I just want to say WOW, what a great tourney! Thank you so much, Icon and Shoe. This was a really nice Christmas present.
Huge congratulations to Piirikas for pulling out the win, and to all the rest of the top 5 that made it such a close-run thing. I'm just in awe of the scores that were posted: a 57 in the final round is just beyond belief (well done Jerm, and unlucky with those final putts!), as is Raul's 59 at Congressional, and the astonishing 63 by Jason at Merion (the hardest test of them all IMO), to name but a few great rounds.
I just love the symmetry of the final leaderboard: a winner by just 1 shot from 2 players, one of whom (Jerm65, a noted UEL expert!) came from behind with the low round of the tourney to fall just short.
It's fitting that the 4th and 5th positions are tied, and are 11 shots ahead of the next finishers, so at least everyone coming away with prizes had a clear gap ahead of the rest of the field (bad luck TAP on your disappointing final round but great tourney nonetheless, and super shooting by bettergloberoman who was one of just 4 players under par every round). That said, I wouldn't have minded a setup that rewarded the top 10 with something, lol! (That might have been a worthy recompense given Shoe's stated goal for the tourney of having Icon finish outside the top 10). When I came to start my final round, it looked as if 4 remaining players, myself included, had a chance to deny Icon the top 10 finish if we all played an excellent round. Sadly, 3 WD'd, when any kind of finish would have met Shoe's goal! (Pity about those weeds, Bags... And what happened to you Dazza, and Rock, after your great starts to the tourney?)
Anyway, Icon, it was great to have you participate and to have your score posted early every round as a goal to try and match. I'm amazed and delighted to have ended up under par overall (here are my R3 & R4 cards), and to have beaten the great Icon in a tourney, especially one of Icon's own devising. I hope you've won something good from your bet from Shoe!
It's fascinating that only the top 10 broke par out of 27 finishers (there were 58 that completed at least 1 round, plus Shoe reported approx. 50 more that started R1 but WD'd).
My favorite post in the thread: BigAl showing a fabulous attitude in finishing the tourney in the anchor role. Good on you, Al! (Check your stocking for a late Christmas present)
I loved it that every round was different, and that only a part of the picture was revealed in advance… and that they varied so much, RSG being an awful lot slower than Oly, and Merion being much, much faster than Congo. At first I thought that these might reflect the base-level speeds of each course, and that when multiplied by whatever insane stimpmeter quotient, the result was just exponentially greater. But reading Icon's post on p11, I now suspect that each setting is one that WGT can determine. Regardless, the setups required an incredible degree of course management; I've never had to think and plan so much … and it was wonderful!
I have to say I prefer the super fast to the super slow… especially as there seems to be some very strange results with the super slow. Was it just my imagination or did it seem that downhill putts on super-slow needed to be hit substantially harder than uphill putts… ? I have to admit to thinking about Scotty in Star Trek, "Ya canna change the laws of physics!" I'd be curious to hear what the programmers amongst our fine community members make of this!
A 4-round 18-hole single play format was very welcome indeed: a proper golf tourney!!! And, the timeframe was great: 3 days per round is just right, I felt. It kept the excitement level high, and it was wonderful to see such an active thread for the tourney. For me, with Christmas guests, I struggled to play R3 (ending up getting up at 4am to sneak to the couch and squeeze in the round), but wouldn't have missed it for the world; in fact, Merion was tremendous fun largely because of the anticipation… you just knew that nightmare holes were coming along, and that you'd have to figure out a way to get past #5 and #6, and then #14, and #15 in particular. On #14 I got really lucky with my bounce-on approach somehow not rolling all the way back, and then managing to sink the 17 footer for a rare birdie. I felt bad seeing Icon's replay there, and Dazza's too… desperately unlucky! While on #15 at Merion I may have stumbled into the best way to get into the hole, chipping in via a roll-back (for bogey sadly!).
I'd love it if something like this was a monthly event. 50 cr seems about right, but I'd pay more to be a part of it. I almost like that it's a treat for those that follow the forums, rather than publicly available, but would second those that have commented on how it would be better if the thread were more clearly titled. Perhaps a happy medium could be to promote it via Ads that link to the forum thread. That might encourage more players to get into the forums knowing that special stuff happens there, and keep it out of the game client window, where some (many?) players might not read the warnings and get too much of a surprise.
Thanks again ... (yikes what a long post!),
Corwyn