I got to thinking about this last night whilst I was writing a PM (to WGT, but that's beside the point).
Now I know this is only a virtual game and not real golf, but we all agree it is very realistic. So, on a real golf course do you know that the wind is 18mph? No! And for the 30 seconds or so that you are preparing to take the shot and then execute it, is it always 18mph? No! And is it always blowing in the same direction for that 30 seconds? No! So why are we expecting it here? I play real golf and I'm not too shabby at it. Countless times I have hit what I thought was an absolutely perfect shot only to find I've come up 10 yards short, gone 15 yards through the back, the ball has checked up when I expected it to run, or run when I thought it would stop dead. I've played it to the left side of the green expecting the wind to take it back, but it's stayed there.This is all part of real golf and why golfers continue playing. You will rarely if ever play the same shot twice or have exactly the same conditions or playing surfaces. Oh, and by the way, we've all hit many, many more perfect shots on WGT than one would ever do in a lifetime of real golf. You ask any pro how many perfect shots they hit in 1 round! You could most likely count them on the fingers of one hand... if a hand is even needed!
As I've read in another post elsewhere in the forum, if you want to shoot 25 under par go play TW or another golf game. WGT is pretty realistic, but let's make it more so. Yesterday on 2 or 3 different occasions I played a shot to allow for wind. The ball never moved. Yes, I wasn't happy that the information wasn't correct or that there may be an error somewhere in the programming, AND it stopped me getting into 1st place in a CC tourney, but that happens in real golf, so I cursed, accepted it and carried on. What I would say, though, is that WGT possibly allow us to find our ball occasionally (using the flip of a coin for example - I know that's not realistic, but you can't go looking in the rough in a virtual game!) but then incur a penalty, e.g. really deep rough (70-80%), unplayable lie for stroke and distance penalty, etc.
You want to know the game I've most enjoyed here... the USGA at Oakmont. Unbelieveably difficult, off long tees (I'm only at Master tier), lightening fast greens etc, etc, but it is sooooooo realistic. Birdie'ing every hole is not realistic!