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Another take on the braindead locking of clubs

• EValleyStan 7 Posts

  Fri, Sep 17 2010 10:53 PM

  There has been a lot of talk about the silly notion that people who got moved to Master can't buy better clubs. But here is a scenario that I didn't see discussed in previous threads.

  I play regularly with a friend. She got moved up to Master when the MBA interns in the executive suite made the levels and tiers change. I went to Tour Pro from Pro. Her average was 70, and mine 72, at the time. We both have essentially identical clubs. Different putters.

  So we both have Rapture V2 255 yd. drivers. Logic would dictate that she should be able to buy, say, a 265 yd. driver to compensate for the difference in yardage that her new tier requires. Yes, I read the argument that there was a window of opportunity to buy new clubs. But the brief window occurred before anybody knew what the changes were, or what they meant, or what the consequences of missing the window were. More to the point, the window itself makes no sense because the club locking itself makes no sense. If you require someone to tee off 30 yards further back, with all that implies for doglegs, etc., you need to make available clubs to accommodate the change.

  Of course, I now have an advantage. My friend and I played 9 holes tonight on Bethpage. She finished +6, I finished -2. It's not much fun for either of us anymore because we are about the same skill level, but she has been stuck with an artificial  handicap. She tried to upgrade at least her driver, but in the scenario that has been recited now so often in this forum, the drivers (and other clubs) that would enable her to compensate for her new tier are pointlessly locked.

  There are 3 of us that regularly play together, all at about the same average and skill level. 2 of us, fortunate to be at Tour Pro level, with our grandfathered clubs, can still have fun playing rounds together while the Master struggles. Maybe the 2 having fun will soon reach the Master level. Our scores and averages will then shoot up because we can't buy better equipment, but if we decide to stick with WGT, we can at least be back playing together on a level playing field, until the brass here get Farmville Envy again, or whatever other brainstorms unrelated to the experience of playing golf strike them, whereupon those who've stuck it out get to be guinea pigs again.

  Some here have argued, no doubt correctly, that promotion to Master is supposed to represent a setback. Some form of Advanced Game Theory apparently, brought to us by the MBA interns. 

  I do consider myself lucky that I owned a set of clubs when the change happened, that had I not owned them, I wouldn't be allowed to buy now.

  It's just virtual golf. So if I reach Master, I will be content with bogeys and double bogeys instead of pars and birdies. I won't enter tournaments because the whole grandfathered equipment thing makes competition with strangers even more inherently problematical than it already was. If I make Master, and it isn't fun to play, I can always just stop. If my friend quits, I will quit. It probably will depend upon how many +6/-2 rounds she has to endure, playing with the same equipment her opponent has, while he gets to tee off 30 yards closer to the hole.

• SEK1 38 Posts

  Fri, Sep 17 2010 11:08 PM

  Alright, so I know I don't have a lot of posts on the forum but i do read a lot of the threads on this forum

  This whole pro shop update with the level system was supposed to make clubs MORE accessible right?  So why is it that as a master i have a choice of the following

  **Not including WGT Clubs**

  3 of 16 drivers

  6 of 26 Woods/Hybrids

  4 of 15 Iron Sets

  4 of 20 Wedges

  and finally 1 of 5 putters??

  in total as a "master" I am only allowed to even choose 18 of out the 82 available clubs, not even 25% Now Ive gotten a majority of my clubs before the update but for a system which was supposed to make it easier to get clubs i feel that this is extremely counter-productive to what WGT was trying to accomplish and frankly its kind of annoying that im willing to spend my money to see what i might like and i cant.

  just another thing i noticed that makes the system a mess

   

• jeffdos924 1,085 Posts

  Sat, Sep 18 2010 4:41 AM

   Stan ... I hear what you're saying, but there are a couple of options available to you.

  First, and definitely the simplest, is to set up matches with your friends in the practice mode. Since it sounds like the 3 of you play regularly( and mainly for fun), you would all 3 be playiong from the same set of tees, just like you used to.

