Post by Andrea on Dec 23, 2015 14:42:08 GMT -5
Dec 22, 2015 19:00:35 GMT -5 @wagtunes said:
This is more or less how I'd tackle this f***er; if it can be of any help, please use it and ask whatever you want. Just glad to help
I'm nothing but a middle/average player....so there's really nothing to be amazed of (I did some pretty silly mistakes to be honest)
And watching you play a course doesn't help me in figuring out what other things you were doing with all those views and what ultimate settings you made when you took your shots other than I did see when you used loft. All other decisions, I have no idea what you did to get the results that you got.
Question: What is your WGR ranking?
Anyway, if you're an average player I need to quit this game.
I started in CC-B in July and I know how it feels to bang your head into a wall. I got better by "studying" the game and watching experienced player play on stream. This is why I shared my round here; cause I found help the same way and I wanna give back. I'm not here to brag over a videogame.
Now on the golfing side. You're right: is hard to understand what I did just by watching. I didn't had the time yesterday but now I can detail the process behind every shot. No big deal - there's no secrets.
Just to be clear: what I'm about to explain is what I DO, what I THINK. And even if it works for me (most of the times) it could not be the same for everyone. Plus I'm sure that the TOP 5/10 guys in the WGR know way better than me. So take that into great consideration
(I hope my english will remain decent in the following wall of text - from a grammar point of view it'll be a mess, I'm telling you right now!)
* HOLE #1 *
- Tee Shot: just bomb the drive
- Approach: 245y to the pin so 3W is too much, but I'm willing to shoot for the green nonetheless. There's a bit of counter wind so I loft up a 5W. This means lifting up the trajectory to let the wind affect the ball more and, in my hopes, get me less distance and a gentle roll. It will push harder to the right too, so I'm compensating by aiming left. I switch quickly to the "triangle camera" just to guess where I need to aim. There is no calculation going on here, just guess and luck.
- Putt: the only rule I follow on putt is Doyley's tip on placing the marker that you'll find here on the putting slide. For the power I had a drill back when I was in CC that helped me and got me now to the point in which I almost nail at least the power every single time. Even when I'll misread the breaks I'll left myself an easy 3-4ft tops putt. Here's my drill: every week back in CC, when I practiced a course before the tourney, I wrote down the green speed (which is the maximum "carry" distance when you select your putter). Then I made myself a course with the same green speed and huge greens with no slopes. Putting countless times back and forth on said green helped me to find, for each green speed, fixed points of reference: on the putting camera I prefer (which is number 5 if I recall correctly) I use the point where the shaft connects to the blade of the putter as my cursor. When this point crosses the top of the ball I know I'm giving about 8-10feet of "putting strength", when it crosses the middle 13-15feet and when it reaches the bottom about 20feet. And I'd adjust to that every single time in matter of 2/3 holes. It's about practice (a ton of practice). The same practice that'll help you reading the brakes - there's no science (that I'm aware of at least) behind that. Keep also in mind that how you pull the stick on your joypad matters; Couple of italian friends of mine which plays on TGCT knows about my "putting points of reference" but they can't make it work cause when putting they slam the stick like for every other shot - instead I putt very gently on the stick, unlike every other shot
And THAT'S IT about putting. I recently found that on reading the breaks, for me it works better if I switch to the approach camera (triangle), go down to the ground and follow the probable ball trajectory. but, again, this works for me.
* HOLE #2 *
- Tee Shot: again no big deal
- Approach: 146y to the hole, + 13feet elevation, 4MPH wind blowing SE to NW. Let's start by elevation: as per Doyley's tips (also on the previous link) I divide 13 by 3 and, as the hole is above my feet, I add 4yards. So [146 + 4 = 150]. Now onto the wind. After searching the web (a LOT) I came up with this calculations for winds:
HEADWINDS
Straight - WIND STRENGTH x 2 = yards to add to the shot
"45 degrees" ( \ or / ) - WIND STRENGTH x 1.5 = yards to add to the shot
*any other angle adjusted accordingly
TAILWINDS
Straight - WIND STRENGTH x 1.5 = yard to subtract from the shot
"45 degrees" ( \ or / ) - WIND STRENGTH = yards to subtract from the shot
*any other angle adjusted accordingly
So as I have a 4MPH tailwind blowing SE to NW I do as follows [150 - 4 = 146] and at this point I assume the pin is exactly 146y from me. Now I also know that those greens are super hard and fast, and I want to land short of the flag. So I switch to the approaching camera (triangle) and start counting the grid rectangles, knowing that each one of them equals 4 feet of distance and that 3 feet is a yard (I'm italian - I have to do this little conversion sorry ). There are just 7, which means roughly 9/10 yards and the risk to land on the avant green - the ONLY area I absolutely want to avoid. As my previous experience tells me that a high lofted shot landing on the fairway tends to bounce high and roll gently on the green I decide to take my chances and shoot 133y (even a bit less cause in the meantime the wind goes up to 6MPH).
Now I do I know that a 6 Iron lofted as much as I did will land at nearly 133y? Because I have my personal loft chart Is based on Doyley's idea but as I felt I needed more data I've built myself a "practice facility" (basically a course completely drown into water) which I used to swing every club and every kind of shot and loft type countless times until I mined all the data I needed. I'm not kiddin', I spent a couple of days just swinging straight over and over. I'm that crazy I can do that cause I work part-time and I have no kids. I know it is not for everyone and I'm not suggesting to do the same...in fact I'm just linking here my excel doc. Be aware that was made on an iPad so the chars could be a little ugly as I just converted it in a .xls (here to download).
Back to the shot now. 133y seems ok, I aim a bit right to compensate for the wind and shoot. And I land in the rough...cause I didn't pay attention to the ball lie. The ball was slightly above my feet so the trajectory already pulled the ball towards the right. I should've aimed just couple less "clicks" on the right.
From the rough then I got a bit lucky. I know there are chipping master out there on TGCT but I'm not one of them; I am so far from that. The only thinking process that occurred in my mind was counting the grid rectangles to guess where my 4y chip would have landed and, from there, treat the remaining distance as I was reading the breaks on a putt.
* HOLE #3 *
- Tee Shot/Approach: The same process. 178y to the hole, 6-7MPH wind SW to NE, -8feet elevation. Elevation first [8 : 3 = 2.66] (I take 3), so [178 - 3 = 175]. Onto the wind: [175 - 6 = 169]. 169yards is the flag spot. With this distance I know I will be forced to use a longer iron than I did on hole 2, therefore my ball will bounce more and roll faster/longer - also because my ball right now is on the tee and the shot (as the club won't have to "dig" the fairway) will not be affected by the grass friction. Also a 6-7MPH wind will make my ball roll like crazy. I finally examine the green and notice how it slopes - I notice a little "corridor" in the centre and, onto the right side of the flag, all the slopes will get my ball towards the hole. So I count about 12-15y in rectangles (there's plenty of room) and I decide to go with 4 Iron (on a 3 Iron I fear the wind will carry the ball too much) lofted up to 153-154 yards. I aim just slightly to the left so the wind will carry my ball either into the "corridor" or on the slopes right of the flag.
And with absolutely NO SKILL on my part, just math, I find myself with a tap-in birdie.
__
I'm gonna stop right now, but just for a bit (and I'm gonna update my video post with the info). Cause a) after a whole working day I'm bit tired and b) I want to hear some feedback from you guys. Form @wagtunes , my italian friend Roberto Busatto , TimB .. Do you think that's helpful/useful? Do you think it's total useless BS? If you think it's BS I can live with that but maybe I'm stopping here. If could be helpful for just a bunch of you I'm gonna fill step by step all 19 holes