Putts

I guess there is nothing that will get your mind off everything like golf will. I have never been depressed enough to take up the game, but they say you can get so sore at yourself that you forget to hate your enemies.
– Will Rogers

I am trying to enjoy Tiger Woods ’12, but the putting game is making me angry.  Like, literally angry, like I want to throw my controller through the TV angry, like rage-quitting-and-going-to-bed-angry angry.

The more I practice, the luckier I get.
– unknown

I appreciate that in real life, putting is difficult.  I appreciate that in real life, golf in general is difficult, and there are lots of pithy witticisms about golf being a “good walk spoiled” and all that.  But this is not real life.  This is a videogame.  And so when I correctly line up my putt, and pull back on my swing at the correct strength, and when the putt is three goddamned feet away, I expect to make that shot.  And the only reason why it doesn’t go in is because of some arbitrary algorithm that says that my golfer’s putting skills aren’t high enough to make gimme putts.  It doesn’t matter that I’ve been playing Tiger games for 8 years now; it only matters that this year’s edition of Jervo McNervo has weak putting skills.

The least thing upsets him on the links. He missed short putts because of the uproar of butterflies in the adjoining meadows.
– P.G. Wodehouse

Putting business aside, the rest of the game is actually pretty good.  The omnipresent caddy can get annoying, but you can always ignore him.  The career mode is the nicest surprise – it actually makes sense.  You start by trying to get onto the Amateur Tour, and eventually you’ll make your way to the Masters.  You earn XP based on your actual performance in an event, and then you spend that XP on the skills you want to improve.  For what it’s worth, though, I’ve put the vast majority of my XP into making my putting better, and it’s actually gotten worse.

Hopefully this is the last of my Tiger ranting.

————–

Sony finally offered up an explanation of sorts yesterday, none of which made me feel any better about the state of things over there.  What a goddamned mess.  The Twitter-verse made me feel a lot better, though, and this Tumblr post cracked me up:

Author: Jeremy Voss

Musician, wanna-be writer, suburban husband and father. I'll occasionally tweet from @couchshouts. You can find me on XBL, PSN and Steam as JervoNYC. View all posts by Jeremy Voss