Long-time listener, first-time caller.
So I have a confession to make: I am one of those idiots who doesn't buy balls.
I've been playing WGT for a significant amount of time (don't remember exactly when, but my first replay is from 2010), and I would say I split my plays about 50-50 between unranked fun plays with friends and family and stroke play tournaments. (This is why I'm still in the Master tier after all these years despite being level 83—my stroke average is finally starting to improve toward 63 after being 65.x for a very long time, but at this point I find that I end up doing better in UEL and Best-Of tourneys, which aren't going to yield favorable scores in terms of moving up. I'm sure my stats also therefore look pretty unimpressive to some of the better players out there for this reason.)
Now I've reached a pretty solid place I feel like for sticking with starter balls all this time, and I could tell you how my clubs are going to react to almost any green complex on the free stroke-play courses with the balls I use. (Whistler, still looking at you. Ugh.) I do well enough in the Master tier tourneys, usually placing in the top 100 (although there are usually only a few courses and formats where I manage to grab top-10 credit prizes). It's enough of an income for me to be able to look forward to getting new clubs hopefully in a few months, but should I finally break the 63.00 barrier, I doubt that I'll manage to advance much further.
At least for the next three years, I am going to be poor enough that buying credits regularly is going to be out of the question. Therefore, my questions are as follows: 1) If I start down this path of buying balls, am I going to be able to sustain it without dishing out significant amounts of money? (Maybe there's a cheaper ball that I could go with?) 2) How much adjustment time am I going to need to get used to things like increases in distance and spin? If it's something that's going to take closer to 100 rather than 10 rounds to figure out how to account for, I'm not sure it's worth it for the family-and-friends rounds that I play (which are friendly, sure, but I'm still a competitive f@@@er) even if I can manage not tanking my credit stock—I'd probably feel happier continuing to upgrade clubs rather than anything else at that point and just topping out in the Tour Master tier.
Sorry for the long rambly post (people tell me I have a problem with this), and thanks for any input!