Highlands chat

Nice set-up this week Daz. I like the idea of 4 different courses now and then and even when we have 2 it's nice. First round at Caledonian was the first time I'd ever played Mod Med(c) so missed a few putts from lack of experience but it's a usable combination.

Joe,

Thanks bud. The idea of 4 courses was mine, but for the conditions/tees etc. we have Vainte (David Mackie) to thank, as he offered his services a while back and it ended up that the current event was the one he was allocated.

Hope everyone enjoys the event.



PS. I'm sure multi-course events could be implemented more at OWGC, and its one way of getting more courses used on the season rota than the schedule would normally allow when it's ic ores per event, lol.

I was surprised to see that a super slow set-up is being used for the first round. Mod/Med(Ch) runs at about 7.5 on the stimp which is a lot slower than you normally see in online tournaments. It will be interesting to see how this plays out for the tournament.

The other thing that I thought was a great idea was to have Longest Drive and Nearest to Pin for any hole. That really opens up the possibilities.

Dick where do you get the stimp meter info, is this something that you can load into Links, would be handy for people who do setup conditions

Willows wrote:Dick where do you get the stimp meter info, is this something that you can load into Links, would be handy for people who do setup conditions

They are not my own calculations, but a few other guys have made some comparative tests for rolling distances in v1.07 for various conditions. Marcel Bossi over at the KISS Tours LWT made a chart giving the relative stimp meter values for all of the various combinations:

Conditions Stimpmeter

Soft/Slow 4.1***
Soft/Slow (Challenging) 5.3***
Soft/Medium (Challenging) 7.3***
Soft/Fast (Challenging) 9.7
Soft/Medium 5.4***
Soft/Fast 6.5***

Moderate/Slow 5.0***
Moderate/Slow (Challenging) 7.1***
Moderate/Medium (Challenging) 7.4***
Moderate/Fast (Challenging) 10.1
Moderate/Medium 5.0***
Moderate/Fast 5.8***

Soft (Challenging)/Slow 4.9***
Soft (Challenging)/Slow (Challenging) 6.0***
Soft (Challenging)/Medium (Challenging) 8.7
Soft (Challenging)/Fast (Challenging) 11.5
Soft (Challenging)/Medium 6.8***
Soft (Challenging)/Fast 8.6

Moderate (Challenging)/Slow 7.1***
Moderate (Challenging)/Slow (Challenging) 9.3
Moderate (Challenging)/Medium (Challenging) 9.9
Moderate (Challenging)/Fast (Challenging) 14.4
Moderate (Challenging)/Medium 7.4***
Moderate (Challenging)/Fast 10.1

Firm (Challenging)/Slow 8.6
Firm (Challenging)/Slow (Challenging) 11.4
Firm (Challenging)/Medium (Challenging) 14.4
Firm (Challenging)/Fast (Challenging) 16.5
Firm (Challenging)/Medium 10.1
Firm (Challenging)/Fast 8.5

Firm/Slow 9.3
Firm/Slow (Challenging) 8.6
Firm/Medium (Challenging) 10.1
Firm/Fast (Challenging) 8.5
Firm/Medium 5.8***
Firm/Fast 6.9***





These are Marcel's initial findings for the equivalent APCD green readings as would be found using the "Official PGA Stimpmeter".

Interesting reading Marcel's calculations (thanks Dick). The main 'disagreement' I have with my own findings compared to Marcel's is that where Challenging/Non-Challenging are used, you don't get the same rollout/speed as with the same conditions reversed eg. Non-Challenging/Challenging, whereas it appears Marcel does. Depending which way round the 'hybrid' combination is applied in my testing gives a varying roll/speed.

In more detail, I found that from my own testing......

Firm/Medium(CH) converted to a stimp value is 10.5
Firm(CH)/Medium converted to a stimp value is 6.0

Below are my own 'stimpmeter' findings.......

just finished rd 1 and found the conditions to play similiar to soft/chal..med/chall was doing well till ob on last for dble bogey but still managed to play to handicap a lot of the par 4s were in range but played safe on 16 or 17 i think the 1 u can reach but has stream in front was tempting but never fancied it so took the lay up and managed the birdie

Dazmaniac wrote:Interesting reading Marcel's calculations (thanks Dick). The main 'disagreement' I have with my own findings compared to Marcel's is that where Challenging/Non-Challenging are used, you don't get the same rollout/speed as with the same conditions reversed eg. Non-Challenging/Challenging, whereas it appears Marcel does. Depending which way round the 'hybrid' combination is applied in my testing gives a varying roll/speed.

