THW Golf Headlines

Sunday, April 07, 2013

Enderdog Sandbags His Way To Third Shootout Series Championship

by MacTHW

It’s the TW2014 opening weekend here at the Team Housewares and we’re launching right into it with nothing less than a THW minor tournament at San Antonio. We’ve left the frustrating and rage-inducing Kinect hardware behind and are now exclusively playing Simulation Mode on the PS3 with Move. Players stats have been reset and Course Pro records wiped clean. Everything is up for grabs including the first tournament win of the season. Welcome all, these are your opening headlines for the new TW2014 season at THW Golf.

Our Shootout Near the Alamo tournament is a minor this year in the run-up to the next Major—the THW Masters at Augusta. enderdog gets set to defend his championship title at the Shootout. A storm is slowly brewing and the forecast calls for sand. The golfers have all been trying to dial in their shots for the past few weeks and now it’s GO time.

Five eager golfers arrive at the first tee box ready to bring it on. There are bogies aplenty but MacTHW breaks that monotony with a par and birdie along the front nine. At the turn, MacTHW holds a four stroke lead at ten over par. The other golfers attack and try to reel MacTHW back in…with some success. Spending most of the time in the rough does not bode well for MacTHW and the rest of the pack closes in quickly. Luckily, MacTHW escapes with a 96 on the scorecard which is good enough for MacTHW to lay claim to the first win of the new season.

Round 1:

Round two sees PointedMarlin going on the attack immediately. He promised everyone a beatdown with his new clubs and looks to deliver on that promise. He holds a commanding 12 stroke lead at the turn with binkdog and enderdog scrambling to catch up. The Marlin continues his attack along the back nine while scrappy enderdog tries his best to minimize the damage. MacTHW’s lead after round one disappears as he slides into third place after turning in a triple digit score after the second eighteen. Ash and bink spend their time admiring the well manicured weeds at San Antonio. Marlin vaults into the lead with his impressive early season score of 86.

Round 2:

After two rounds of stressful tournament play, the golfing trio of binkdog, enderdog and MacTHW head off to TPC Boston in search of a Course Pro record. MacTHW makes an early showing but the back nine becomes his nemesis racking up two lateral hazards on the 14th alone. binkdog and enderdog pounce at the chance to take the lead. bink pounces the fastest and snags his first Course Pro record of the season with a 95 at Boston.

Boston:

To humble enderdog a bit, binkdog and MacTHW take the trio to the tree-lined fairways at Colonial. MacTHW can’t seem to find the fairway, hanging out amongst the shadetrees instead. He’s not alone though, as binkdog and enderdog are there to keep him company. binkdog manages to go sub-one hundred while enderdog and MacTHW have to settle for a tie at 100 each. binkdog snags another Course Pro record.

Colonial:

Round three continues on Saturday and all six players return to vie for the championship. In a scene reminiscent of the 2011 Shootout tournament at Harbour Town, Hurricane Enderdog once again makes landfall pelting players with gale force sand and sending them scrambling for cover. No one knows for sure what enderdog is hopped up on—be it some enderagra or DAG GUM or a combination of the two but the devastation down on the field is the same. enderdog not only makes up the ten strokes he was behind by yesterday, he also gains three strokes on Marlin after the Pointed one is unable to repeat his sub-ninety performance of the previous round. enderdog shoots a 41 on the front and 42 on the back for total of 83 on this third round—Moving Day. Ash shoots for the stratosphere, knocking the ball around an impressive 155 times during round three setting a new record for highest round recorded at THW Golf.

Round 3:

As round four arrives, the Marlin has to abandon his championship quest and exits the field. enderdog’s nearest competitor is now MacTHW at a mere seventeen strokes back. MacTHW tries to mount an early charge but enderdog refuses to cede any ground. He bests MacTHW by three strokes along the front but then runs into trouble on the 18th, sending a ball into the creek. MacTHW misses his birdie putt while enderdog only gives away three shots. The two combatants have to settle for a tie at 90 apiece.

Round 4:

Final Standings:

TPC San Antonio | Course PAR: 72 | Tournament PAR: 288
POS	Player	Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	THRU	TOTAL	SCORE
1	enderdog	97	98	83	90	72	368	+80
2	MacTHW	96	102	97	90	72	385	+97
3	binkdog	97	106	99	97	72	399	+111
4	Ash	149	131	155	128	72	563	+275
5	PointedMarlin	99	86	96	—	54	281	DNF

As is his trademark, enderdog wins with a laser-like focus on the prize and massive pre-game sandbagging. His 83 shot during round three puts him in the record books already as a Course Pro at San Antonio and as having the lowest round of the season thus far. His successful defense at the Shootout Near the Alamo tournament marks his second defense and third win in the Shootout series of tournaments. In fact, he is the sole winner of the series having won all three. And there is little to no doubt he has already begun practicing and sandbagging for the THW Masters next week, where he is looking to strip MacTHW of his third green jacket.

What a great start to the new season. The PS3 with Move integration appears to be the real deal (unless EA breaks it with a patch). Simulation Mode is making the game quite challenging. What a difference a platform can make. See everyone next weekend in Atlanta.

Friday, April 05, 2013

The TW2013 Season In Review

by MacTHW

The new THW Golf season is almost upon us so I thought it was time for some reflection and a recap of the TW2013 season.

It seems that not too long ago we first fired up our Xboxes and found ourselves frustrated by “fist” icons and a barely manageable Kinect. At the end of the TW2012 season we found ourselves at a crossroad. EA no longer wanted to support the Wii and the only other options were Xbox or PS3. A choice had to be made.

