POLL: Would you prefer to remove rewinds from tournament play?

[GSF_Admin]

Would you prefer to remove rewinds from tournament play?

[penrose]

I think you need them just in case something strange occurs. I believe most folks when they play are honest. The goal really is NOT to win (I mean no money is at stake) but approve

[bronco]

I will vote to remove but i will say I have used the rewind probably 3 or 4 times, for whatever reason sometimes when I am moving in front of or walking by the skytrak it will go off and the ball will move about a foot. This has happened atleast once in each of the last 3 tournaments.

[Boo Radley]

Golf is a game of honesty.........end of story. Cheats will find a way to cheat, but they are only cheating themselves. "author unknown" ....thus I cannot vote

[keither5150]

I have a two camera system that will requires a occasional rewind. Some of these rewinds can be prevented if I pay close attention to where the ball lands. I also must keep my carpet clean. I tiny piece of broken tee or debris could cause a misread. During the last major tournament, I had 3 rewinds.( I just watched my rounds for the first time and see that I had 3 rewinds) The first one, I duffed a tee shot and while I was clearing some balls from the FOV, it registered another shot. So instead of hitting 2, I was hitting 3..... I took a rewind. The second one was a tee shot that hit my screen about 12 inches up. It was not a great drive but I felt that it went 240-260 yards. LA was good, and it was fairly straight. For some reason, the ball bounced off the next tee box and went 73 yards. This one is kind of hard to prove. I know how I hit it and I know that I had decent contact. When I look at the video I can see how it could be debatable. I check the shot data and see that the LA is 0.5 degrees. At 0.5 degrees the ball would hit my putting mat . If you do the math, the ball hit the screen about 11 inches high at 11 feet away. That's 4-5 degree LA. The 3rd rewind, the system picked up the club head. Rather than have to prove my innocence I would rather suck it up and play on and here's why.

If a system has the occasional misread it will eventually be factored into your handicap. If I average one rewind needed per round. In time my handicap will be adjusted by 1 more stroke. Your net will not change. Your position on the leaderboard will not change. Now if your system requires plenty of rewinds, what really needs to happen is some serious troubleshooting.

Although my system needs the occasional rewind, I vote for them to be removed from the tour.

[mmlincon]

Look, these devices are not perfect which is why we have rewinds in place. I get the occasional misread with my GC2 which some people, especially those without one, seem to think it's perfect and the only reason someone rewinds is because they don't like a shot. That is retarded! If you get a misread that lands in the hole for an ace do you want to take it? I wouldn't. There is way too much talk about this rewind crap - just leave it be.

Hopefully the new handicap system will make a difference. If you are so worried about winning I would focus your efforts on that. You're getting your butt whooped by huge handicap spreads not rewinds!

[Shardak]

Until the hardware gets much more accurate, I think we need rewinds.

I hit a 2 yard chip yesterday at Oakmont that spun 20 feet back off the green. Shot info showed 9500 rpm backspin.

Shots like that would be very frustrating if we cannot rewind.

I dont see what removing the rewind ability would accomplish. I dont think anyone is abusing it, and if they are, I am fine with that. I would rather allow someone the ability to cheat, than to remove my own ability to rewind a shot that Skytrak messes up.

[keither5150]

There are valid points on both sides. Shardak...... you are right, it can be very frustrating at times and the rewind certainly helps. I once had a 12 yard chip go 90 yards into the woods. I assure you that I am not that bad of a golfer. If I didn't rewind, it would have been a 5 or 6 instead of a 3. So I get your point for sure. I guess the real question is, do we really mind if somebody abuses the system? I am not really sure if I do. I don't abuse the system because I want an accurate gauge of improvement. Soon, shot data will be on display for everyone to see. So the guy that has 3 tee shots on a water protected hole may look bad. Especially if the ball speeds are all pretty close. I had a rewind last tournament that had my tee shot with a LA of 47 degrees. (club head) Trust me I was happy to rewind that one. I have played about 240 rounds during the last year. I think that I have had 2 rounds in the 60's so I am capable of doing it. I would really hate to have someone question my honesty if I get lucky throw up a few stellar rounds in a row. With the removal of rewinds, there will be no question. The handicap will eventually average out. So without the rewinds my handicap might be 1 higher. But my net will be the same.

[FaultyClubs]

>> I guess the real question is, do we really mind if somebody abuses the system?

That's a good question.

If someone is on tour to compete there is no point if people are abusing the system. So competition becomes an illusion.

If a person is on tour more to compare themselves to others and improve against them there is no point if people are abusing the system. You can know yourself but never anyone else. So just another illusion.

If someone is playing only against themselves for improvement then that works since they wouldn't be abusing the system. But then, why bother with the tour? They could just as easily play the same courses on their own.

