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'Tough-It-Out II': The Trans-Atlantic Starter Clubs Uneven Open RETURNS!

• oneeyedjohn 9,567 Posts

  Sun, Feb 10 2013 8:46 PM

  Hi evryone,

  I had the great pleasure of playing this tourney last time round, but it looks like it has even more fun about this time with lots of generous sponsorship going on. Good to see more quality players entering.

  I have followed all of this with great interest, but I had to withdraw because of a personal crisis with my wife's health. That is all OK now, nothing to worry about thankfully.

  May I be so bold as to make a small suggestion or two for future events of a similar nature.

   (i)  Perhaps a tourney of 4 x 9 hole rounds would get more people interested,as time is a factor to some. I do remember how hard it was to keep focus for 18 holes on Uneven Lies, and also the fact it is practice, meant a disconnection was most inconvenient to both player himself and the organiser when doing stats.

  (ii) Maybe a mixture of playing starter clubs and your own clubs and balls would add a little variety into the 4 rounds.

  Anyway food for thought I hope.

  I will sponsor the best Par 3 total score ( tie break - most birdies ) for next time round.. > 2 sleeves of Callaways

   

• Corwyn 2,410 Posts

  Sun, Feb 10 2013 10:10 PM

  Hi OeJ,

  It's great to hear from you! And I'm very relieved to hear that everything is OK with your wife.

  Thank you so much for the suggestions: I agree that 18 holes is a struggle to get through, and that making it just 9 holes would certainly reduce the chances of disconnect troubles. That said, one of the great things IMO about this format is that it really forces you to respect and appreciate the course architect's vision and plot your way around. And I suspect a key part of that course management skill is endurance (!), being able to tough-it-out through the whole round, through the ups and downs. So, if we went that route, we'd gain something, but we might lose something important too... 

  And, yes, we did hear a lot of interest in using different clubs, especially that dang putter!

  Thank you for your kind offer to sponsor a best Par 3 Score Prize next time! Very generous of you!

• Corwyn 2,410 Posts

  Sun, Feb 10 2013 10:39 PM

  alosso:

  We have an appointment to play Monday morning German time.

  Alles wird gut!

  Wonderful! Thanks, Paul!

• Corwyn 2,410 Posts

  Sun, Feb 10 2013 10:51 PM

  bhoese:

  Mizzy and I are done with matching 75s...

  Mizzy might have lost his GIR run, but there wasn't anything he could have done about it on at least four of the longer par 4's.  The wind was simply too much to overcome with starter clubs.

  I saved Corwyn a sleeve of Callies with my 3-putt on the 11th.  I did something wrong with the math in my head and crushed my first putt from the front up the slope, and way past the hole.  It might have been airborne for a bit at the crest of the slope.

  Oh, I'm sorry to see you both fall short of your specific prize goals, and of the sort of score you were probably hoping for. It was perhaps cruel to end at RSG this time, when people would be chasing a target like GIR, and the wind was likely to make at least 4 holes impossible to reach... that must have left Mizzy with no margin for error at all.

  And Ben, you didn't save me the sleeve. It's Hans putting up the No-3-Putt prize. So, just Cerino left in the running for that one. What a pity to lose out on a math error. (That did for me on just the 2nd hole of the tourney, somehow adding 2ft to 46 ft and getting 60 ft)

  bhoese:

  It was a great tournament...probably as much fun as I've ever had on WGT.

  I am SO GLAD you enjoyed it! (And I've really appreciated your humorous recaps of the rounds. Thank you!)

• MBaggese 15,367 Posts

  Sun, Feb 10 2013 10:59 PM

  oneeyedjohn:

   Perhaps a tourney of 4 x 9 hole rounds would get more people interested,

   

  I'd agree here...seems 18 took 1.5+ hours...9 may suit more:)

• Corwyn 2,410 Posts

  Sun, Feb 10 2013 11:00 PM

  unclenewy:

  I have had to prioritise over which bills to pay and the Internet has been switched off.... Hopefully I will have things back to normal by Tuesday, but as work is still dried up and doesn't look like it will start before the end of the month, it may be longer.

  Hi Neil, 

  That sounds like a really rough situation. I hope things work out for you as soon as possible. I'd like to give you every chance to complete the tourney (you're a certainty for at least some substantial prize-winnings). Perhaps you could let us know as soon as you're able to whether it's realistic to get it done by, say, the end of the week.

  And thank you for explaining things.

