Tour Rules

[mthunt]

i just got back from Vegas and my club closed on Sunday. It's sim season and we are getting new players every day so I figured I'd repost this. Tour Rules

Rules Sticky

https://golfsimulatorforum.com/forum/protee-golf-simulator/online-play/65157-tgc-tour-rules-and-guidelines

06-26-2017, 03:49 PM
Hi everyone. I think it's important to revisit the rules every now and then as we keep getting new players. Our tour is designed for everyone and every system. It's only for fun but like real golf, we have chosen to allow you to police yourselves. Also like real golf cheating will get you banned. If you are going to play, play by the rules. Everything else is managed by the game. Below are mostly settings.

TGC Tour Rules

Boost and other shot mods:
+/- 5%. Most ProTee/ TGC supported systems have the ability to adjust your settings. This is from having sensor mats and tweaking them. For tour play, you are allowed to adjust any setting by 5%. This means you can add 5% max boost and decrease 5% spin. Believe me, 5% isn't going to change anyone's life. A 20 yard draw would draw 19 yards with 5% adjustment.

Putting:
The standard putting setting was 2. We set it this way because we believed the GC2 would perform fairly at that setting. We recently changed it to allow you to increase the setting so the ball will only go straight. It's your choice what you use. I use 2. Move the slider all the way over and aim with the pointer only if you choose.

Gimmies:
You have to set your system to a max of 1.8 yards. This is done by setting the Gimmie Setting to "Gimmie". If you want no gimmies, knock yourself out.

Wind:
We play without wind. You must as well.

Shot Recording:
Turn it on. You'll see SR in the standings. An X means it's off. We contact those who have it off but sometimes someone that isn't on the form enters a tournament. If it's off, you won't be included in any rankings.

Rewinds:
Obviously a big one. Some systems give errors and strange things happen. Here's some examples:

Allowed:
-A ball was in the FOV of your GC2 and you rolled another couple of balls near by and it read a 2 foot put.
-Your protee said the ball you hit in the middle of your screen went 25 degrees right.
-Your GSX said the ball went 20 yards and it was flushed into the screen.
I think you get it.

Not allowed:
-Your putt lipped out but you think you hit it straight
-Your bunker shot didn't clear the lip but you think it should have
-You sliced it and it's behind a tree
-You hit a 3 wood over water and it didn't make it but you once hit a 3 wood far enough to carry
-You hit a 5 iron and it rolled over the green but you hit a 5 iron outside last week and it stopped
-You hit it in the water and the game put you all the way back where you hit it from. Too bad.

Have fun and play by the rules.


mthunt

[Ports]

It just seems like a lot of work to sift thru it manually. I see that's the evidence, but surely this tour isn't burdening a select few to detect rewinds and make judgement on them. Hats off to you all if you are. A LOT of work that isn't getting recognized

[mthunt]

Awesome shot bob but you know it’s rub of the Green. Lol

Simple. 2 shots with the same yardage are either a rewind or stroke and distance. A look at the scorecard will tell you if it’s stroke and distance.

[Ports]

How does the committee/protee search and detect rewinds? With the shot data available that would be impossible to sift thru by eye. I'm assuming a smart sob from this very forum could write a program to search for them and evaluate from the shot data, whether it is suspicious or not, but that seems like a lot of work too. Maybe it already exists? Just curious how the system works.

[Jwheels9876]

Of course. As long as you're having fun

[mthunt]

https://youtu.be/_qXxy4n6Mao



can I take a rewind?

Awesome shot bob but you know it’s rub of the Green. Lol

[bob chung]

https://youtu.be/_qXxy4n6Mao

can I take a rewind?

[mthunt]

Rewinds are only for hardware failure. It's easy as anything to tell if there's a hardware failure. The tour is owned by ProTee. ProTee manufacturers floor sensors. They sometimes give a failed reading. We can't get rid of them yet

The straight putting thing is for Skytrak. It's a patch in the game that eliminates all data from a Putt except ball speed. Yes, it take all human error out of putting except speed. Anyone can use it. It makes putting incredibly easy.

Andy, the putting forgiveness is a percentage between 0-100 I believe. I don't think it is degrees like once thought.

