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Golf Balls

• Hicksy10 5 Posts

  Tue, Apr 22 2014 10:13 AM

  I have, and continue to have, this battle with WGT about them randomly taking balls out of play.

  This practice has zero logic to me. They "excuse" is that a ball losses decompression and is less effective. Hogwash, IMO. Whether you want to buy that argument that a ball losses decompression after a set amount of time or not, the fact that WGT makes that decision for me is ridiculous. Add to the fact that I purchase these balls and they take them away without me losing them.

  Lets, for a second, agree that balls do lose compression and should be taken out of play. If I were to do this in real life, I still have the physical ball that I purchased in my bag. This doesn't happen here, WGT just takes them away and forces you to eventually spend more money on others. This leads down the path of a scam. Competition or not, it should be up to the individual to take a ball out of play. They can make a tweak to the formula that after a certain amount of time the performance of a ball gets worse and would then force the competitor to make a decision but to just flat out take them away is stealing!

• DaveStrock 919 Posts

  Tue, Apr 22 2014 12:05 PM

  LOL,,this game is a business intended to make a profit and ball sales is a huge part of their revenue,all balls excluding the freebies only have a certain amount of hits built in to them,your rant is a total waste of time and energy,you have to decide if you want to pursue getting better and the only way to do that is buying better equipment and balls as you progress through the tiers,,,,,or not,it's your decision,no sweat off WGT balls,,pun intended .....

• MainzMan 9,586 Posts

  Tue, Apr 22 2014 12:22 PM

  Hicksy10:

  Lets, for a second, agree that balls do lose compression and should be taken out of play. If I were to do this in real life, I still have the physical ball that I purchased in my bag. This doesn't happen here, WGT just takes them away and forces you to eventually spend more money on others.

  You may still have that ball but there's a good chance it has a few good scuffs and maybe even a cut in the cover.  Would you use it for a competitive round in real life? 

  At least the balls in WGT continue to perform perfectly until they explode.  What would we all say if performance deteriorated as the ball got older?  Or a badly missed ding resulted in a cut cover and the ball was taken out of play?

  Balls are probably the main source of income for WGT, if they gave them away for free the lost revenue would have to be made up somewhere else.  Like green fees.

• Hicksy10 5 Posts

  Tue, Apr 22 2014 1:07 PM

  MainzMan:

  Hicksy10:

  Lets, for a second, agree that balls do lose compression and should be taken out of play. If I were to do this in real life, I still have the physical ball that I purchased in my bag. This doesn't happen here, WGT just takes them away and forces you to eventually spend more money on others.

  You may still have that ball but there's a good chance it has a few good scuffs and maybe even a cut in the cover.  Would you use it for a competitive round in real life? 

  At least the balls in WGT continue to perform perfectly until they explode.  What would we all say if performance deteriorated as the ball got older?  Or a badly missed ding resulted in a cut cover and the ball was taken out of play?

  Balls are probably the main source of income for WGT, if they gave them away for free the lost revenue would have to be made up somewhere else.  Like green fees.

  Partially my point, this is the reason they have put this scam in place. Their greatest source of income is their ad revenue. If you think otherwise you are delusional. It is an impractical operation to just remove balls for no reason when people purchase them. I should have the say on when I want to take a ball out of play.

  In your scenario if there is a cut, I make that call, no one else. In real life, it is my call when I take a ball out. I can use it whenever I want until I lose it. This isn't real life, if they want to make the competitive argument then give users an option to "cash out" their winnings. Then you could justify the "competitive" nature of this. Otherwise it is just people spending money for a game and in that case the consumers, who spend money on the product, should make the decision on how they use the products they purchase.

  WGT has positioned themselves very well with traffic and ad revenue, they don't need to rip people off by stealing their balls.

   

• SweetiePie 4,925 Posts

  Tue, Apr 22 2014 1:10 PM

  After reading several years worth of forum posts, the majority of complaint types have money issues at the base. I spend around $150 + or - a month with WGT. It doesn't really provide advantage, but simply meets demand due to the increased distance as advancement is achieved. But I don't play much better than I did at pro tier. The better or more exotic clubs and balls don't insure anything beyond the fun of investigation. They do not make TLs. 

