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Tournament Conditions

• AvatarLee 1,644 Posts

  Fri, Mar 27 2009 8:18 AM

  Hi All,

  I'd like to open a topic for discussion, given the recent developments of the Virtual US Open being announced.

  First I'd like to ask the WGT developers this:  Are the course conditions the same (or close to the same) for every participant playing in a tournament?

  Right now this really only applies to the wind direction and strength from hole to hole, but for the future it could apply to pin placements, green/fairway conditions, tee box placements etc.

  From what I observe right now, there are some wind 'patterns' that favor shooting better scores from one round to the next.  This could lend to an unfair advantage to a player who happened to start their round at the right time to get the right wind, where another player could end up with an unfavorable wind.

  To make it fair for everyone there should be one setup that everyone would have to play to, just like in real life.  Sure, wind direction and speed could fluctuate, but they should never really spin 180 degrees from one player to the next.  It could even be set up harder than usual, as long as everyone plays in the same conditions.

  Having said that, this wouldn't really apply to the Closest to the Hole tournaments because those are alway Multiple Play tourneys.

  Let me know what you guys think.

  Back to the greens! = )

  Lee

• iconian 599 Posts

  Fri, Mar 27 2009 9:47 AM

   HI Lee,

  I happen to agree with you, but I also realise that this might never happen. However, let me try to make a point.

  ON #10, if you have hard wind againts you, you are stuck with about 140-145 left and you have to hit 6iron. It's very very hard to get it close. I landed a few times on the ruff in front of the hole and it hopped through the green on the other side.

  Yet another time, i had a 12 mph ahead wind, so i got inside 125,and was able to hit 8iron full bs. The ball landed 5 short, ran 3 yards and stopped within 5ft - easy birdie.

  That's a solid 2 short swing.

  Now, I am not saying to eliminate that wind, I LIKE IT how it is now! but what Lee and I are saying is this: for the weekly stroke events, keep wind consistent for everyone, ie: tail  wind from say 7-14mph so that every player will have same tail wind that week. You can rotate direction or strength, but this would eliminate the 30 yard difference and make it more fair.

  Next week, feel free to mak it 7-15 wind againts us and have everyone stuck with 140+yard shot, that's fine, as long as it is consistent!

  Thanx:)

• FreddyFox 60 Posts

  Fri, Mar 27 2009 9:50 AM

  Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to happen. They had the consistent wind-pattern thing going on the last version, and their latest update changed it to a random wind-pattern, probably to avoid people memorizing the patterns and making the game too easy. I doubt highly they'll go back to the old style, especially for as high a profile tournament as this plans to be.

• AvatarLee 1,644 Posts

  Fri, Mar 27 2009 9:59 AM

  Hmmm... I'm not really recommending that they go back to the old patterns (pre-update) because there was actually a way to figure out the 'deviation patterns' based on what wind you got... And that really only helped on the par 3s.  The rest of the holes you could learn what your approach and putts would do based on your drive deviation (from a perfect shot).  The way they have the deviations set up right now is "ok" (still some issues, but that's for another post).  What I'm trying to say is that it does not have to be the exact same conditions, there can be variations, but not extreme ones that you can see for example if you play two rounds in a row and get polar opposite winds.

• WGTalex 2,087 Posts

  Fri, Mar 27 2009 10:01 AM

  The wind variations for each particular tournament are the same for everyone who plays in your tier.

• AvatarLee 1,644 Posts

  Fri, Mar 27 2009 10:05 AM

  Okay cool!  Great to know!

  Thanks Alex, and you guys are doing an awesome job!  Keep it up.

• nivlac 2,188 Posts

  Fri, Mar 27 2009 10:13 AM

  Hmm.  Alex, could you clarify that slightly?  Do you mean to say that all players will encounter roughly the same winds and in the same direction on each hole? E.G. I play #5 with a 10mph headwind, so does everyone else in that tournament.

  Or do you mean we all have to play 'moderate' wind conditions and that may vary from hole to hole for each of us?  E.G. I play #5 with a 10mph headwind but Avatar gets a 7mph crosswind in the same tournament.

  Thanks

• WGTalex 2,087 Posts

  Fri, Mar 27 2009 4:15 PM

  Hi nivlac, in each tournament, not every player will play with the exact same wind on each hole...meaning it will vary from player to player, but it will still be within the general level of wind (i.e. low, medium, strong).

• tibbets 1,043 Posts

  Fri, Mar 27 2009 4:40 PM

   While in a perfect world we would all play with exactly the same conditions, there are a few realities that would prevent it.  The first thing that comes to my mind is cheating.  If player#1 goes through the tournament and then tells his/her buddy player#2 how each hole is playing, that would lead to an unfair bias.  I think as long as it's as Alex says, with the conditions being relative to all players in the tier, that's the best we can hope for.  It is true that certain players will gain an advantage on certain holes(headwind vs. tailwind), hopefully there would be balance within the course to even it out. 

  Brings to mind one of my favorite sayings;

   "Do what you can,

  with what you have,

  where you are!"

• NASAgolfer 96 Posts

  Sat, Mar 28 2009 8:13 AM

  Interesting to find out that there is a variance.  I always thought everything would be equal across the board.  I'm going to have to check out the WGT weather channel before teeing it up again.