WGT Golf News

  • Scheduled Downtime 3/15 11pm PT

    15 Mar 2010

    WGT.com will be unavailable starting at 11PM Pacific Time on Monday, March 15 for about 3 hours. Please be sure to save your games before this time. This is a system maintenance downtime, not a product release so no visible changes will occur after the site is back up.

  • Replay Highlight Reel

    15 Mar 2010
  • Scheduled Downtime 3/14 10pm PT

    12 Mar 2010

    WGT.com will be unavailable starting at 10PM Pacific Time on Sunday, March 14 for about 2 hours. Please be sure to save your games before this time. This is a system maintenance downtime, not a product release so no visible changes will occur after the site is back up.

  • Congrats to our Recent SkyCaddie Winners

    11 Mar 2010

    Please join us in congratulating the 10 winners of the December SkyCaddie Challenge, chosen by random drawing!

    TAISTO
    atbone
    cycleman1
    roava
    Morano2003
    Jesusdyd4u
    mwfreeman7
    Pinhigh132128
    Willie42477
    Yoda1407

    These lucky WGT players each won a SkyCaddie SG5 Rangefinder with a one-year Eagle Subscription worth $450 in total.  Check out our tournaments for more opportunities to win a SkyCaddie, trips to famous courses, golf gear, and more awesome prizes.

  • Have You Cleared Your Cache Lately?

    09 Mar 2010

    By WGTniv

    It is recommended that you clear your Flash and Browser cache every time we release a Product Update. If you haven't cleared your Flash and Browser caches since our last release, then chances are you might be experiencing some slower load times and/or load manager errors, especially during the start of the game.

    To fix these problems:

    1. Click --->  Optimize Your WGT Experience
    2. Follow the instructions at the bottom to clear your Flash & Browser caches.
    3. Restart your browser and try again!

    When you clear your Flash and Browser cache you are deleting the game files and settings that are stored on your PC. That means during your very first game you will experience longer than normal wait times while your PC re-downloads the necessary course and game files. That also means you will need to reset any in-game options such as graphics quality and reflections before you tee off for your first round.

    You should NOT clear your caches every day or every week. That will only cause you more headache because you will constantly be downloading game assets. You should only clear caches when we release a Product Update or if you start to experience prolonged loading issues.

    A foursome is only as strong as its weakest link, so be sure to point any players that you see having loading issues to this blog for help. Helping them helps everyone!

    Hit 'em well!

  • Fred Couples Brings Life to the Champions Tour

    08 Mar 2010

    By Stephanie Wei

    In three starts on the 50-plus tour, Fred Couples has two straight wins. Firing a final round six-under 65, he breezed his way to victory by four strokes at the Toshiba Classic.

    Freddie's scoring average on the Champions Tour is 65.67 and hasn't carded anything over a 68 all season. In the event he didn't win, he placed second. Also in the two tournaments he's played on the PGA Tour, he finished T14 at the Waste Management Open and T37 at the Northern Trust Open. Impressive for, you know, an old guy.

    And look out—there are a few others on the senior tour who can still compete with the young guys, like Tom Lehman and Tom Watson who finished T3 and T5, respectively. The 60-year-old Watson shot 62 on Sunday and we all remember what he did at Turnberry last year (let's hope he gets that US Open exemption, too!). Lehman has placed T14 and T16 in two starts on the PGA Tour—Phil Mickelson also has two top-20 finishes.

    When was the last time it was so much fun to watch a bunch of old dudes hobble around the course? Probably not since the days when Lee Trevino, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Chi Chi Rodriguez dominated in the early 90s.

    What's more interesting is that Couples, Lehman and Watson could potentially win on the big boys tour this year, too. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the last player to win after his Champions Tour debut was Fred Funk in the 2007 Mayakoba Golf Classic.

    I put my money on Couples to be the next.

  • St Andrews Replay Highlights

    05 Mar 2010
  • I Beat Lucas Glover in a Chipping Contest

    04 Mar 2010

    By Ryan Ballengee

    On a cold October afternoon, I drove up to New Jersey to play in an American Express cardholder event featuring two USGA champions - Morgan Pressel and reigning US Open champion Lucas Glover. After being in Boston the day prior thanks to an insane $20/each way fare from JetBlue, I was a little tired. 

    The morning of the outing, I went over to Trump National Bedminster to get warmed up to play. Warming up wasn't possible. It had to have been 20 degrees that day. Kind of windy, really cold, and rainy is no way to play fall golf. I would be damned, though, if I was going to give up an opportunity to play Trump's baby and have a showdown with these two players.

    Fifty balls, some 30 putts, and a $100 Trump National logo-embroidered Adidas fleece (fleece is the right word in multiple ways), I was ready to go. Well, as ready as it was going to get. My partner from AmEx and I got off to a rough start. Starting the round on a par 3 is never fun, but those are the breaks in a shotgun. That first hole was a total wash, leaving my partner and I just one hole to get our act together before the Lucas Glover hole.