[mthunt]

I just came across this thread...So I checked and yup...I guess I was "flagged" due to some rewinds. Ok - I get it. I'll admit when I first started playing TGC my settings were way off. I took some rewinds and nobody cared because I was far down the leader board. It took research on this great forum to figure out what to do to make things closer to real life using green speed, putting speed adjustments, etc.

I guess I view this more as a video game that let's me practice my swing during the winter. For me, it's about fun and hitting shots. You know those shots in real life where you saw the shot and knew you could pull it off but in the moment you failed to execute and walked on but it ate at you the the next few holes and you wish you could have another chance to pull it off? Well, sometimes that happens in simulated golf and, I admit, sometimes I hit rewind. It's not at all about the score...not even a bit. It's about pulling off the shot. I couldn't possible care less if I rank or make 'earnings'. It's about the feeling of sharing the same golfing experience with other real people. I love seeing the ghost shots! That's really fun.

On the other hand, it's also impossible to really know why there was a rewind. Can you see in my garage or know the motivations of my heart? The last tournament I finished over new years, in the 1st round I was playing pretty ok. My teenage son wanted to hit some shots. He does that every now and then and since he and I don't get to spend much time together as it is, if he shows any interest in golf, I'm not going to put him off. Building my relationship with him is way more important than a simulated tour. So he wanted to hit some shots while I happened to be playing a tournament round. I let him hit, and then rewind and take my swing (no harm I thought)...he stuck around for a number holes, hit some shots and a putt or two...got bored and that was that. BTW, the second round I scored a 69 with no rewinds. Definitely lower than my normal mid 70s (gotta love making 100% of putts inside 6 feet - wish that was true IRL). Was it cool seeing my name near the top? Sure...but do I really care about my tour ranking? no. I just like to play and have fun. Honestly, I spend more time working on my swing with the foresight range than anything else.

Anyway, some people take TGC Tour more seriously than others and that is totally cool. I think a zero tolerance policy of banning someone for taking a rewind is a bit extreme but I'll vow to not take any more rewinds when I do play a tournament.

Honestly, I'd much more enjoy adding a few of you as TGC friends and playing together live. I'm the in the Central Time Zone. PM me if you would like to get together and play online. I'm not sure how to do that, but I'm sure I can figure it out by searching the forum etc.

No one banned you. In fact, I didn't call you out on the forum. I said PM me if your handicap is wrong.

It's a tour for fun but it still has simple rules. If you want to play on the tour please do follow the rules and please have fun. I don't agree that following the rules is taking it too seriously. Just please don't take any rewinds unless you have a hardware failure. Hardware failure is the only reason for a rewind. An example of a hardware failure is the ball hitting the dead centre of your screen and your shot showing 20 degrees left. I don't need to know what is in your head or what is going on in your garage to know that if you hit 1 shot straight and it carried 5 yards farther than the one you took a mulligan on you didn't have a hardware failure.

Please follow the rules and please take as many mulligans as you like in non tour events. When the tour first started we had to play with other players live to monitor each other. We don't want to go there again.

[andygg1986]

With a GC2, you can set the putting forgiveness in GSX. The rule used to be that you could set it to 2. This meant that any putt that read within 2 degrees of being straight (actually I think it rounds so within +/- 1.5 degrees) would go straight in the game. You will notice this in the screen that shows the shot data in TGC. It will say something like the club went 1 degree right but the ball went 0 degrees. The theory behind setting it to 2 was that the GC2 accuracy for horizontal launch is supposed to be 1 degree, so if you hit a straight putt it could read as 1 degree left or right.

Skytrak is less accurate on horizontal reads and people said that they were getting putts that went straight but read several degrees off. Protee released an update to let Skytrak users ignore the horizontal reading and only use speed for putting, which means all of their putts read straight if they want. You still have to play the break but you need to aim left or right with the keyboard. To level the playing field, other systems like GC2 can move the putting forgiveness way up so all putts will also read as straight. Personally I have a GC2 and think 2 is a fair number. Even with putting on a Fiberbuilt mat which lots of people say isn't ideal, I rarely have a putt that I feel like I hit well read as more than 2 degrees offline.

