Woodoworkery:Jim when have you ever not seen a 3-4 down time for a new course?
Let me turn this into a progress lesson for you, Gary. Maybe WGT's making some. We've seen how many courses released in our time-9? Maybe 6 or 7 for you? Think of how they were released. Usually a CTTH teaser, then maybe the front 9 or the full 18 and well in advance of the main event. A couple of years we got lucky by finding back doors to stroke play way before WGT intended. (Since fixed-couldn't get there at PH.) Lots of time to get the players to find the bugs, etc., while qualifying and playing a ton of rounds on the course. Pretty thorough test in advance of the main event. That has changed.
The main event was the VT where only 4 players make it, not 156 plus ties.They have PB in place, we just can't see it. Why do you think they took the PB CTTH away when they did? Something was up, IMO, and then finding out PB has been in the can for quite a while-way longer than the 6 months they say it takes to get in into play- all leads me to believe WGT replaced that 2 month "debugging" Open qualifying with their own internal debugging and elected not to use the players to debug it. . This is just a WAG but makes sense to me.
Now the time it takes to open the course up becomes something like a maintenance update. Icon will give you the HI sign. :-)
p.s., Probably all wet and full of holes but better than getting one's knickers looking like a fishing line tangle. :-)