    The next hole was a par five whose fairway doglegs left enough to bring a pond into play. I was short of the green in three, but with no feeling in my hands or with my wedges, I made seven. Awesome. Getting into the cart to cross the street to the Glover hole, I hear a loud medal "BOOM!" that only a quiet forest, a 460cc driver, and a US Open champion can create.

    My partner and I make our way down to the tee box, exchange formalities with Lucas' people at the hole while G. Lover finishes playing out the short par 4 with the group in front of us. The plan is to each hit a drive with Lucas and then play out the hole with the best ball. There was no question whose ball that would be. Mine.

    I was going to outdrive Lucas Glover, wow him and the ten or so people on the tee box, and drive the 320 yard hole. After all, during the summer, I was routinely crushing drives 310 yards. In a scramble tournament, I averaged 330 off of the tee. That was in 80 degree weather, though. This was a cold Jersey morning with wet hands and sleet in the forecast (which would come just two holes later).

    Lucas Glover hits the tee box, done with the last group, and shakes our hands. Like a man who has done this a thousand times before, he grabs his driver, tees up the ball, and swings in the span of maybe 30 seconds. He crushes it. This is undoubtedly headed for the green. He misses ten yards low and right. Quickly, someone gets him another ball. I guess the first one was a mulligan. Second time - five yards low and right.

    My partner and I draw for which of us will try to impress first. I lost. I tee up the ball and take a practice cut. I should have taken fifteen of them to get my head together. Seriously? Drive the green in the fall? What kind of *** am I?

    Sure enough, I swing too hard. I hit a decent drive, but not by my standards. It went maybe 265 yards and into the left fairway bunker. My partner, admittedly not that great at golf but likes to play, does pretty well and puts the ball in the fairway, though short of my drive.

    With bruised pride, I hop in the cart, drive up the left side to pick my ball out of the bunker and head up green side to the long drive contest winner. Arriving at Lucas' ball, we see that the ball has come to rest on a mowed area about pin high. We play from here. Ok, losing the contest isn't so bad. 

    Lucas steps up and chips the ball maybe 37 of the 40 feet to the pin. Good effort and he would've nailed the birdie putt. 

    My chance for redemption. This is clearly a simple bump-and-run. I got this. Two practice chipping strokes to calm the nerves, and then the real deal. It's up, hits the green maybe three feet on, and rolls out to within a foot of the cup.

    I beat Lucas Glover. I beat him. If the universe relied on me winning that contest, humanity has been spared. Clearly it didn't, and Glover probably could not have cared less. It wasn't even really a contest on that hole or in life. He has the US Open trophy. I have a Chevy Equinox. Still, Glover told me "great shot!" and I went on my merry way.

    I could not hold a candle to him or any professional for that matter. 99 out of 100 times, I would be bested by a pro in any scenario I could devise. This isn't HORSE with Jordan, where luck might take over and a random guy could prevail. It isn't Rich Eisen futilely running the 40 yard dash at the NFL Combine. The skill that these guys possess makes them so good that they could beat me at almost anything golf-related.

    The only place where I think I have them is hitting a putter off of the tee. I can crush a good Wilson 8802 about 220 yards. Beat that.

  • Latest System Update

    03 Mar 2010

    Here are the changes from this morning's system update. While we make an effort to include all updates made to the product, please note that occasionally some changes are unintentionally omitted.

    • You should now be able to gift a clubset to someone who is currently renting it
    • You should now be able to rent a club that you previously owned and sold
    • We improved avatar placements in certain dropped ball scenarios
    • The putting grid in reverse view now uses the same color scheme as the normal view (relative to the player's position rather than relative to the pin's position)
    • The Change Password link in the Forgot Password email has been fixed
  • Golf in Portugal

    02 Mar 2010

    By Doug Farrick

    penha longa golf resort Golf in Portugal

    I am going to make it a point to start covering more "world" golf here at the GolfDash blog. There are just so many cool courses, venues and styles of golf – particularly on the European Tour.

    One upcoming tournament is the Estoril Open de Portugal which will return to the Penha Longa Hotel Spa & Golf Resort from April 1-4, one of Europe's most avant-garde golf venues following a 2 million refurbishment program.

    The Atlantic course was designed by Robert Trent Jones and is typically ranked in the top 30 courses in continental Europe.

    To see the beauty of the course take this Photo Tour.

    Duarte Nobre Guedes, President of Turismo Estoril, said: "Penha Longa is on the 'jewels in the crown' of the Estoril and Sintra Region, and the natural, magnificent setting is now enhanced by all the impressive refurbishment which the Resort has undertaken in order to raise the bar even higher. We are looking forward eagerly to welcoming back The European Tour professionals to enjoy the facilities."

    If you are looking into possibly attending the Portugal Open they currently have a number of inviting golf packages for folks attending the tournament at the Penha Longa Resort. They are worth checking out.

    Finally, if you are a wine lover, like me, you might want to explore some of the most underrated (and excellent) Portuguese wines in the world. Wine is one of the most noted Portuguese exports and the country is the seventh largest exporter of the product worldwide, by value.

    wine from Portugal

    Golf in Portugal is not often thought of as a first golfing destination but maybe after reading this article, it should be.

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