• ZioMio 4,680 Posts

  Tue, Apr 22 2014 1:13 PM

  Hicksy10:

  WGT just takes them away and forces you to eventually spend more money on others.

  Really? How does WGT force you to spend money?

  I have not spent one penny here and don't plan to start.

• DaveStrock 919 Posts

  Tue, Apr 22 2014 1:29 PM

  Beg to differ with you Sweetiepie the better clubs and balls give a player a HUGE advantage over a player using beginner equipment and free balls,go back to the beginner clubs and free balls and see if you can come close to playing like you do now,with out getting the equipment i have now or similar equipment through the tiers I would not be a TL today and I'm sure any TL would agree,it may be possible to advance in tiers with all the free equip with out ever upgrading but it would have taken many years to get where i am now not to mention all the frustration along the way.....

• hpurey 11,505 Posts

  Tue, Apr 22 2014 1:48 PM

  Hicksy10:

  They "excuse" is that a ball losses decompression and is less effective

   

  Never heard that one here before, nor does it make sense to me.  

   

  Anyway,  each ball here available in the proshop for purchase has a durability limit.  Reach the end of a golf balls life and poof, you need another one. 

• renniw52 5,385 Posts

  Tue, Apr 22 2014 2:28 PM

  It is Ground Hogs Day over and over and over. This has been brought up since I can remember. Back when I had my last full time job with a very nice salary, I never thought twice about adding a 100.00 bucks to my account. I could, at times go through this in 2 weeks or less. Now that things have changed for me financially I have to be way more careful. I can't play as often as I would like, I can't play courses that I have a better than not chance of losing a ball. The money part has everything to do with my playing history in the last year plus. If you want to improve and be somewhat competitive, you damn sure have to spend money or spend hours on surveys worth practically nothing. IRL, I have golf balls that I have saved since the early 1960's. I have 2 balls in my display rack that played very well through 90 holes of golf. They were not lost or taken out of play. My first real life hole in one ball is in the rack, the HIO was made on the 83rd hole that ball had played. I have very old Spaldings, Zippo SDX, McGregor with smiles so big you can see their tonsils. I took these balls out of play. I agree 100% with WGT selling balls for revenue. The price of some and the life spans are a totally different discussion. I enjoy this game when I can, love my friends and have no problems with WGT making a profit to provide us all with this past time. I do feel that the pricing on balls and equipment has gotten way out of control. My big dog driver I use on WGT was a very generous gift from a long time friend. This driver will last me until I either die or can no longer see to play this game. If I used the top balls, considering their normal attrition or miss shots lost, I could spend more on virtual balls in 2 weeks than the cost of my driver. This would never, ever happen in real life even if I played 36 real holes a day, 7 days a week. I just stopped in the middle of this post and looked at my display rack. I have an old ball from 1965. I was the private caddie for the founder and President of Zippo Mfg. I believe he used this same ball for several 18 hole rounds. Everytime it went in the woods, a creek or wherever, game play stopped until I found it. I received a quarter for finding this ball. One round he missed a 3 foot putt to win the match and gave me the ball and told me to never let him see the damn thing again. I still have it. It was never taken from him or me. Regardless of my nostalgia, I see WGT selling balls, they just need to back off a bit on the cost for something that can be lost with one swing and no chance of getting it back. 

• SweetiePie 4,925 Posts

  Tue, Apr 22 2014 2:55 PM

  DaveStrock:

  Beg to differ with you Sweetiepie the better clubs and balls give a player a HUGE advantage over a player using beginner equipment and free balls,go back to the beginner clubs and free balls and see if you can come close to playing like you do now,with out getting the equipment i have now or similar equipment through the tiers I would not be a TL today and I'm sure any TL would agree,it may be possible to advance in tiers with all the free equip with out ever upgrading but it would have taken many years to get where i am now not to mention all the frustration along the way.....

  May be true for most, not me. I played to Master tier, when it was the highest, with free everything and shot 58 and 27 at Kiawah using them. It couldn't be done at Legend tees with the free stuff because of distance, but otherwise, I (me only perhaps) see no other advantage with regard to improvement.