The PGA Tarheel/WorldSwing recorded round 2022-2023 golf tour is now officially over.
Introduction
WorldSwing - What is that? A decade and a half ago or so I used to run a tour called the "WorldSwing" which allowed players to earn points from competition rated by stroke score, handicap score and 'special events' like closest to pin contests, longest drives and such. Also, sometimes I would play a recorded round as a 'professional player' and load it up for people to compete against in match play for points. I even brainstormed some crazy things like a sandtrap contest, where I would highlight a sandtrap on a hole with a screenshot, and players could opt to drive into that trap and then save their .shot file to submit to see closest to pin from trap. Sometimes I would even post a picture of a pga player and challenge people for a bonus point to say who it was, etc. I had about 15 regular players at the time and I really loved running it. We usually played 4 rounds a month. With a 'season' being 6 months. I got the idea of the name "WorldSwing" as a play on the "West Coast Swing" of the PGA season, but I was not limiting my tour geographically nor to real courses. Thus the name...
I initially wanted to have some of these ideas into this recorded round tour, but quickly realized the number of JN6ers was too low to support this.
I've really enjoyed this little journey which commenced on Friday, September 30, 2022 after I had watched the President's Cup on television. It was just around that time I rediscovered JN6 after a very long hiatus from the game and when after downloading the .zip file here pleasantly discovered how smooth the game runs on my new modern computer. Over time, my idea evolved from playing just the PGA schedule into shuffling in opportunities to play bonus one round events on some other courses to mix it up a bit during periods where the PGA was on break or to celebrate a holiday. I called these the "WorldSwing" events or 'vacation club'
Over this year, I have played more JN6 in one year than I ever did previously, even when I first started playing it, before children. I'm probably playing better than I ever did as well, but only just. Its been nice to watch my skills slowly return to where they were a decade ago.
At the start, I had no idea the size of the JN6 community still present, so I just put this 'blog tour' out there to fish in the pond and find some camaraderie, but it has actually become more of a personal journey of sorts. Thankfully, Bradthedad has been running the concurrent old timers tour which has brought me much of what I was missing. I'm not sure who, or how many people played along with my tour, but I see people have downloaded some of my recorded rounds, so I'm hopeful I gave some value to the community. I also hope that someday people will accidently discover JN6, and use my rounds to feel less alone, and to have a guided tour of many great courses.
------------------
So here are some numbers:
196 rounds of golf played
71 uniquely named different courses played
JN6 had 26 of 48 real courses the PGA visited
I hit an average of 61.72 per 18 holes played
Average par/course 71.54
I hit 1 Ace and 2 Double Eagles this season
I used 'real world' play conditions and turns out to be a 1.92 wind rating for the average winds (mild is 1, gusty is 4)
Average course rating (1 terrible 10 incredible): 9.16 (based on Zipadee and my own rating scales)
Most represented designer:
Terry Armstrong - 14 events
I used alternate versions of courses for two events: Augusta and Sawgrass
I majorly goofed once: East Lake was in our catalog and I missed it until round 3
BIGGEST MISSING COURSES
I was most disappointed that JN6 doesnt have
Silverado and
Innisbrook Copperhead. I think these are the most glaring omissions this season of real world courses. I wish we had Renaissance and Congaree too to a lesser degree.
-----------------
A lot of designers have been represented in this year of golf and I thank all of those still living and still creating for the love put into each of them. Many courses I played were ones I somehow never played back in the old days and by playing them now, I felt like I was getting the opportunity to pay a tribute to the designs publicly. I did not play a single course that I didnt think was an outstanding work of art. The average course rating reflects that. Most of them received four rounds of play, and I can't name a single that I wouldn't want to play four more times.
Terry Armstrong has designed a huge number of real PGA courses, for which I am ever grateful. Without these, this PGA tour would have been mostly a fantasy tour. Other designers have made plenty of real world designs, and I regret not playing them, but the tour either chose not to go there for the year or abandoned the venue years ago. I will get to these courses eventually...!
-----------------
One limitation of JN6, as compared with something like PGA 2023, aside from modern vs old graphics (and btw, JN6 still looks great) is that weather conditions can only be represented with hard/normal/soft greens and wind speed. To provide a bit more environment, I chose to add fog in to varying degrees to represent the rain coming down when appropriate. Overall, the challenge worked out well. Wind pretty much averaged to Medium winds, but I had plenty of strong wind events to keep it interesting, and I think once I had a gusty day to drive me mad. The static JN6 weather environment otherwise doesn't turn me off.
Graphically, modern games have moving trees, beautiful recreations with accurate course objects, and rough/sandtraps that are fairly realistic and difficult to play from. I played PGA 2023 a lot last fall while I was playing JN6 on this tour, but oddly enough, I got bored with PGA 2023 in the early winter, and ended up only playing JN6. Its hard to explain why, but I think aside from nostalgia, I find JN6 a little less of a brain burn while maintaining the excitement that comes from a good shot. I find the moderns have their own challenges just as JN6 still does too. I played pga 2023 1 notch from the highest settings and hit about the same scores I hit on JN6. The maximum settings on PGA 23 however just irritated me and made it not fun, which probably would be how I would feel if I played a very fast meter on JN6. I'm not looking to feel like I do on a real golf course (where I'm hitting high 90's at best); I'm looking to just enjoy a fun game! I'm a terrible real golfer...my skill is in running.
So it all comes down to this: I enjoy JN6 for the gameplay, the good memories, huge catalog of courses, and mostly the portability. By this, I mean that I have all the courses on my hard drive and can take the computer with me and play it WITHOUT REQUIRING AN INTERNET CONNECTION. PGA 23 requires the course be downloaded from server each time you play it (I use playstation) and so is useless to me on vacation.
Mostly, its the names associated with the game. Anytime I load up a course, I pause to think about who designed it and think back to memories on the bulletin boards of conversations about the game. So many people are not with us anymore, either from natural course of life or going to another game, but each time I play JN6, I get transported back to good times.
--------------------
This has been fun, and I am no less enchanted with the game after 196 rounds of play than I was at the first tee shot.
Goodbye PGAWorldSwing 2022-2023
So whats next? Well, I will shortly announce my next year long project. I would like to take on the ambition of one more year, but this time to play a bigger variety from around the world, fantasy and real courses. Stay tuned...
-------------------
LOOK BELOW
Following is a fun look at the introduction splash screens of every course I played this year