As far as rewinds, GC2 users have it the best in terms of reliable readings, but even we have some situations when one should be given. I have had it read a shot when I pick up a tee because a ball is in the field of view. I have also had it pick up the white on my M2 driver so that a shot that hits the middle of the screen reads as 30 degrees left with crazy spin numbers. I've only used rewinds a few times in over a year, but if I had a system that gave errors like that more frequently I wouldn't want to be penalized because of my hardware. You can't take everyone else's score too seriously in the tournaments. If someone wants to cheat they will. The handicaps of new players quickly dropping as they get the hang of the short game means that new players usually win the net leaderboard anyway. I like to find a few guys who seem to be a little better than me and try to beat their gross scores each week, and I try to get my scores trending down over time.

[ncube]

What's this business with all straight putts? I'm gathering from this thread that there is a setting that would facilitate that and it is now permissible on tour? If that's true, please give instructions on how to set this up.

IMO the easiest way to deal with the rewinds is to not allow any. Don't believe I've ever taken one whether I've questioned the result or not. Don't think I'm a good enough feel golfer to say when the gc2 is wrong even where it might seem obvious. I just consider it part of the game much like a bad break on the real course.

[theizer]

I just came across this thread...So I checked and yup...I guess I was "flagged" due to some rewinds. Ok - I get it. I'll admit when I first started playing TGC my settings were way off. I took some rewinds and nobody cared because I was far down the leader board. It took research on this great forum to figure out what to do to make things closer to real life using green speed, putting speed adjustments, etc.

I guess I view this more as a video game that let's me practice my swing during the winter. For me, it's about fun and hitting shots. You know those shots in real life where you saw the shot and knew you could pull it off but in the moment you failed to execute and walked on but it ate at you the the next few holes and you wish you could have another chance to pull it off? Well, sometimes that happens in simulated golf and, I admit, sometimes I hit rewind. It's not at all about the score...not even a bit. It's about pulling off the shot. I couldn't possible care less if I rank or make 'earnings'. It's about the feeling of sharing the same golfing experience with other real people. I love seeing the ghost shots! That's really fun.

On the other hand, it's also impossible to really know why there was a rewind. Can you see in my garage or know the motivations of my heart? The last tournament I finished over new years, in the 1st round I was playing pretty ok. My teenage son wanted to hit some shots. He does that every now and then and since he and I don't get to spend much time together as it is, if he shows any interest in golf, I'm not going to put him off. Building my relationship with him is way more important than a simulated tour. So he wanted to hit some shots while I happened to be playing a tournament round. I let him hit, and then rewind and take my swing (no harm I thought)...he stuck around for a number holes, hit some shots and a putt or two...got bored and that was that. BTW, the second round I scored a 69 with no rewinds. Definitely lower than my normal mid 70s (gotta love making 100% of putts inside 6 feet - wish that was true IRL). Was it cool seeing my name near the top? Sure...but do I really care about my tour ranking? no. I just like to play and have fun. Honestly, I spend more time working on my swing with the foresight range than anything else.

Anyway, some people take TGC Tour more seriously than others and that is totally cool. I think a zero tolerance policy of banning someone for taking a rewind is a bit extreme but I'll vow to not take any more rewinds when I do play a tournament.

Honestly, I'd much more enjoy adding a few of you as TGC friends and playing together live. I'm the in the Central Time Zone. PM me if you would like to get together and play online. I'm not sure how to do that, but I'm sure I can figure it out by searching the forum etc.

[Thundergolf]

What's interesting is that the shot carried 270yds on TGC but the recorded shot data on GFS shows it carried 220yds. I'm wondering why the information would be different? According to the recorded data it doesn't appear as an obvious miss read.

[Sascha1818]

Now I know where the name thundergolf comes from lol.

[Sascha1818]

I 2nd this 100% !!!! Well said. I don't care about the leaderboard, it's just about the "tournament feeling" and to be forced to not only play courses I like lol.
Of course it's nice when you end up in the top 10 once in a while but bad rounds happen too. Being last don't bother me either.

[ecarl97]

With a ball speed of 178 you should not be called out for length