2018 TGC Spring Tour

[mthunt]

Hey guys. We are currently planning the spring tour. I'd like to hear from the group on your opinions. We try to use a tour course and when not possible, we have a bunch of really good courses we fill in with.

Let me know your thoughts on the following:

1. Any suggestions on courses?
2. Course Length?
3. Any suggestions?

[allen2be]

a. Keep doing what you're doing
b. Thank you guys for doing this
c. Only productive thing I have is that the courses with greasy greens are pretty frustrating, but you already know that.

[apeppin]

Nothing to suggest, but wanted to thank you and others for putting the tour together - really makes it fun. Must be a huge amount of work.

[aja]

There's probably a very quiet group that wishes the tournament courses were shorter... I gave up playing the tournaments a while ago since I didn't want to keep beating myself up.

I know it's problematic to include shorter courses, so guess I'll just have to keep honing my game on the sidelines!

[mthunt]

That’s a tough one. I hit 4 iron off a lot of tees because the courses are so short. We really should stick with a mix.

[JV17]

Hey gents. Literally just picked the clubs back up yesterday after being sidelined with back issues for 10 months. Talk about scraping the rust off... Not good. Like I'm starting over again lol. I'm with aja, a few short courses mixed in would be nice for us short game guys.

[kchogan]

What tournaments are we missing "known good" courses for that match up with the PGA Tour? As far as length goes, I think we have a good variation right now.

[mthunt]

If you look at the schedule you’ll see courses like Mississauga and Pinehurst. Those courses are the weeks were there is no PGA Tour option.

[Jwheels9876]

I'd say keep it as you have. Hopefully this is the last tour season without multiple tee boxes! Next winter we can play almost any course because we should be able to pick shorter tees. It's tough playing those long ones but there's enough of a mixture to even it out I think.

just stay away from the Sawgrass version we played the singles tournament on lol

[mthunt]

I loved that Sawgrass version wheels. I hope when 19 comes out we can have one tournament where you select which tee you use based on age or handicap. I think that would be fantanstic. You may even be able to select. Say you’d be a 6 from the whites and an 8 from the blues Ect.

[Jwheels9876]

Ugh man the greens were tough on that one. Even little chip shots wouldn't stop rolling off the green. Guy I played in round 2 hit a 7 iron perfectly off the Tee to about 15 feet from pin and the thing rolled 45 more feet off the green. They were more video game ish then real.
Sometimes we get greens that the ball sticks like Velcro other times a little more realistic. It's too bad the tournament director couldn't set the fairway hardness, the green at soft,hard, or normal and the wind.

With them keeping the societies in this next version, there's no reason people who are seniors or whatever couldn't start their own senior tour type events and same with guys who like playing the tips for the challenge. Lots of good stuff coming if everything goes the way they're saying it will.

[kphdoc]

Its all about the greens! If they are receptive to incoming shots whether its from long range or its a chip shot , the course will be enjoyable for most. That is more important than length without question. Even if the course is beautiful and accurate, courses with greens on which balls run out excessively or even accelerate should not be played.

[penrose]

I would start playing the tour again if the course would be around 6200 - 6500. I know they will be for the next few weeks so will start again at bay hill. thanks for asking the question.

[R3dlineR6]

I'm relatively new to the tour but I would say keep up what you're doing. I like the mix of long and short courses and if you look at the current scheduled, I think it's well divided. Thanks for all of your hard work!

[wbond]

1. Any suggestions on courses? I don't know if you have access to see what settings were used to design the course, but I would shy away from the courses designed with a firm green setting if possible. As i understand it, the override does not work for firmness. When the real pro course isn't available, we seem to repeat a lot of the same alternative courses, we should try some that have never been played on tour before. Unfortunately i haven't any to suggest. I'll now need to pay attention to others that i play.
2. Course Length? This season it felt skewed to the longer side, even when a course had a 6500 length or so, many of them weren't par 72 so it was still a longer course. When including longer courses in the mix, it would be good if they were a little more open/playable. Most of the field is wiped out with length and even more so with tight fairways, lots of hazards, etc
3. Any suggestions? A nice even mix of short, medium and long courses.

[penrose]

Good point on the course lengthI forgot about that. Some of the course read 6500 yards but are NOT par 72 or the par 3's are really short so most of the par4 are still around 400 yards each.

[wbond]

Since this is a short season, might be worth it to give it a try with no rewinds. See what kind of feedback comes in and see what it really does to the standings.

[inorkuo]

good idea wbond. I like it.

[aja]

No rewinds is a no go with ProTee.

My second shot was a misread last time I used my sim. Club speed was 130 mph, ball speed about 187 if I recall correctly. Nice long drive but still a misread that should be rewound.

Problem with rewinds seems to be the abuse that has been uncovered. If fellow "competitors" resort to cheating, I understand that that is a problem.

However, penalizing those for whom rewinds are a part of the landscape (ProTee sims), due to occasional misreads, doesn't really address the issue.

If the shot recording function truly records all shots (including rewinds), then wouldn't it make sense to expend some effort in developing an automated method (software) that could review scoring?

[mthunt]

I don’t think it’s possible to turn off but we are starting to monitor it more accurately.

[mthunt]

1. Any suggestions on courses? I don't know if you have access to see what settings were used to design the course, but I would shy away from the courses designed with a firm green setting if possible. As i understand it, the override does not work for firmness. When the real pro course isn't available, we seem to repeat a lot of the same alternative courses, we should try some that have never been played on tour before. Unfortunately i haven't any to suggest. I'll now need to pay attention to others that i play.
2. Course Length? This season it felt skewed to the longer side, even when a course had a 6500 length or so, many of them weren't par 72 so it was still a longer course. When including longer courses in the mix, it would be good if they were a little more open/playable. Most of the field is wiped out with length and even more so with tight fairways, lots of hazards, etc
3. Any suggestions? A nice even mix of short, medium and long courses.

1 is why this was posted. You guys can’t tell me there’s no courses you like. All anyone wrote is not this or not that. What do you and your buddy’s play?

[BSCampbell]

Cape Kidnappers Protee was fun and on the easy side. Should please most people.

[Jwheels9876]

mthunt do you guys ever use fantasy courses? I think there's a better chance of finding fake courses that people have made protee versions of then some of the garbage real ones people have made that don't play well on a sim.

[mthunt]

We use some good ones. Oceanic is an example of a fantasy course.

[mthunt]

Some hardware legitimately need it. It’s ProTees call ultimately but I agree with them. It’s not fair if someone has the ball go 100 yards sideways or something. Maybe some rules around what qualifies as a legitimate rewind. We will have it pretty automatic on checking soon.

[apeppin]

why not a hard cap on rewinds, like 2 per 18 holes? that will quell the concerns re: faulty skytrak etc. i know people could use them for mulligans, but if they get a faulty read and they've already used their 2 rewinds for mulligans, then too bad for them. maybe i'm suggesting this because i would love a couple mulligans per round, haha.

[mthunt]

2 reasons I see. First, we allow none today unless you have hardware failure but people still use them so will they stop at 2? Second, 2 free mulligans will benifit a low handicap far more than a high one as the Low one will only make a couple mistakes.