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Cheaper courses

• alosso 21,034 Posts

  Sun, May 21 2017 5:02 AM

  Williams01210021:

  all we hear is how it costs so much to keep these courses

  I didn't - what did I miss?

   

  The first necessary attribute for a new course would be the scorecard length - 7,200 yds are quite adequate to avoid sub-50 scores.. I suspect that mostly PGA courses provide this but not municipals of other "cheap" courses (no offence meant to any golf course, long or short!)

  Secondly, WGT must be able and willing to invest in shooting the pictures and doing the post-production process, and the course must be willing to allow for the interference with play on the course.

  Third, a contractual agreement must be found.

  Not so easy in all three parts, I suppose.

• Williams01210021 1,231 Posts

  Sun, May 21 2017 9:14 AM

  well seeing as they didn't resign their contract with oakmont would suggest this surely. If ti takes so long to map a course then keeping the ones you have done would surely by the top priority on your list.....

  As for them investing in the pictures, thats their job to do and if that want to keep players and attract more then they have to be able to spend money. Im sure they have a big enough budget to do more than  1 or 2 courses a year. Also if they pay less for some of these Major course they can use that money to fund more courses and more staff to do it quicker. Have they not fault about places like china or japan? they have some nice courses and I'm sure they could find a good developer over there and pay a lot less wages for them?

   

  As for the courses being long enough, lets face it the top players will score silly on any course because they have no life other than this. Making every course 7500+ isn't going to solve this and would just mean the players who dont live on here will be shooting par +. Not all about the elite champions.....

  
  Theres plenty of courses out there that are not famous like the major ones but have the length you say is needed.

  I agree its not easy but this is the main part of their business structure and yes it may be on the expense side not income but more courses and variety the more people will be happy and stay or join or invite new people. If they need extra funds they can easily make ways to get them. 

   

• Robert1893 7,664 Posts

  Sun, May 21 2017 10:37 AM

  Williams01210021:

  well seeing as they didn't resign their contract with oakmont would suggest this surely. I

  
  
  We know that this is the reason that Oakmont is no longer available? In other words, it was WGT that was unwilling and not Oakmont?

   

  Williams01210021:

  Im sure they have a big enough budget to do more than  1 or 2 courses a year.

  
  
  Why are you sure of this? I'm not trying to be confrontational, but do you know WGT's financials and how much it costs to put a course on here? I don't. And seriously doubt that most people on here do.
  
  If you do have that information, great!
  
  And, as an aside, new courses (even unknown ones) would be welcomed by the existing players. But how do new courses help attract new players? Where's the marketing strategy there... Hey, come here and play courses you never knew or cared existed!
  
  In other words, in my opinion, courses that are not famous provide no draw to new players.

• alosso 21,034 Posts

  Sun, May 21 2017 11:55 AM

  Robert1893:

  Williams01210021:

  well seeing as they didn't resign their contract with oakmont would suggest this surely. I

  
  
  We know that this is the reason that Oakmont is no longer available? In other words, it was WGT that was unwilling and not Oakmont?

  We don't know nothing - pure conjecture IMHO.

  Some facts:

  - Oakmont has never been in any of the "Best of" courses.

  - It only came to the mobile game shortly before last year's USO.

  - It disappeared less than a year after the latter.

  Mespeculates that something in the special contract with Oakmont hindered a continuation. Mewonders if it might have been the "mobile" games(??)

• justacowboy 1,338 Posts

  Sun, May 21 2017 12:32 PM

  the PP golf site is looking better now    ... check it out

• Robert1893 7,664 Posts

  Sun, May 21 2017 12:40 PM

  alosso:

  We don't no nothing - pure conjecture

  
  
  Agreed.

• ApexPC 3,164 Posts

  Sun, Jun 4 2017 12:09 PM

  LuckySkreet:

  I've never really understood why WGT has never gone back to courses they already use on CTTH (Valhalla, Harbour Town, Wolf Creek, Bali Hai,  Celtic Manor, Edgewood, Keole, Hilversumsche, and Manelle)  and finish the course terrain mapping to include stroke play.

  For all we know WGT has approached those courses to let WGT make them full, 18 hole stroke play WGT courses.

