Champ Frustration

[Chip_Jett]

Depends on how far i want the ball to go. Also on the power band it depends on how far i want the ball to go. I don't try and hit the snap right on unless the shot is 35 yds are farther.

[in2bluz]

Please dont take offense Terrel but I wouldnt call it dumbing it down. My own personal thoughts is that it has always been a problem. The only consistant thing is that it will more than likely be way too short of a shot. I can hit the most perfect snaps and the ball goes 120yds it seems no matter what club I use and I always go 2 to 4 clubs more than I think would be necessary depending on the distance. After playing this game all these years I cringe when I get in a fairway bunker because there's just no knowing how far its going to go. Personally I dont think its even a champ think but a links thing. But I do play champ alot so maybe I just never took notice between that and pro. Love ya Terrel so dont get mad at me lol. If you can discover that its a bug Mark, by all means I'm for fixing it, if its because its a champ level oddity then I would have to say leave it as is.

[RoyHiggi]

4 thoughts on this.
1) Grenside bunkers I personally play exactly the same shots in pro/champ and elite with the same effecet when i hit the snap that I want. That snap is 12 oclock or close to 12 for the power and a hair before 6 oclock for the snap.
On pro you can hit even earlier for the bottom snap and it is quite forgiving. You might lose the odd yard but you will get close to the distance you want.Even hitting the exact 6 oclock isnt that bad either on pro but as soon as you go past 6 you get waaay to much distance.

On champ if you hit 12 oclock and a hair before 6 at the bottom you will get the same shot as pro BUT miss early and you lose more distance and the amount may be critical depending on how far the shot is in the first place. And again do not go past the 6 oclock.

On elite again the exact same 12 oclock and a hair before 6 will give you the same shot as pro. BUT missing is even more [censored] in elite than champ.

2) Fairway bunkers are a different proposition. First you need to try for the sand snap after 6 oclock and it is pretty important to hit that spot on I think to get the distance you need.

In pro there will be quite an amount of leeway I am sure and the general comments I hear here are to club up 2 clubs to get the distance you want.

I don't really know exactly how missing the snap effects distance in champ /elite except to say miss the 5 oclock snap and you lose a lot of distance on the shot. I think and I stress think that to get fairway sand shots to go like pro ones you have to hit the power spot on 12 oclock. In other words you have to hit the top and bottom perfectly to get the ch/elite fairway sand shot to go anything like it would in pro!

3) There seems to be a suggestion that it wrong for sand shots to be hard and maybe even having a randomness in them especially for champ and elite. I would totally disagree. If you put a ball in sand you have played a bad shot and their should be a potential punishment for doing so. It is crazy that a sand shot should be easy and absolutely reasonable that from fairway sand you might not be able to hit the green . It would be like that in real golf and thats the way I feel it should be in Links.

4) Knowing that you can have trouble from sand should mean extra care not to go in the trap in the first place. Obvious maybe but maybe players have to get to champ and elite before that thought really comes into play. But once in the fairway sand you have to think course management again because , although the perfect wonder shot to the green might be possible , the reality is the shot won't be perfect and you will lose plenty of distance trying so it should only be taken on if the bad short shot will land safe.

[terrell]

Please dont take offense Terrel...

none taken whatsoever, bluz. once upon a time we had a discussion here, where someone claimed it was natural to hit the ball equally as far out of a fairway bunker as it was a normal shot irl. then claimed to be some kinda professional golfer. i think it was the professional golfer thing that deserved the most ridicule.

whether the distance penalty is a bug or not is totally immaterial. those of us that play champ do so BECAUSE the fairway bunker penalty at least makes roy think about where those bunkers are. to eliminate the penalty would be dumbing down the champ level, because then it would be like playing pro (i've never played am or pro, so i can't say with 100 percent certainty).

nothing wrong with an intellectual discussion. others have varied.

[Larry_Warrilow]

the explanation from apcd-courses when they looked at the relative difficulty of each level to each other in the game code, was that the game designers used a standard percentage of difference of difficulty between each level. it just worked out that champ level fairway bunker shots are way too punitive compared to the rest of the shots (champ greenside trap shots are not that big of a deal). if you have more than 150 yards from a fairway trap to your target at champ click, you have little chance of reaching it even if you hit the 5 0'clock snap.

at pro, you can still hit a reasonable recovery from fairway bunkers even without being perfect, but at champ you are many times just finding a spot in the fairway to land on and are then fighting to save par. i would say that this is the least realistic feature of champ play, and it affects many other aspects of play, because you must avoid fairway traps like the plague.

i also agree that bunkers ought to be unpredictable hazards that cause real trouble. what constitutes a realistic amount of trouble is the question. lw

[mike58]

4 thoughts on this.
1) Grenside bunkers I personally play exactly the same shots in pro/champ and elite with the same effecet when i hit the snap that I want. That snap is 12 oclock or close to 12 for the power and a hair before 6 oclock for the snap.
On pro you can hit even earlier for the bottom snap and it is quite forgiving. You might lose the odd yard but you will get close to the distance you want.Even hitting the exact 6 oclock isnt that bad either on pro but as soon as you go past 6 you get waaay to much distance.

