when developers don't play golf themselves.

[BjarneBiceps]

not only have I noticed that sometimes the ball is re-placed, in a different location than it landed in.

Tried landing in a bunker, straight up, completely sucked down. and when it's my turn to shoot, it's in the rough, next to the bunker? what's up with that?.

and what is going on with chipping? since when did chipping include a full backswing and a cocked wrist?
#/(¤#&(/Q)(#/(/)#&(#&¤ insert random swear word here!

[Fro]

Yeah, I don't know why the lie gets changed sometimes.

Beyond that, the devs haven't changed bunkers or trees since I played TW2002. Apparently, they are totally unaware that balls landing in bunkers can roll through the sand instead of just stopping dead (the only exception is hitting a steep face). And a ball hits one leaf on a tree and drops straight down...every single time.

[BjarneBiceps]

At least they changed the annoying starting frame of every audience animation - which is great but changing the lie?

and why trees can't just re-direct instead of having to completely stop a ball is also a mystery to me.

Yet they seem to have spent a lot of time programming physics of the actual ball flight, and taking ball lie into consideration above and below feet as well as up or downhill, it's great.
but sometimes it just seems so weird to have some programmers really spend many hours doing that, when neglecting other parts of the physics, which are seriously important in golf.

also when chipping and pitching, the swing meter is completely useless as sometimes the ball flies many meters or yards longer than what you aimed, even when you hit with less power in the backswing than they showed on the swing meter. so chipping now has just become a tiny backswing and hoping for the best.

[kargorath]

Another issue I'm having that shows these developers have no clue about golf is that I tried to skip to just playing the Masters year on year so I could go for 7 Masters wins, but my ranking went down to about 100 so it said I hadn't met the requirements for playing in the tournament (I'm on 5 wins at the mo), but they should bloody know that anyone that wins the Masters gets a lifetime invitation to play there.

Furthermore, you get invited to play in all major championships for the next 5 years!!

Idiots.

[BjarneBiceps]

haha.. I didn't think of that, because I never bothered to play for the seven wins.

but that's retarded, . but that basically just makes the career mode, not a career mode. or at least not a realistic career mode, but then, why call it career mode?

they could just name it "win everything in your path to continue" mode.

[kargorath]

Also, there's the small matter of finishing level with an AI player at the end of the tournament, but there's no playoff or anything, you just end up winning!

[2chalupas]

This post is sad but true. Overall they do a great job with this series, but there are definitely some glaring holes that anyone that knows golf would correct immediately. (I haven't yet gotten to 13, but based on past games I know they don't change anything major from year to year... and really it's the same deal with any EA sports franchise).

My gripes.
-The Caddy/Announcers are HORRIBLE. I would have thought with adding Jim Nantz to 12 that at least the commentary would have been terrific, but they gave him an awful script and honestly he should have known better or ad libbed. It just feels so wooden, and some of the lines are things he would never say during a telecast. The caddy also is supposed to give advice, but he sounds more like some boob at a muni course that doesn't know anything about golf at all.

-Illegal/impossible hole locations. I don't know if this happens often, but in TW12 there were some holes where the pin position was a spot where the ball could not be stopped if you played with fast/tournament green speed. If you missed the put, the ball would literally roll 40' away from the hole no matter what. Sometimes it would just roll off the green back to your feet and you would keep going until you could make the 40 footer (especially on a couple of the DLC courses, like Spyglass and Pinehurst, but also on some of the primary courses). That would literally NEVER happen in real life, as the hole location is always supposed to have a radius where it is relatively flat, or at least where the ball would stop in the vicinity of the hole. It would never be on the side of a major slope such that the ball would roll off the green even with a near perfect putt - I'm talking mini golf shit where you are putting up a massive hill, hit a near perfect putt, then it lips out and rolls back down the hill 40 feet. Then keep repeating 4 or 5 times until you can nail the 40 footer from off the fringe, because there's no other way to stop it besides it actually going in the hole. That would NEVER happen in real golf.

[skyjumper1977]

But I do love being able to suck it back 40ft into the hole with a 300yd driver off the deck!

Edit: I meant sideways.. You can't really pull it back that far with the dog.