• MizzyMan 52 Posts

  Sun, Feb 10 2013 11:01 PM

  I played my last round of the tourney with Ben earlier today and it was a pleasure to play with him. I went chasing the GIR prize but failed miserably. I didn't get the screenshot of the green and putter.

   

  

  

  

  

  

   

  I would like to thank Corwyn and all the people involved in keeping this tourney running so smoothly and I am very happy I decided to take part. I hope you guys do something similar to this format in the future (I think best ball would be great like mentioned before). The one thing I feel should be changed is the different wind settings for each round. I think playing all rounds with low winds would minimize the variations conditions and focus more on the being frustrated with the starter clubs and uneven lies :)

  Mizzy

• Corwyn 2,410 Posts

  Sun, Feb 10 2013 11:03 PM

  CerinoDevoti:

  ... I think I'm going to play with Corwyn possibly on Monday so we both get our rounds in the books.

  Hi Cerino, et al,

  I remain hopeful we can play early in the week, but my son is still ill, and as of tonight, not very likely to go to school tomorrow (Monday).

  I'm sorry to be the cause of the tourney dragging on... Believe me, I'm anxious to wrap things up too!

• alosso 21,043 Posts

  Mon, Feb 11 2013 12:07 AM

  Herbert (wassernixe) and I played an enjoyable Early Bird today.

  His score of 78 is veritable and very solid IMHO. #4 caught him both short and long and a shortish approach, #9 found him behind the green in 3 like myself before, but he found the right (green) side of the hill for the second and last double of the day. Solid play helped to a lot of Pars on the back nine and a flagstick hit from the tee on #16 - an easy birdie.

  I "cheated" this time, using my Pro/TP set-up with the Rapture 3WD + Z-Satin wedges and Starter balls. WIth that long gun and a hot putter I was lucky to equalize the starting bogeys with three birdies and avoided a mess on #18 (left sink again) by putting uphill. #9 was "easier" for me. Leaving the second shot short (UEL), I took the easy route to the middle of the green - safe&easy bogey.

  We enjoyed the Skype chatting, it's easy going with a friend on the course.

  

  

  Stats:
  
  
  
  

  Wassernixe's game pics:
  
  

• CerinoDevoti 3,232 Posts

  Mon, Feb 11 2013 6:09 AM

  I'm really stoked to read some of the final comments from our players. Sounds like many learned what Corwyn and I hoped many would learn. The Courses were designed many years ago when the equipment was about as good as the starter gear or even worse.The starter gear is a little better than hickory sticks and dried dung balls but not by much.  It takes a heck of a lot of plotting and thinking to manage around these old Courses instead of throwing darts to 2 feet. We have to learn the Course Design as it was intended to fully get everything out of each round. Any course management skills we can muster up have to be used to the fullest and playing for par, as a good score, many times is the only way to play a hole. Something that has helped my "fancy Club" game is learning the rolls in the fairways and the run ups to the greens. Now if I miss a fairway and have to hit a punch shot to run up to the green, I know how the ball will react and if the run ups are tilted one way or the other. I hope to never need that kind of info but learning what's under the ball at all times comes in handy when saving a par now and again.

  Sounds like Corwyn and I have a field of the willing for future events of this kind and that's another great thing to be reading. As for 9 vs. 18 hole rounds I'm of the opinion that 9 holes isn't a round of golf. I'd prefer there were no 9 holes rounds here in the game. All the courses are designed to carry us through a journey that includes all the holes. If you note what clubs you're hitting on approach a pattern can be seen on each course. Your hitting draws and fades off the UL through your irons in a specific sequence that tests our abilities. Mid iron draw followed by long iron fade with "relief in the par 3's. We picked these 4 courses, the wind speeds and the green speeds specifically for that reason. They carry you around working the ball both ways and make us prove to ourselves that we can hit "all the shots". I hear that all the time watching US and British Opens. Hitting "all the shots" are what Opens are about. This Tourney was meant to be "Tough" as in the title. If you've played all four rounds you know it. I'd like to give a shout-out to Hyena64. He was the "anchor" of the Tourney and never complained about anything. Sounds like he gave up more than a pound of flesh to the UL and still came out the other side smiling.  You have to have no ego at all and love the game to keep posting scores at the other end of the leaderboard. A special un-announced prize will be going to him for truly "Toughing It Out" and bringing it home with grace and humility.

  Thank you all and please have fun playing this game. Fun is the best thing to have so seek it and gather it to yourselves.

  ~CD~