The PS3 was more of the same as we had on the Wii, a controller with accelerometers. The Xbox offered up the Kinect, a motion tracking camera that tracks your body, no controller required. You are the controller. It was something fresh and new and everyone quickly hopped aboard. Unfortunately, the early enthusiasm quickly wore off as flaws with TW2013 and Kinect soon came to light.

Don’t get me wrong, the Kinect is great technology. I am amazed at its ability to locate a person (or two) in a camera frame and map their skeleton. It’s when the Kinect is coupled with EA’s Tiger Woods game, which requires precise information as to what a person’s hands are doing, that it all falls apart. Instead of shelving the Kinect integration, EA forged ahead and put out (and advertised) a mediocre product that would represent a low point in the game’s franchise, as far as playability is concerned. I am only referring to the Kinect version, as the PS3 guys had it (mostly) good on their side.

Oh well, hindsight is 20/20. I suppose one needs to experience these lows in order to appreciate what they had…a really great gaming experience on the Wii. Despite the shortcoming of the Kinect, our group soldiered on playing our weekly games and trying to knock each other off the top of the leaderboard.

After a dismal and championship-less TW2012 season that had binkdog thinking about retirement and possibly hanging up the virtual cleats, the TW2013 season saw a refreshed binkdog who quickly bounded to the top of the leaderboard like a spry young puppy, emboldened by a game patch the gave him super-accuracy on the putting green. He catapulted to the number one spot after the May 12th weekend, barely four weeks into the new season. He would hang onto that spot for the rest of the season with an iron grip, emerging the number one ranked golfer at the end of TW2013. No one came close to threatening his position at the top, not even the second ranked golfer, enderdog, who could barely catch a whiff of victory, steadily trailing the leader by at least 30 points in the rankings. Ash, dude, MacTHW and late-season joiner, PointedMarlin, were left to fend for third, fourth and the caboose. We coined a new term—Rage Quit—named after dude who would suddenly disconnect after falling victim to the Kinect buzzsaw. PointedMarlin gave us the term “the beast” named for a sunken putt of epic distance. And somehow, enderdog managed to shoot a 58 at The Greenbrier, setting a new low record at THW Golf and beating dude’s old record of 59 at TPC Scottsdale.

Team binkerton dominated the team game scene, crushing any team that went up against them. The two dogs, bink and ender, worked well together despite the never-ending rumors of their impending breakup. They only lost eight of their thirty-two team games, earning them the number one ranked team of the TW2013 season. Most of those wins came at the expense of Team Awesome, which would fall to sixth place, winning only one of their sixteen games. The number two ranked team, Team Yeehaw, also saw a positive win/loss record, winning nine of their eleven games and coincidentally also has binkdog as one of its members.

We enjoy competing for Course Pro records, which is for the one who holds the lowest score at a particular course. dude held the lead in this category early on, setting some impressive low scores, including the aforementioned 59 at Scottsdale. Eventually, binkdog and enderdog were able to wrest some of those records away from the young, rage-quitting rookie. Augusta National and Spyglass were our most played courses of the year, clocking in at 18 and 17 rounds each, respectively. Whistling Straits proved to be the most difficult course, with it’s record not going sub-seventy until February, just a few weeks shy of the end of the season. There was no Occupy Els this year, as the Els Club only saw us visiting there five times.

All in all, we played a total of 323 events over the course of the TW2013 season, 50 of those being team games. The course pro records were split amongst three players—binkdog, enderdog and dude. enderdog ended up holding the most courses—thirteen. binkdog follows next with 10 courses held and dude manages to keep nine of them for himself.

Here are the stats as they appeared on the closing day of the TW2013 season.

binkdog and enderdog traded off winning championships, with enderdog winning one and then binkdog winning the next. Near the end of the season, enderdog broke that routine and won a few in a row. binkdog would end up with four championships while enderdog would lay claim to 5 championship plus two minor tournaments, introduced at the beginning of the 2013 calendar year.

And so the season ends. The new THW season starts on April 5th, 2013 at TPC San Antonio. Stats will reset and everyone starts with a clean slate. The PS3 version seems pretty solid after playing around with it for the last few weeks. The PS3 also marks the return of the Chicken Stick (now called the SimStix, but it will always be the Chicken Stick to me). While working on this article, I wondered how fast we got past the learning curve of the Kinect version and slid into our groove. I went through the database and averaged our scores for each weekend played. Here’s the result:

It will be interesting to see how we fare next season on the PS3.

Thanks to everyone who played last year and thanks in advance to anyone who joins us in the next season. Now, to get ready for the Shootout Near the Alamo.

FORE!

Friday, March 29, 2013

2013 THW Golf Championship Shirt Presentation

by MacTHW

The ever camera-shy binkdog finally got around to attending the shirt presentation for the 2013 THW Golf Championship. This is binkdog’s fourth season tournament win, making for 10 overall career championships. Congrats to binkdog on his win at the Blue Monster course.

Yeehaw! Nice hat.

Friday, March 22, 2013

2013 Sandbagger Classic Shirt Presentation

by MacTHW

Enderdog successfully defends his own tournament and receives his 2013 Sandbagger Classic shirt. He ekes out a two stroke victory over binkdog for his fifth of the TW2013 season and thirteenth overall career championship. Congratulations on yet another win, enderdog. MacTHW proudly presents enderdog his shirt and congratulates the former rookie on a great played season.

Monday, March 18, 2013

2013 Golfsmack Open Shirt Presentation

by MacTHW

MacTHW, defender of this year’s Golfsmack Open, presented the new winner, enderdog,  with the coveted tournament prize, the winner’s shirt.

Congratulations to enderdog for winning the 2013 Golfsmack Open. We expect to see a vigorous defense next year at Torrey Pines. This is enderdog’s fourth of the TW2013 season and 12th overall career shirt .