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'Tough-It-Out': The Trans-Atlantic Starter Clubs Uneven Open

• alosso 21,072 Posts

  Tue, Nov 6 2012 3:01 AM

  I'll start with the honours:
  A big THANK YOU! to the two of you who planned and organized the tournament. Well done, faultless and perfect from the start to the finish, including the preparation work, the grinding in leaderboard details, chasing up late players and deciding and settling the few "legal" cases in the best friendly and generous way!

  TYVM to all participants who dared something new and were prepared to test their skills on uneven grounds. It's a higher risk to one's reputation and self-esteem than the usual treat of a RG and other daily challenges.

  TYVM also to my playing partners for their friendliness, affection and dedication to the game. I experienced true sportsmanship here, a breeze welcome to my virtual being, blowing away the odeurs that creep up sometimes.

  
  
  My 2 Pfennig of reflections:
  
  Participation:
  I think that 24 is a good number. It facilitates the organisation and it enables the participants to feel as a group, other than in a field of - say - 100.
  Certain drop-outs are inevitable, be it real-life issues, evaluation of the chances (see tour q schools) and, here, the special conditions of the tourney.
  Some may have become extreme unlucky and uncomfortable under these conditions, unable to score as well as usual and as the leaders. In general, I think we'll have to accept a lesser commitment to the tourney and the competitors than in RL golf.
  
  Parings:
  The schedule scheme worked miracles IMHO. Knowing which pairings might work and which not was priceless! Yes, precise indications will improve this tool! Playing with higher tiers is always a profit for me, and playing another TM was a valuable experience, too, seeing the commons.
  
  Scoring:
  You rightly mentioned the high skills of some players - I was delighted to witness this a few times.
  I for one decided to settle for basic golf after the first round: Fairways and greens. I played the Starters long enough (until Master to be honest) to know that you can't go for too many pins - hit the green, collect GIR %% and hope for a 2-putt par. This helped tremendously at OAK where my playing partner got severely punished for their aggressive tactics. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a counting GIR profit from my play, too many mistakes...
  
  BTW: "MrAverage" would have finished between ColumbusStorm and myself, playing 79, 78, 78, 79 for a total of 314. I was never more than 3 strokes behind him :)
  
  Courses:
  I was delighted that there was little water involved in the selected courses, fearing for high ball losses due to the UEL deviations. Not for money but for the score in this case. Otherwise, a good mix with a worthy finish - Olympic is it!
  
  Uneven Lies:
  I didn't recognize too much change after the update. To me, it still has too much influence on the game. My reality HCP is 15, and with UEL I feel like playing for real, on a bad day. UEL should perhaps be 10% of the original settings to let us experience conditions and deviations like Pros.
  My proof was on OLY#18, where I had to hit 140 yds for 90 (o.k., with Starter trajectory), and 40° off left, indeed aming at the clubhouse windows. This is far too much deviation, and it was "only" fairway!!
  
  Y'all, I hope to see you soon!

• CerinoDevoti 3,232 Posts

  Tue, Nov 6 2012 9:14 AM

  I thank all our players who dared to try and as well as accepted the Uneven Lies. Right off the bat we've discovered that our winning score was quite a lot better than expected. Perhaps our expectations were at fault there. Hans pretty much scorched all 4 courses in a display of play that was stunning to me. Looking at the numbers the way to play well is right in front of us. Not only a high GIR but hitting it close and increasing the odds of making birdies is always the way to score well. Hats off my friend your experience and ability to create shots was a great achievement. Tied for second we have players of very different backgrounds. We have a high Level Legend(Kurtsbuford) and mid Level Pro(Corwyn) who only plays with the Starter Clubs and Ball. That tells me something. The Legend has greater experience to fall back on while the Pro has club knowledge at hand to use. I learned a heck of a lot about the Starter Clubs in general playing with Corwyn over the past 6 months or so. Like most I couldn't get away from the Starters fast enough and get myself the best clubs I could at any time. What I didn't learn was how to master the equipment I had at the time. It's amazing what the starters can actually do against the designs of the courses.

  Regarding Uneven Lies in general I'm of the belief that this is the way the game should play all the time. We watch our tee shots bound off mounds and take rolls then address a ball that perfectly level. Makes no sense to me at all. I study course design very closely as I play and what I've found is these courses are designed to create the correct shot. A fairway tilts right when the pin is located on the right side. We don't need a greater ability to draw and fade when all we need to do is play the course as designed. This Tourney really brought that out with the Starter Clubs and Ball. As for the degree of difficulty and the change made to the Uneven lies I was frankly pretty angry.  Having played it more and thought about it more I think the Uneven lies are about right as they are now. The ability to get out of bunkers has been made easier but you still have to be creative and have some guts to hit the ball so hard for it to go so little.

  The player pairings and the Time chart idea Corwyn came up with was a grand idea. I can't say I even thought of such a thing or would have known how to figure it. Mega Kudos to Corwyn for that as well as his admin work throughout. If I were he I'd start a business for WGT credits being an admin for other Tourneys.;-)

  The Courses IMO were a perfect group of 4. The 2 British we wanted to be played as realistic as possible so Wind was going to be a factor. The green speed on St A against the strongest winds was meant to increase the chances of approach shots staying on the greens with following winds. I liked it when it worked but got a little grumpy actually putting on them. Corwyn got the most of that. The American courses we wanted wind out of the equation so the sloped fairways and greens would dominate the test. I think that worked pretty well.

  I hope most who played will want to play an Uneven Tourney in the future. I'm a stroke play type myself so playing against the course and it's designer is always my preference. I know a lot of players like match play for the direct competition so it's always possible we'll have a Uneven match play tourney or perhaps one of you will host such an event. We'll be keeping all the names of players so when we're ready to do it again we'll contact all of you.

  Once again Great play to Hans, Kurtsbuford and Corwyn for taking our top places and thank everyone for just gutting it out and trying something well outside our normal course of play. I'll be writing on the wall's of our award winners so they can let me know what they'd like gifted from the pro Shop.

  ~CD~

• iMikeAllStar 262 Posts

  Mon, Nov 12 2012 6:49 AM

  Count me in!

   

  I have London time so my window is 22h00 til 24h00

   

  MIke

• CerinoDevoti 3,232 Posts

  Mon, Nov 12 2012 1:35 PM

  iMikeAllStar:

  Count me in!

   I have London time so my window is 22h00 til 24h00

   MIke

  Mike we finished the Tournament already. There's a pretty good chance we'll have something like it in the New Year so look for a sign-up thread at that time. It is great to know you wanted to give it a go. :-)