I’ve been working on this project for a while now, and it’s still got a ways to go, but I wanted to report my findings thus far.  This attached file has a ton of information across many tabs, but I want to focus on how each specific lie/weather combo affects your distance.

The tab I’m most interested in completing right now is the “X22s-Gamer2s + Conditions” tab (now Flares and Trackers).  These are the clubs and balls I’m currently using on each 2010 course, and so I’ve started recording the distance that shows on the distance marker with each club in that set.  There are many situations I haven’t come across yet, as you can tell.

Now, if you pull just a specific club and a specific ball, like my 9-wood and the Gamer 2.0, here’s how the grid now looks (distances in blue are confirmed, while distances in black are best guesses):

Now if we order the possible conditions by distance, we end up with this grid:

There are many things to note when looking at this data.  The first thing that confused me is that you see a longer distance from the first cut (or “shortcut” grass that exists on several courses) than from the fairway!  I asked around and found out that the ball is somewhat ‘teed up’ on the taller grass compared to the fairway, which gets the club under the ball better (also referred to as a ‘flier lie’) — so, that’s pretty cool that IT incorporated this aspect of golf into the game! You can see how mud cripples your distance, cutting it in half, while dirt, dust and sand cut off between a quarter and a third of your distance.

I never knew so many unique conditions on the course were measured so acutely!  You don’t just have rain — you have wet, light rain, or heavy rain.  And I’m sure I haven’t captured all the possible lies yet either (snow and ice aren’t included, for example, and neither is tall grass).

And if you think you can find just one number constant and use that as a factor in which to calculate the reduction in distance — think again.  I tried, and the reduction factor differs per club!  And if you think about it, it should, because of how each club is shaped and functions.  So whatever formula the guys at IT are using to calculate distance given these conditions cannot be easily cracked!

Hopefully this article opens your eyes to the wonderful complexity of this game we all love.  Let me know if you can help me fill in some of the gaps in my distance grids, and I’ll keep the attachment updated as I gather more data!

Another important note is that if you try to hit a big A1 or B3 out of the rough, you will actually LOSE distance! Your ball won’t hook as much either. So, keep this in mind if you’re planning to hook a driver out of the rough to gain distance in Golden Tee, because you’ll actually lose 20-30% of the distance off a straight shot!

First, if you’re unfortunate enough to land in the snow in Golden Tee, you’ll notice the ball just stick and get buried. That’s realistic, so kudos to Golden Tee for capturing that. There’s no roll to be had through the snow…wherever it lands, it stays, thus costing you distance. So, a good tip to consider when flirting with the snow is whether or not you’ll be able to get to the green in your next shot if you do land there. In most cases, you won’t be able to advance the ball very far.

Snow really seems to take a lot of distance off the shot, and it should. Be prepared to get only about 50% distance on your next shot if you plop one in the snow!

It is possible to slowly roll the ball into the snow and have it sit up more, similar to sand. I had a ball roll down a hill into snow, and I ended up with a decent lie. It’s best to assume that your ball will end up buried though if you plan on flirting with the snow in Golden Tee!

UPDATE — In Golden Tee 2009, get ready to hit out of mud and tall grass!  I’ll size up these lies after I get some experience hitting out of them!