Forums

judging distance.

• JuanMendoza 469 Posts

  Wed, Aug 4 2010 3:52 PM

  You don't "feel" the effects of wind and slope as you do in real life, so it must be rendered artificially. Having considered my position, I calculate how hard to hit according to my experience and judgement of the circumstance.

  The meter allows me to accurately hit the distance I HAVE CALCULATED, nothing more.

  My calculation may be incorrect, or I may fail to execute correctly, but all I have done is replace the "feel" of the strength of the shot in RL, with a mathematical replication on screen.

  In short, it is a mechanism to replace the "muscle memory" you use in RL....

• wayfader 50 Posts

  Wed, Aug 4 2010 10:18 PM

  it's kinda in reverse. each iron head movement = 5% of it's trajectory,bbbuuuut. this ois how the mathis used.                example my 3-iron- 190 yd.(trajectory) .95x190=180.5,  .90x190=171.0,   .85x190=161.5,    .80x1290=152,   .75x190=142.5,etc...

  using swing meter at full projectory, when returning to meters pendulum and notice first clubhead movement  and you stop and release fringer from mouse, you'll get 180.5 yards of  trajectory on a flat faiorway with no wind. do same but don't stop till 2nd. club head movement,171.0 yds. stop and release on 3rd club head movement,161.5.   

  now try that with 7iron, 155 yd. trajectory, and your 10 yd. per club head movement, is way off.

• zagraniczniak 1,984 Posts

  Fri, Aug 20 2010 6:38 AM

  Part of the course management is more insider gaming than golf strategy. For example, similar differences in elevation between fairway and green at the 15th and 18th holes at Bethpage have very different effects on play in terms of:

  1) distance of shot to reach the green (+0.3 club at 18th, +2.5 clubs at 15th),

  2) how the ball behaves when it does reach the green (screams from the front to the back of the green at the 15th, settles pretty firmly at the back-right plateau on the 18th), and

  3) what happens to mis-hits (not much at the 18th, but at the 15th the slightest mis-hit will slam the ball down well short into the heavy rough or a sand trap).

  This is about knowing the virtual course, i.e. figuring out how the game designers want you to play the hole, so it is more like a traditional computer game with secrets that players discover or share etc. Real life golf course designers set up courses to reward or punish certain approaches, but once their work is done real world physics determines what actually happens when you strike the ball.

  WGT does a great job mimicking the real movements of golf balls, but it does have that built-in gaming aspect to it.

• mefitz 372 Posts

  Fri, Aug 20 2010 7:25 AM

     I beg to differ with you, zagraniczniak, at least with this example. What you haven`t considered in your example is the Distance of the approach shot.

    My average approach distance on 18 is between 90yds.-120yds. This translates to a high lofted club, SW-9i.

    The approach on 15 is Much further back, 170yds.-210yds. which requires a Low lofted, much Longer club, even on Flat ground.

     The next time you play these holes, try laying up at 15 to 90-120yds. and at 18, hit a shorter drive so your approach is 170-210yds..

     I think you`ll appreciate the difference in distance, which btw is true to RL golf and not a "gamers" trick.  ;-)

• zagraniczniak 1,984 Posts

  Fri, Aug 20 2010 11:50 AM

  Sooo, reporting back.

  I tried some approach shots to the 18th at Bethpage from 160 to 200 yards out, aiming for the back right pin placement, and I was generally pin-high adding just 10 yards to the stated distance (and not hitting all that cleanly), so it doesn't seem that the ball gets knocked down the way it does at 15.

  As you predicted, the ball does not sit down very softly when coming in from that distance.

  At the 15th, the amount that is knocked off the distance does, as you predict, decrease the closer in you come. From the layup position at the very end of the fairway, I add 10 yards with backspin and the ball lands a little past and rolls back below the hole.

  This is all based on a pretty unscientific sampling, I will admit....

  Cheers.

• TracyMax 2,361 Posts

  Wed, Jan 12 2011 8:14 AM

  zagraniczniak:  wow I am confused! Are you saying that the clubs are designed to hit short?

• zagraniczniak 1,984 Posts

  Wed, Jan 12 2011 8:30 AM

  Not exactly. I think that each hole is designed to play longer or shorter, but in a sense it does mean that a club will behave differently from hole to hole.

  I have definitely noticed recently that approach shots into Bethpage 7 go farther than they are "supposed" to.

  Conversely, at Bethpage 17, although there is only a slight rise in elevation, you have to add about 1 to 1.5 clubs to the stated yardage in order to clear the front bunkers.

  And back to Bethpage 18, the front pin placement, which I played recently for the first time in a long while, plays longer than the back pin placement (meaning you have to add more club from the comparable distance to cover the increased elevation), when in theory it should be the other way around since the back placement is higher above the fairway than the front pin placement.

• TracyMax 2,361 Posts

  Wed, Jan 12 2011 9:02 AM

  (zagraniczniak"]--I hear you, and think I get what you are saying. However, with the starter set it's very hard to "finese" the shots.  Just frustrating I guess

• zagraniczniak 1,984 Posts

  Wed, Jan 12 2011 10:09 AM

  TracyMax:

  However, with the starter set it's very hard to "finese" the shots.

  I feel your pain. When I was at about the pro level, playing the starter clubs, I decided to get serious about the game and buy the Rapture clubs (the ones formerly known as the Pro set, available now at level 48+), and a good putter (Daytona I think).

  Then you are playing at a totally different level.

  (Later I got the top set of G10's, yet another level of play, with excellent precision and distance but a fast spin meter.)

  There is nothing wrong with playing the starter clubs as long as you don't try to compare it to players using the expensive clubs. WGT is valid at all those levels, but ultimately people are not really playing the same game (notwithstanding their skills).

• CharlemagneRH 1,054 Posts

  Wed, Jan 12 2011 10:37 AM

  On BPB 17, I hit +1 or +2 yards.  Then again, I use legend balls, full backspin, etc., so that probably makes a significant difference.

  The reason why BPB 15 takes extra yardage on the approach (which increases as you move further away) isn't hard to figure out.  It has to do with the fact that the green is severely elevated, a PW will attain a higher apex than a 5-iron, and a PW will fall at a steeper angle than a 5-iron.