Good responses (for the most part *ahem*) so far. I'm not in disagreement over there being degrees of the unknown to the game of golf. While it is a science, it's never an exact science. What I don't understand is: Why bother creating such a great physics engine for the game to realistically render all the variables of a shot, and then blindfold the player as to what some of those variables are? It seems to me that there are enough variables involved in how WGT figures out the shot that giving us all the relevent information regarding them wouldn't diminish the game at all. We'd still have to take all of those variables into consideration before making an informed choice of what shot to hit, and then would still have to execute that shot in order for it to work. Please explain how that would be less fun or realistic.
At current, as a player, what we are left with is the appearance of 'random' deviations that take our shot to places that leave us scratching our heads as to how it was even possible. You see that it's a 16mph cross wind blowing to the right, so you aim left to where you think its appropriate. Whether or not that aim was entirely accurate is a point rendered completely moot when the ball ends up left of where you aimed it on a perfect shot. That's the kind of thing that is totally unacceptable and completely unrealistic. I just watched the same 16mph crosswind blow the ball off my driver from one side of the fairway to the other, and now you're telling me that on the very next shot, using a club that has more loft, the wind had negative effect? C'mon guys, stop trying to justify such a thing and come to grips with that fact that there is no justification for it.
And then of course there is the classic, " I just mishit 4 pixels to the left and the ball still started to the right" syndrome. In real golf (for a right handed player) if you hook, it starts left, if you slice, it starts right. If there is no wind to blow it back or something to impede it's flight path, it will continue in that very same direction. There are no exceptions, because it's basic ball physics obeying the laws of motion on planet Earth. Why on earth would anyone think that it's realistic to have a ball that was hooked start off on a right trajectory? That's not your run-of-the-mill, "Oh, I guess I didn't take into account some gust of wind" thing...it's more like a, "How in the heck is that even possible?!?" kind of thing.
It's really simple, and I've stated it many times before: Miss left, ball goes left. Miss right, ball goes right. Hit straight, ball goes straight.
Such inherent simplicity should never be altered by an unknown variable so large, it changes the outcome of what I just stated above. If you want a game with a little bit of play in it to take away the exact science of it all, that's fine. But obey the basic laws of physics if you want people who know better to consider this game "realistic".
End of story.