I have been wondering this very same thing. But I don't believe 'dinging' a shot means what we all might think it means.
Does it mean we have hit the perfect shot? Does it mean the club head has hit the ball at the correct point of the downswing arc? Does it mean the club face is at the perfect angle when it strikes the ball?
We get to control 4 things before we actually hit the ball: 1) aim left or right of a target, 2) power of our swing, 3) spin on the ball, either top spin or back spin and 4) the type of shot, i.e. full, punch, flop etc.
We do not get to control where to put the ball in our stance, i.e. forward or back, etc. We do not control how far away from the ball we stand and we can't control the angle of the club face when it strikes the ball. However, these things are assumed to be controlled by the type of shot we select.
Often times when we have chosen the correct power, aim and spin and we 'ding' the shot, it goes where we expect it to. But there are occasions when it doesn't. Why is that? Some people believe it's WGT purposefully messing with us, which may or may not be true in all cases. I think it's because of those things we do not have direct control over.
This is a computer game. Without direct control of where the ball is within our stance or how far away from the ball we stand or the position of the club face at impact, the game has to control those things. If 'dinging' a shot meant that all those things were always perfect, we'd all be shooting in the low 50's. The perfection would get boring.
To be more like real life, the only thing the game can do is randomly choose which one of those three things, or any combination, will be off and by how much. Unfortunately, we can't learn from these bad shots because we don't know what went wrong. That's where the business aspect of this game comes in.
Like it or not, this game is a business. You are free to play this game without giving up a dime, but because it's a business, it's designed to get you to put up some money. And one of those design features is we don't have complete control over our swings. Even 'dinging' a shot isn't a guarantee of perfection. It can't be. It's part of the business plan.
We can debate all day about how much of our shot outcomes are pure randomness or circumstantial. That's not the purpose of this post. I'm just sharing the conclusions I've drawn from this game. But I'm ok with it. Even if WGT were messing with our shots here and there, it becomes just like real golf, because in real golf, it's always that one shot that keeps you coming back. Whether it's a bad one that you know can do better on or a great shot you want to repeat. We keep coming back. That's also in WGT's business plan.