In more detail, I found that from my own testing......

Firm/Medium(CH) converted to a stimp value is 10.5
Firm(CH)/Medium converted to a stimp value is 6.0

Below are my own 'stimpmeter' findings.......

Agree with yours over Marcel's. Not even sure why I need a stimpmeter comparison anyway. I just need to know how far it rolls with a given strength on the swing meter. For this week I had to go to the practice facility and test it out and find the correlation to mod(c) med(c).

Now I know why Charleton used the slow greens - WOW those had some bigtime slopes in them. Would have been even more adventuresome at faster settings. Sure, it took a little recalibration but I would rather do that than turn it into wacky golf on the greens...

John

JWGriffinGCA wrote:Now I know why Charleton used the slow greens - WOW those had some bigtime slopes in them. Would have been even more adventuresome at faster settings. Sure, it took a little recalibration but I would rather do that than turn it into wacky golf on the greens...

John

I set the order of courses from Stewarts oldest to newest to show his progression as a designer. He sure has made some nice courses and it's great seeing his improvement over time. Charlton came out well before the 1.07 mod so the greens needed to be dialled back to avoid your apt description of wacky golf:) They do speed up as the tourney progresses, but stay in the english/scottish range of stimp speeds. Glad to see people didn't mind the slower than usual speeds:)

Vainte wrote:I set the order of courses from Stewarts oldest to newest to show his progression as a designer. He sure has made some nice courses and it's great seeing his improvement over time. Charlton came out well before the 1.07 mod so the greens needed to be dialled back to avoid your apt description of wacky golf:) They do speed up as the tourney progresses, but stay in the english/scottish range of stimp speeds. Glad to see people didn't mind the slower than usual speeds:)

No complaints from me, happy that you kept it playable - appreciate you taking the time to do the setup!

I see we have a couple of "homers" near the top of the leaderboard -- Mr. Karch & Mr. MacKinnon! And who says local knowledge doesn't pay off...

John

I like this idea with different courses with a "theme".
Back in the early days of Links I played Links-marathon, all available courses,
but today that isn't doable

All courses were very nice, reminded me of the week I spent in Umbria a few years ago (2006)
(no real life golf then, maybe when I'm retired )
Every round was exciting and had it's own lesson to be learned

Still struggling with the chip'ins, never seem to get them right, or even close to right.
Caledonian was a disaster, but maybe the course I liked best, and I still have the pro-am
to look forward to there (saving the best for last )

The last round at Southerness was very exciting, to say the least, started
with bad putting, 4 puts on hole 1, a 10 on hole 7 (after 2 rehits and 4 puts....)
so I just wanted the round to end, but then I made 3 birdies, some pairs
and on hole 15 I made my first "genuine" HIO

(I made a HIO a hole 17 at the infamous golf course, but that doesn't feel right (anymore ))

back 9 ended at -2, first 9 holes below par, despite a doublebogie on hole 16 (of course )
after the HIO and the round ended at +10, one of my best rounds so far

Well done Rolle. It looks like you are finally getting the feel of RTS. Keep it up.

Talking about Links marathons, I also used to do that when there were a lot less courses to play. The one particular series that I would play often was golfing my way around the world playing one round at all of the real courses in my library finishing in the USA and playing across the country ending in Hawaii.

rolle wrote:I like this idea with different courses with a "theme".

Still struggling with the chip'ins, never seem to get them right, or even close to right.

Rolle, with RTS chipping, I set my default chip club as the LW with maximum loft. I know that on a flat firm/fast green, a chip with the backswing taken to what i call the the 'resistance point' goes about 50 feet. That gives me a solid base of reference, and by having the LW with maximum loft, it's more forgiving If you get it wrong. Give it a go in practice mode, It may help you.

How I wish I could reach into the monitor and shove my ani partner's sand wedge up his clacker....