2 Ways To Run WGT Golf
Fire up the game through the launcher as normal, but before pressing 'Play', right click on the launcher's taskbar icon and select 'Pin to taskbar'.
Go back to the launcher and press 'Play'. When the game has loaded, right click on the game's taskbar icon and select 'Pin to taskbar'.
Now you have two icons. One launches the game through the launcher and does updates, the other launches the game without the launcher and does not do updates.
If WGT releases an update that causes the launcher to fail in some way, you can still launch the game using the other icon. 😎
UPDATE 22-12-2022 :
This does not appear to be a permanent way to avoid updates. I used the golf.exe file to launch the game for 10-12 days after an update, and the last time I did that an image appeared in the centre of the game window...
...forcing me to click an update button before I could continue. : (