Sorry Robbo, but that's completely wrong. You can say hogwash all you want but that doesn't make what you said any more correct.
All it takes is for one to open up the traffic tab on the browser's dev console to see that what I said is correct. If you would please, show me your traffic logs that support your conclusion.
You don't have proof to backup your claim? OK, here's mine then.
Click the pictures for full-sized images.
Here is the network traffic console during your initial load. Look at all the goodness. Male avatar parts, Chambers Bay photos among other things.
Here's me on the tee after the initial load (I cleared all the traffic once everything loaded). After about 20 seconds on the teebox I have two hits. You can see those hits are .13KB. That's not even a whole kilobyte. That is one request from WGT to test to see if I'm still connected (or if I've closed my browser window) and it is absolutely necessary for that to happen, otherwise WGT doesn't know you disconnected.
You download MILLIONS of packets, make thousands of requests (outbox) and receive thousands of responses (inbox) a day while online. If your computer can't handle a stay-alive request, then you wouldn't even be able to get on the internet at all.
And here I am again, still haven't hit the ball yet. What's in the traffic console? Still just a bunch of pings and two friends list updates. The effect that pings and friend updates have on your PC is statistically insignificant.
All WGT is saying for the stay-alive is, "hey, return this packet if you're still there" and your computer says "I'm here, don't drop me."
For the friend update, you are simply receiving updated friend data (such as someone going on or offline).
Why is WGT sending friend data? It's easier for them to say, "here's a friends list update, take it" then it is for my PC to say, "hey you got a friend update for me?" at which point WGT has to respond with the data. That's and extra request and is excess communication, so WGT instead just sends you the info periodically. I want to say once a minute, but not 100% sure about that.
Is the friend list thing absolutely necessary? Eh, perhaps not. They see it as necessary and it has worked like this since day one so I have to assume there is a reason for it.
Anyway, that's all that's happening here.
I cleared the console data again after that and now here I am in mid-swing. What's in the traffic console? Oh nothing, still just a bunch of pings. I've swung the club through without hitting 3 times by this picture. Nothing but more stay-alive pings.
Cleared console again, waited a few moments. Now here's a closer look at a friends list update. Notice how there is now a 5KB communication between myself and WGT. When we open up that response, what do we see? GetBuddyList event. Friends list update, initiated by WGT, which is what we expected.
So after about 2-3 minutes on the tee I've been sent a total of about 10KB of information. Have a look at my traffic now. All necessary responses initiated by WGT, the majority of which are simple stay-alive pings with the occasional friend update or insignificant side event. Nothing has been initiated by me yet. This requires my computer only to respond to WGT. If you believe 10 kilobytes (not megabytes, not gigabytes) of data is hurting your PC, then you simply don't know how this works at all.
Here I am finally contacting the ball. See the 3KB request the arrow is pointing at. That's my shot data being sent to WGT. Everything prior to that is stuff I've already showed you.
Here's that response again once I landed in the fairway. We open it, inspect it and what do we see? HitBallE. The hit ball event. Nothing being sent to WGT until you actually hit the ball, as expected.
All communication comes from WGT to you and you just respond to them with a proper data packet. All the stuff AFTER that shot data request are assets for the next shot. You can see I got a "Good Ball" comment and you can also see it loading the photo assets for my approach shot on this hole.
With the exception of the stuff that was sent AFTER the ball strike, I RECEIVED less than 25KB of data during my pre-shot phase. No one who knows anything about computers would dare claim 25KB of data is bogging down any modern system or causing any problems within the game. That would be idiotic to say, and you would be pointed at and laughed at tremendously.
Your "last ball" update occurs between shot loads and is then displayed once the load has completed. It does not occur during the pre-shot/contact phase (after you've loaded). Will you also need a picture of that?
So this is in fact the conclusive proof that what I said was correct in a complete context. I guess it DOES take an IS guy to know what's going on. It doesn't really, it just takes someone willing to learn a few basic tricks.
BTW, IT guys run your company network and configure your work PC's group policy. IS guys like me work with websites, databases and understand how to read network traffic and the like. There is a difference.
Is the game perfect? No. Obviously. They can try to optimize flash all day long, but it comes down to how Flash runs on your PC and your PC only. Eight years in, WGT is about as optimized for Flash as it's gonna get. This is why the WGT App isn't Flash based. Flash is old and it sucks, but it was probably the most popular online development software when WGT started in 2008. HTML5 wasn't invented yet, so here we are today.
So, this is why some people have good meters all the time, and some don't. It all happens locally. My computer is 6 years old, using equally old hardware. Very rare for me to see any problems that I can't fix by simply restarting the browser (this is where the No to "is the game perfect" came from). There are still memory leaks and WGT does eff things up occasionally, but it gets fixed pretty quickly.
I don't care much about CPU cycles or usage or any other such nonsense. Your GPU is choking on Flash graphics and your CPU can't help it catch up enough to smooth it out.. This isn't your average hokey Flash Pac-Man game you find everywhere on the web. This is a full-blown web application.
Perhaps next time save us both the time and just believe me. I don't make claims I'm not willing or unable to back up.