If the Tour itself has no integrity because it's open to abuse why still play on the tour? For what purpose? Once the novelty aspect wears off the residual value seems pretty marginal to me.

[FaultyClubs]

I think you need them just in case something strange occurs.

Why? Just accept it and move on. It's golf. Stuff happens.

Anyone who can't do that is susceptible to abusing the system when subjective human judgement is involved. Simplest to just remove it and let the handicap level the playing field between systems.

[mmlincon]

So, you are in the camp that would take the Ace and move on? Same deal with 400+ yard drives. If the goal is to make it like RL then we need rewinds to deal with faulty reads.

Are the rewinds really a problem? If so, what?

[keither5150]

Get your 400 yard drive here........... The Everwood driving range. 8080 yards and the first hole is 217 feet above the pin. Now here is the bad part. You have to finish the round for your long drive to count. I think that I shot a 94 or 96 on that course. From the poll, it looks like they are going to keep rewinds.

[keither5150]

This is a complex issue. Part of me likes the rewind just in case I have a bad misread. Another part of me.... the competitive part, doesn't want to be beat because I couldn't rewind a obvious misread. Protee has all of the shot data from the rounds. They could easily tell if somebody was abusing the system. For them to call somebody out it would have to be blatant. Like 3 tee shots over water with the last one 10mph faster than the first two. I am on the disable rewind side BTW. Faulty has some good points. I am beta testing the shot data part of TGC. By looking at the data, you can tell with a certain degree of accuracy if the rewind was warranted. Nothing is fool proof though and you would run the risk of wrongfully accusing somebody. The only fool proof way is to not allow rewinds. Then we have to consider the two camera system. These systems are all set up by the users. The better the setup, the less chance that a rewind is needed. I have been changing my lighting for the last month or two. I had a drastic increase in misreads as a result. I have since added on of the old halogens back in the mix. I still have a small issue with low LA drives. They seem to work out okay IRL but not so well in the basement.

[ks-man]

Why don't we just post how many rewinds were used in the round on the new stats scorecard? Any abusers would become very obvious.

[FaultyClubs]

The number of rewinds doesn't tell you anything about who's cheating. It can only tell you some who are not.

It's much more complicated than just the number of rewinds per round. One single rewind could be a major cheat. Similarly three rewinds could be dead straight honest. And deviating from the norm for your system type could mean you are cheating or being honest. It's impossible to tell.

Mthunt says they will be able to tell in the cloud. I'm curious how since I don't think it is that easy.

[mthunt]

We'll be able to see the data meaning if someone popped up a drive into the water and took a rewind, it'll be clear.

[keither5150]

@Faultyclubs...... You are right, it wouldn't be easy. Most of my rewinds have really crazy numbers. Like a 0 degree LA or a 45 degree LA with the driver. If my system goes to putting mode on the tee because of a low LA. It won't show correct speed. It may show 8 mph instead of 160. If someone were to take two shots that are almost identical..... that may indicate a improper use of rewind. The difference between carrying the water and not may be only a few mph. The rewinds that will be difficult will be when somebody duffs a drive. The numbers may look like a misread of the system. Once the shot data goes live and available for all to see, I doubt that anyone would risk an improper rewind. In fact, they may be more likely to suck it up and move on if they think that it may be debatable. Why risk getting banned from the tour? I really think that it needs to be blatant before any action would be taken. I record all of my rounds with the additional webcam positioned behind the ball so one can see it hit the screen.

[JV17]

Definitely keep it. 1 or two misreads can cheat someone out of a win let alone a few spots on the leaderboard. That's no better than someone cheating to win. We just need to trust in people. Sure someone might cheat on a ball or two, now and again, but it would be too harsh a penalty for everyone else to pay, just to avoid those situations.

[mthunt]

I put the poll up. There is no need to get angry. It's a poll. We put it up to see what people preferred.

Let's get to the bottom. The people on the JNPG forum say they have no rewinds and everyone cheats in TGC. The poll was only to see how everyone feels about it. Almost 3/4 of you want to keep rewinds.

I can tell you this, TGC is in the cloud. We will soon be able to see if someone is cheating. Are people cheating? I certainly hope not but in my 15 years as a collegiate golf coach and many years competing in ametuer events, I've seen a ton of cheating.

[Ironstrokes]

Yea, looks like the group has spoken to keep the rewinds. Me personally, I would be cool with getting rid of the rewinds and just taking my medicine on the occasional misread, but better yet, would like it if we could turn off rewinds for a tournament or two and then all return to this discussion and see what people think. Doing it for a tournament wouldnt kill us, same way we did it with the wind turned on and then decided against it, would be nice to give it a shot at some point.

[Mickey]

Definitely remove rewinds.

[inorkuo]

I had a lot of rewinds this past tournament mostly because of my putting sensor going haywire. I guess people would assume I was cheating just looking at the number of rewinds I took.