On champ if you hit 12 oclock and a hair before 6 at the bottom you will get the same shot as pro BUT miss early and you lose more distance and the amount may be critical depending on how far the shot is in the first place. And again do not go past the 6 oclock.

On elite again the exact same 12 oclock and a hair before 6 will give you the same shot as pro. BUT missing is even more [censored] in elite than champ.

2) Fairway bunkers are a different proposition. First you need to try for the sand snap after 6 oclock and it is pretty important to hit that spot on I think to get the distance you need.

In pro there will be quite an amount of leeway I am sure and the general comments I hear here are to club up 2 clubs to get the distance you want.

I don't really know exactly how missing the snap effects distance in champ /elite except to say miss the 5 oclock snap and you lose a lot of distance on the shot. I think and I stress think that to get fairway sand shots to go like pro ones you have to hit the power spot on 12 oclock. In other words you have to hit the top and bottom perfectly to get the ch/elite fairway sand shot to go anything like it would in pro!

3) There seems to be a suggestion that it wrong for sand shots to be hard and maybe even having a randomness in them especially for champ and elite. I would totally disagree. If you put a ball in sand you have played a bad shot and their should be a potential punishment for doing so. It is crazy that a sand shot should be easy and absolutely reasonable that from fairway sand you might not be able to hit the green . It would be like that in real golf and thats the way I feel it should be in Links.

4) Knowing that you can have trouble from sand should mean extra care not to go in the trap in the first place. Obvious maybe but maybe players have to get to champ and elite before that thought really comes into play. But once in the fairway sand you have to think course management again because , although the perfect wonder shot to the green might be possible , the reality is the shot won't be perfect and you will lose plenty of distance trying so it should only be taken on if the bad short shot will land safe.

I agree with all of this. I have never thought that there was something wrong with sand play in either champ or elite. It's harder that pro, but it's supposed to be.

[Pas11]

Use a LW -Chip to get out of the sand in Champ.
I've had a lot of hole outs doing that.
Maybe I could give you some lessons Chipper- Jet

[Chip_Jett]

I need all the help i can get Passi Motto. Thx for the tip.

[in2bluz]

Thanks Terrell and I agree with your post completely. I would never expect that playing from a fairway bunker should be basically the same as a fairway shot or even rough for that matter, so I do have a better understanding of what you meant now by dumbing it down. I feel exactly like Larry does that the best you can do is aim it down the fairway and see how far it goes and scramble for a par. But still have a problem that it doesnt seem possible to hit more than mid iron range with a flat perfect lie.BUT.... after reading the wonderfully informative post by our resident Pro Roy which shined a lot of light on the proper way to play sand shots on basically all levels, I thought, wow how nice it would be if the master of this game could possibly give us the TIP OF THE MONTH by ROY HIGGI to go along with our new season! We're all ears Roy!! LOL.

[Pas11]

You're welcome Chippy.
I've never used a SW in this game at any level.
Always LW-chip!!

[Pas11]

How do you show a saved shot on the forum like the good old days.

[OHNONO]

I think I reduces my amount of sandshots by using my 2w ( flopped even lol)
from tee very often ! gives a longer 2nd shot but .....
Lill off topic , but think its the right place
O

[RR_Desperado]

Every last person playing this game knows [censored] well that sand play in champ is too critical and no where near realistic. I refuse to play champ because of it.Green side bumkers are not that bad and you can learn to play reasonably well from them but fairway bumker play is so inconsistent , it`s like flipping a coin. Heads you get a good hit, tails it`s crap. Don`t care to have my score affected by the flip of a coin.

[Chip_Jett]

[quote="RR_Desperado"]Every last person playing this game knows [censored] well that sand play in champ is too critical and no where near realistic. I refuse to play champ because of it.Green side bumkers are not that bad and you can learn to play reasonably well from them but fairway bumker play is so inconsistent , it`s like flipping a coin. Heads you get a good hit, tails it`s crap. Don`t care to have my score affected by the flip of a coin.[/quote]


Exactly . Its a Bug foresure. Hope Mark can change it . It would make for better competition.