3 hours before a tournament round ends, then there will be a more favourable wind than playing 3 hours after the round was originally posted.

  ( You can't beat a good conspiracy theory  ! )

• JaLaBar 1,254 Posts

  Tue, Aug 14 2012 9:28 AM

  Just to test the theory of heavy winds 'evening out' (and by theory I mean line of bullsh*t that WGT feeds us), I restarted an Unlimited CC tourney at ST. A's 20 times.  I played the first hole all 20 times to get the winds on the second.  These are back 9.

  Hole #10 - 13 headwinds (4:30 - 7:30), 4 crosswinds (1:30-4:30 or 7:30-10:30), 3 tailwinds (10:30-1:30)

  Hole #11 - 9 Headwinds, 6 crosswinds, 5 tailwinds

  So, a smallish sample size, but the preliminary evidence points to no evening out either through multiple plays or successive holes.

  Total (40 holes) - 22 headwinds, 10 crosswinds, 8 tailwinds

   

  Edit:  Done with my testing, I decide to play the tourney for real.  Tee off - 29 MPH headwind at 6:30

  Make it headwind on 23 of 41.

• dfDurbs 1,061 Posts

  Wed, Aug 15 2012 3:42 AM

  interesting to see the usual suspects not leading the Tourney...wonder why?

  Could it be, that single play reveals the true players, not the ones with unlimited funds and time and favourable VEM for being fanboys etc etc 

  another conspiracy theory?

  BTW, while on conspiracy theories...

  why does every good drive I hit always, I mean 99.999%, hit the up slope on a fairway and basically stop, but when I have missed the ding and there is all sorts of trouble waiting for at 330yds +, the ball always finds the downslope and shoots forward into said trouble?

• sarak362336 1,597 Posts

  Wed, Aug 15 2012 3:54 AM

  Last time I looked at the end of round 2 all the usual suspects were leading........

  Sara

• dfDurbs 1,061 Posts

  Wed, Aug 15 2012 4:43 AM

  God, I must be looking at the wrong tourney then, Rnd 3 complete with top score of 180

• sarak362336 1,597 Posts

  Wed, Aug 15 2012 5:54 AM

  FYI  round 3 has just started........   think thats enough said.      Sara

• chrisironsbones 3,524 Posts

  Wed, Aug 15 2012 6:48 AM

  I'm glad you all got to play round 2.  I got SCREWED by the usual WGT tournament dates, play from 13 to 15, I presumed as all tournaments usually have round 1 from Monday to Wednesday (as dates show) then from Thursday to Sunday.  As usuall although the tournament says 13 to 15, i logged on today on wednesday the 15th only to see MISSED THE F'KIN CUT, Thanks again, as usuall a high % of players get screwed by the FALSE dates shown.  Common sense says it should have dates 13 & 14 not give the false impression you can play to 15th.  I can see why many players cant be bothered with this game any more and more and more dont play often, me, like a lot only play a round a day, and when that round you hoped to play isn't available (same problems in OPEN & St Andrews championship) then that 1 round a day will start beeing 1 a week, untill 1 a week gets to, Ahhh, theres's actually better things to do than be here, why not get a drug addiction instead of a WGT addiction, both seem pretty the same $$ wise..lol

• MBaggese 15,369 Posts

  Wed, Aug 15 2012 6:54 AM

  Here's what it tells me Chris:

  The qualifier is unlimited stroke-play and runs Wed 8/1 thru Sun 8/12. The top 50% of qualifying scores make the cut for 2 Championship single-play stroke-play rounds, first round posted Mon-Tu 8/13-14 and second round posted Wed-Thu 8/15-16.