  A second option would be for you to " handicap" yourself when you play with her. That's what I've been doing. I'm a tour master, and most of my friends are now legends .... and believe me, they got screwed ( to the tune of 400 yrds on Kia back 9 over 300 pretty much everywhere else.) What I've been doing is checking the yardages, and any hole with a difference of more than 10-15 yrds, I tee off with 3w/3i ( some holes even as low as 5i ). This leaves me with pretty much the same approach shots as the legends, making the match as even as I can possibly make it, since I wouldn't feel good about taking advantage of the closer tees.

  End result is 2 things ....1)  it makes for a much fairer match in my mind and 2) .it gives me a little practice with the long approaches. It won't be a shock to me if & when I advance to the legend tier myself.

• srellim234 2,077 Posts

  Sat, Sep 18 2010 8:16 AM

  Excellent suggestions for those of us playing socially here with friends and acquaintances.

  One other option: If you re not playing many tournaments, anime-type graphics are acceptable and you are ok with fantasy courses instead of real courses, try shotonline.com.  More courses, more facilities, more equipment, better social game play. They do not offer the tournaments or graphics this place does. They don't offer the betting and monetary payouts of this site but are better at just about everything else.

• EValleyStan 7 Posts

  Sat, Sep 18 2010 9:40 AM

  Interesting and useful comments and suggestions from everyone so far. Thank-you. It occurred to me that one solution would be to allow players in social matches to all tee off from the same tees, regardless of tier, as would be allowed on a real course. But this does introduce some complications in a universe such as that of WGT, so it probably isn't feasible.

  The best solution, it seems to me, would be to unlock more clubs. It is pretty clear, however, that WGT is not committed to social or casual players, or worrying about fairness and fun in that context. Players in my category spend, but apparently not enough compared to the hard core tournament players, and not enough for WGT to make WGT a better environment for us.

• borntobesting 9,632 Posts

  Sat, Sep 18 2010 5:30 PM

  EValleyStan:

  There has been a lot of talk about the silly notion that people who got moved to Master can't buy better clubs. But here is a scenario that I didn't see discussed in previous threads.

  I play regularly with a friend. She got moved up to Master when the MBA interns in the executive suite made the levels and tiers change. I went to Tour Pro from Pro. Her average was 70, and mine 72, at the time. We both have essentially identical clubs. Different putters.

  So we both have Rapture V2 255 yd. drivers. Logic would dictate that she should be able to buy, say, a 265 yd. driver to compensate for the difference in yardage that her new tier requires. Yes, I read the argument that there was a window of opportunity to buy new clubs. But the brief window occurred before anybody knew what the changes were, or what they meant, or what the consequences of missing the window were. More to the point, the window itself makes no sense because the club locking itself makes no sense. If you require someone to tee off 30 yards further back, with all that implies for doglegs, etc., you need to make available clubs to accommodate the change.

  Of course, I now have an advantage. My friend and I played 9 holes tonight on Bethpage. She finished +6, I finished -2. It's not much fun for either of us anymore because we are about the same skill level, but she has been stuck with an artificial  handicap. She tried to upgrade at least her driver, but in the scenario that has been recited now so often in this forum, the drivers (and other clubs) that would enable her to compensate for her new tier are pointlessly locked.

  There are 3 of us that regularly play together, all at about the same average and skill level. 2 of us, fortunate to be at Tour Pro level, with our grandfathered clubs, can still have fun playing rounds together while the Master struggles. Maybe the 2 having fun will soon reach the Master level. Our scores and averages will then shoot up because we can't buy better equipment, but if we decide to stick with WGT, we can at least be back playing together on a level playing field, until the brass here get Farmville Envy again, or whatever other brainstorms unrelated to the experience of playing golf strike them, whereupon those who've stuck it out get to be guinea pigs again.

  Some here have argued, no doubt correctly, that promotion to Master is supposed to represent a setback. Some form of Advanced Game Theory apparently, brought to us by the MBA interns. 