  Those courses may not want to be on WGT for full course play - for any number of reasons.

• DodgyPutter 4,690 Posts

  Sun, Jun 4 2017 12:20 PM

  alosso:

  We don't no nothing

  I do  :-)

• alanti 10,564 Posts

  Sun, Jun 4 2017 4:32 PM

  LuckySkreet:

  I fear, since Top Golf purchased WGT,  we will see a gradual move away from pure, authentic and realistic golf experiences into a  "Gimmick Golf" platform.

  LuckySkreet:

  Personally, when WGT and Top Golf merged.......it was a defining moment.....  a moment when the decision was made to move away from a traditional golf experience.     

  I could have quoted the entire post....as it was right on the money IMO, but those 2 quotes sum it up.

  As to re-shooting the CTTH courses, we will never know the reasons why this will not/ cannot be done. WGT is hardly the most transparent company! 

  Adding new courses has been like pulling hens teeth....and the fact we will never know how long the existing full stroke courses are available (bearing in mind the rapid removal of Oakmont - and well played WGT for the wonderful communication).

  Going back to the article in 2012 https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2012/08/27/how-to-beat-tiger-woods/#1e18ef33421c

  Whatever happened to those courses who wanted inclusion? Yes 5 years have passed but there would still be numerous struggling clubs throughout the world that would kill for inclusion and a fantastic way to market their club/course. Possibly at no cost to WGT. 

  Some may not have the length or same degree of difficulty but scoring (due to the attributes of the top clubs) is a joke anyway - after all lowest score wins regardless if it is a 52 or a 72.

  The only other courses to be added outside of the US Open Courses and rehashed Best Of Courses are Pebble Beach (which we did not get in 2010 and Bandon compilation (which I have not played as I would not play a par three course in real life, so why would I play it on here?). Yet we lost the 2016 US Open course - so a net gain of ZERO outside of the US Open Courses.

  As Lucky pointed out, mapping costs should be significantly lower due to newer technologies and WGT is they were smart would only need to pay for the developers costs.

  Maybe WGT has approached other courses, and if so, why do they not publicly state it. Personally they cannot be bothered, as it does not fir into TopGolfs vision.....add bells and whistles.....like I said...Lucky called this correctly

   

• Wutpa 4,803 Posts

  Thu, Jun 8 2017 1:35 PM

  alanti:

  LuckySkreet:

  I fear, since Top Golf purchased WGT,  we will see a gradual move away from pure, authentic and realistic golf experiences into a  "Gimmick Golf" platform.

  LuckySkreet:

  Personally, when WGT and Top Golf merged.......it was a defining moment.....  a moment when the decision was made to move away from a traditional golf experience.     

  I could have quoted the entire post....as it was right on the money IMO, but those 2 quotes sum it up.

  Maybe WGT has approached other courses, and if so, why do they not publicly state it. Personally they cannot be bothered, as it does not fir into TopGolfs vision.....add bells and whistles.....like I said...Lucky called this correctly

  I'm genuinely puzzled about how you two (and many others, I know) have come to the conclusion that WGT is becoming (or has become) "a gimmick golf platform".  

  I've been around here since 2010 and the game experience I have today is more or less the same as the game experience I had back then, except with more courses and better clubs. 

  Sure I agree that the TopGolf acquisition has been a thorough disappointment...much was promised and nothing substantial delivered, at least not on the PC platform. But I genuinely fail to see how the quality of this game has declined since TG, or how the game itself has become more cartoonish either. I'm not trying to be confrontational and I'm certainly not being an apologist for WGT or TG, but apparently I'm just not seeing what you're seeing.

  WGT has long delivered silly items like champagne or Valentine golf balls without TG's help, so it's not that. The rather grating in-game commentary was before TG too. I'm not saying the game couldn't be better, couldn't do with stability fixes, couldn't stand to have a million bugs fixed, but that was all true before TG came on board too. 

  All I'm saying is that the things that are bad about the game were bad before TG too. And since TG took over I haven't seen this game get any closer to becoming the windmill/clown's mouth experience as projected by Lucky and others than it was before. 

  So in that regard, what are you guys seeing that I'm not seeing?