Well I appreciate everyone trying to tell me this is normal, and I went back to my game with a new approach of trying to simply par each hole with some bogeys. At this point a game 3 or 4 over par would have been an improvement.
Unfortunately, after just having by far the worst game since I started I'm finding it very hard to believe the things I'm being told. How is it that all I've learned about the game up until now is suddenly irrelevant?
Some examples from my last game:
A ball in a 5-10% lie can only go 5-10 yards even when it should be going 30 after considering lie, slope, club, etc.
Putting uphill. In every game I've played the uphill putts take a LOT more power. In fact in this very game I had about an 8 foot put, 1 inch uphill, hit it a little over 8 feet, came up short. Same game, 25 foot put, 7 inches uphill, I hit it about 30 or 33, and the ball goes 35 feet. ??
Same thing on longer shots. One time a 10-12 crosswind takes 20 yards of my shot, next time my ball goes even further than it should. I'm not sure that anything was consistent about this last game but my bogeys.
What's the point in trying to pay attention and plan a shot when the results are completely unpredictable? I could go on and on with example from the last game. It was so horrible I didn't even feel like I knew how the game works. I might as well have been randomly picking clubs and spots on the power meter. Maybe I should find a three year old and let them play, it would probably be an improvement. I'd like to believe it will get better, but I don't.
I can't see how leveling up should add ten strokes to your game and make all that you've learned no longer applicable. You tell me to just try and play the game and remember how fun it was. Well what made it fun was planning out the shots, having a strategy, and trying to play it. Now it doesn't matter what I do planning wise because who knows what will happen when I click that mouse button. This game is starting to feel like a huge waste of time.