  I do consider myself lucky that I owned a set of clubs when the change happened, that had I not owned them, I wouldn't be allowed to buy now.

  It's just virtual golf. So if I reach Master, I will be content with bogeys and double bogeys instead of pars and birdies. I won't enter tournaments because the whole grandfathered equipment thing makes competition with strangers even more inherently problematical than it already was. If I make Master, and it isn't fun to play, I can always just stop. If my friend quits, I will quit. It probably will depend upon how many +6/-2 rounds she has to endure, playing with the same equipment her opponent has, while he gets to tee off 30 yards closer to the hole.

  One solution to that problem is when you play a friend of a different tier  but with the same equipment is  to agree that the person who is getting to play from shorter tees use say a 3 wood off the tee instead of the driver. That would make the game more fair for the higher tier. And make it a little more challenging for the lower tier player. Hope this helps.

• birdwell 561 Posts

  Sat, Sep 18 2010 7:42 PM

  It wasn't a "braindead" decision to lock the clubs by level.

  WGT erred in the level assignments they gave to each "tier", big time. And because of this, the noise from the users is mostly that leveled clubs are a bad idea.

  Maybe after they sell zero clubs in the next few months, they will realize their mistake. 

• Doublemochaman 2,009 Posts

  Sat, Sep 18 2010 8:01 PM

  Yes, but they're hoping we buy lots and lots of balls as we frantically chase after that next level.  For a casual player like myself that will never happen.

  So bottom line for me:  The courses got tougher (I was bumped up a tier), it became less fun and I'm spending a lot less money, at a much slower pace.

• EValleyStan 7 Posts

  Sun, Sep 19 2010 8:51 AM

   

  A concrete illustration of what a slice into the woods the locking policy represents is provided by the infamous par 4 7^th hole at Bethpage Black. A player punished by WGT with a "promotion” to the Master tier, but lucky to own a grandfathered Rapture V2 driver (255 yard rating) purchased while still a Pro, has to play from a tee box that is 502 yards from the hole.

   

  With, say, a 10 mile an hour wind behind the player, he/she might have a good drive of 280 yards, leaving 222 yards to reach the hole in regulation. If he/she has a matched Rapture set, the choice of club from there will be a 3 wood (230 yard rating), or a hybrid (215 yard rating). Chances of making a birdie (or, for that matter, a par) are slim to none in this scenario, and this is with a good drive, aided by a tailwind. The average drive will be 255 yards, leaving 247 yards to the hole. A headwind could result in a drive of 245 yards or less, leaving 257 yards to the hole.

   

  Meanwhile, the Master’s regular playing partner with a 2 stroke higher average, now a Tour Pro and also owning a Rapture V2 driver (real world case – see my original post), lucky not to have been “promoted” to Master, tees off 489 yards from the hole, a difference of only 13 yards (on many other holes the difference is much larger), but a significant difference because on this hole we are talking about the outer reaches of a decent set of legacy woods.

   

  Doing the arithmetic, for the Tour Pro, the equivalent good drive will leave 209 yards to the hole; an average drive will leave 234 yards; and an equivalent drive into a headwind 224 yards. Admittedly, for the Tour Pro, birdies here will also be few and far between at these 2nd shot distances, which are more typical for a par 5 hole, but they will be a lot easier to come by than for the Master, who has no equipment option to make up the arbitrary, newly imposed, 13 yard punishment for having a 2-stroke lower average than her regular playing partner at the moment the changes were put into effect.

   

  I appreciate the suggestion that the Tour Pro can use his/her 2 wood to tee off, instead of his/her driver. But this is a workaround. One that leaves a virtual club paid for with real money in the bag, and one that a fiercely competitive Master might resent, preferring to adopt the view that since the WGT has demonstrated its commitment to giving its members lemons, they might as well try to make lemonade. The logic is impeccable, because the members have little choice if they want to play. I personally think that unlocking enough equipment to restore some equity to social rounds between players of different tiers is preferable to kludgy workarounds, but then I just play here, I don’t work here.