LOL. Good read, Bun, I totally agree. :-)
dedBuNNy:I will say one thing, spending massive amounts of cash to upgrade your computer just to play this game is not needed, and total waste of money. As my good buddy (lol) Jim says, you don't need a kickass computer to play this game
I have a perfect example for this. I have always played on my Toshiba laptop but there was a time when the HD died and I was stuck, I had to revive my old dinosaur VAIO. Ugh, fast CPU, big HD, great internet connection and a measly 900 MB (not GB) of RAM with Windows XP.
The first try at playing was a disaster. Choppy graphics, ridiculous meter that stopped when it wanted to and slow loads between holes, all totally understandable given what it takes to play this game. Game on, I'm playing on this machine if it kills me! LOL
In a nutshell, a dedicated browser-SRIronware-scrubbing the msconfig file, installing the same version of Flash on it that I have on this machine, shutting down any extraneous background operations and installing Adblock made the game playable. Not just acceptable but playable.
The meter was under control with no speeding or stopping mid-swing. The loads were very slow and sometimes the renderings were choppy but the actual game play was totally acceptable. I was able to shoot a 30 at Oakmont on it. On a machine with only 900MB of RAM!
I since installed the Comodo Dragon browser, dedicated it, installed Avast AV and sent it off to a friend in need on the west coast who's been without for a while. And when he and I get around to playing each other he knows that I know he has no meter problems. No excuses. LOL ;-)