11-17-2005 to 11-27-2005
There are a few big things with a person's Golden Tee Card; games played/player's defeated, # of Eagles, # of Birdies, Hole in One's, Double Eagles, Longest Putt, Greatest Shot Points, Best Score (on the card), and such. There are many ways to "rate" yourself by your card. Being a very competitve player, my victory % over other players is quite high (3 of 4). A better judge of progress are the individual achievements--those are more of an equal arena--the shots you make. Another person you might be playing could be having a great game, or a lousy one; and people are stupid anyway, so just stick with your individual achievements (I say this while KNOWING that nobody else out there has anything NEAR a 75% winning percentage--I totally rule!).
One of the things you want to accomplish on your Golden Tee Card is to get to 1000 Eagles, and 5000 Birdies. If you can, you want to get to 1000 Eagles first. A good standard game of Golden Tee is 10 Birdies, and 2 Eagles. Doing this, for 500 games, would give you the Birdie/Eagle totals of 5000 and 1000. See?
On Thursday, 11-17-05, I went to play Golden Tee, knowing that I was only 2 Eagles shy of 1000. I played my favorite current course, Painted Gorge. Very important; I played this game by myself. The game started slow; I missed shots on my first 2 holes. But I did get an Eagle on the front 9. On the back 9, this is where my game kicked into high gear. 3 Eagles, and 6 Birdies on the back 9 is a fine game. I wound up being -19 for the whole game. And I was very happy with that--all I wanted was to get my 1000th Eagle, which came after a gorgeous tee shot. Yay. I was happy.
So I would go home a little relieved; knowing that I would probably have to write out a Commentary on my (5 years?) Golden Tee Card experiences. What I would need to do would be to go back to this Golden Tee game, bring pen and paper, and write down all of my statistics. Right. So I did this on Saturday. I was all happy, like a stoner in a cult--writing down all these unimportant numbers that don't mean anything to anybody else. Sure. Then I decided, after writing everything down, I'm definitely going to play a game or 2 here.
So I played my first game, on the card, and (as it always does) it gave me the choice to play a Golden Tee Master, and try to beat a top score. However, THIS particular Golden Tee Master is...ME! It's (Do you want to play...) W.C.D in Springfield, OR; his score was -19. Hey! That's MY game from Thursday night; I remember this! Wait; so I can play MYSELF, that same game, with the same wind conditions and such? Oh yes I will! So I got to watch all of my Eagles again, including my brilliant 1000th Eagle. I only scored a -15 this time; but I did make 4 shots better during the course of the game. And I will be going back, to play myself again, many times. This is a big week in my life of Golden Tee, baby.
I'm going to have my girlfriend help me design some cool graph thingies to show you my Golden Tee Card stats here. Tables? She says they're called "tables". Sure. Have a graph; call it a table--whatever. Computer people are nuts, anyway. I don't pretend to know anything about computers--I don't even have e-mail right now. Someday; not now, but someday I will have a GRAPH on this page that shows my Golden Tee Card stats. Not right now, though; I'm going to go play some Golden Tee here on Saturday, 11-19-05!
Charts and Graphs:
Statistics on your Golden Tee Card give you 3 complete pages of numbers; here are mine:
Page 1:
Score Per Round: -8.77
Driving Distance: 296.61
Putts Per Round: 19.34
Greens Per Round: 11.83
Fairways Per Round: 6.24
Greatest Shot Points Per Round: 4247.68
Page 2:
Best Score: -23 (11-26-05; Painted Gorge)
Longest Drive: 403.
Longest Putt: 125.00
Most Birdies: 15
Most Eagles: 7 (11-26-05; Painted Gorge)
Most Greatest Shot Points: 42113
Page 3:
Hole In One: 14
Double Eagles: 9
Eagles: 1002
Birdies: 4979
Players Defeated: 420
Games Played: 560
(It is too bad that amidst the players defeated/games played stats there is no accounting of games played alone, or of how many times YOU have been defeated by other players.)
Unfortunately (on Saturday 11-19-05), I no longer get to compete against myself. I played Painted Gorge on the Card, against some guy named Chuck--who also scored a -19. I played Chuck twice; and on the 2nd game I scored a -22. Getting -22 is my best Golden Tee Card score ever on a Pro course (and will be for 1 week). Certainly I will get to compete against myself now--after destroying Chuck! No. I wonder why not. Perhaps making "Greatest Shot Points" has something to do with it; I'm certainly not going to wory about it; I know what I did this week.
11-21-05, Monday, I'm going back to check and see if I can finally compete against myself on Golden Tee again; no. Played a game of golf, and it was okay. Then I played a few games of the new Nascar pinball game. The high score on the game is 343 million. I already have the #3 score at 270 million. There were people waiting to play the game, so after I finished winning a few credits, I turned the game over to them. One of the guys waiting to play pinball didn't realize that I was leaving credits up there for them, and HE insisted that I play the game with them--even though I had conceded the pinball machine to them. It wasn't MY idea to go back and play any more pinball--I was done for the night. So I thought. Over 2 hours later, after 7 first places, and 3 Super Parties, I finished the 632 million game. It had been years, maybe 10 years, since my 4-hour game of Addam's Family back at Steverino's in Athens, GA. It was energizing to play great pinball, again, with a crowd of people watching me. I had forgotten how much fun that can be. It's also annoying, because a true pinball lover doesn't need or even want an audience. But I'll take it; and, 632 million has to rank pretty well--even in the highest levels of ratings. This was a good Monday.
The day before Thanksgiving: On 11-23-05, Wednesday night, at the bar with the Golden Tee I play in Springfield, OR, I had the chance to compete against Ryan S. of Gannah, OH on Oak Hollow. He got -17; I beat him with a 121 foot Eagle putt on the final hole, to score -18. Ha. It was the longest putt currently on that course; I wonder if I'll be able to compete against myself on Oak Hollow now. I'll have to go back Saturday...Stay tuned; or don't--like I care. Maybe you should go draw a graph and call it a table.
Saturday 11-26-05 I played Painted Gorge by myself on the card. Scored -23 (my best card score on a Pro course); 9 Birdies, and 7 Eagles (new Eagle record for me). Also put up the 114 million new high score on Junkyard pinball. And a 250 million game of Nascar pinball. I could have done many things at that point; but I chose to come home and be a good boy. I may need to find new entertainment.
All of these Golden Tee stats are only up to Golden Tee Fore. The newer, and more expensive game, is the Golden Tee Live--which I have played maybe 25 times ever, and that was long ago. I've gone online, and found where a Golden Tee Live game is--not too far from here, and just started playing it on 11-27-05. I played one of the bar's best, and beat him 2wice. Details will follow, I'm sure. Maybe this commentary can turn into an ongoing thing. Oh, wouldn't THAT be so interesting? Sheesh. Go to bed.