TST Explores GAME Golf

[dkolo]

Getting someone frm GG here would be awesome and yeah more stats would be great.

I think the GPS is accurate enough just that GG hasn't done enough with the mapping on irregular shaped holes. The marker is always where shoukd be but whatever GG uses to determine what that is can be inaccurate. I will pull some images from Earth tomorrow to be more specific.

I wonder if the accuracy is better with the phone app or the actual device.

[RFKFREAK]

I wonder if the accuracy is better with the phone app or the actual device.

I would imagine they'd be the same.

[Dave2512]

It's not the device but the back end that incorrectly identifies some areas of the course.

[dkolo]

I tried Game Golf for the first time yesterday. I used the app on my iPhone because I don't have the unit. I missed a bunch of tags but fixing them later was mostly fine but that brings me to my gripes / critiques

1) I don't know if it was just me, just a limited time thing or if this is going to be a thing going forward, but their website was unbelievably slow yesterday. Editing my rounds, it alternated between not loading at all in Chrome and the loading but the satellite maps being all black. In IE, the maps loaded but everything was unbearably laggy and choppy. My internet was otherwise really fast and my computer is highly-specced, so I really doubt it was on my end. I tweeted at them, but haven't heard back. Has anyone had this experience?

2) One of the par 3s and one par 5 are listed incorrectly as 4s. I'll email them. Not a big deal

3) On two holes, nothing I do will get my 3-wood tee shots to recognize as having hit the fairway (or missed). I just get a dash where the check or x is meant to be. I'll email them as well, but is this something I can change on my end? Seems like I should be able to toggle whether the fairway, green, bunker was hit. But all I see is I can do it with a slider on putter. Weird.

4) I'm kind of surprised by how dumb they were with flag placements. I sort of figured they'd assume it'd be within a few feet of the last putt (especially the way I was putting, haha). This was only a real gripe because of the fact that the site was so damn laggy that dragging the flag around was an actual issue.

Anyway, so far I only have one round of data in there (and a really bad round at that), so I'm excited to see where it goes from here. I do wish I could label shots as chips/punches/risky experimenting/etc. Right now, it's showing my 5i as going about 70 yards because it was my punchout club. I hit way more of those generally than I do full 5i shots generally, so I'm worried about how that'll play. How have people addressed this? I'm thinking of creating a dummy club tag for general recovery shots.

In any event, I'm cautiously optimistic about the app. It was a little too buggy where it'd be tough to open from lock sometimes and the interface is a little counterintuitive but otherwise, no issues.

Also, stupid problem: I played Sunken Meadow State Park Golf Course. There's a Red, Blue, and Green 9-hole course that you play in some combination for 18 holes. I had to select each one individually. Where this is an issue is that the name is so long that it cuts off after about "St" in State and you're left starting and ending rounds in trial and error trying to find the right 9 holer. That was a pain since two of the 9s start similarly and I couldn't tell which course was which. So that needs rectifying. My Garmin has a smaller screen and still puts the course identifier on a separate line to make it obvious.

By way of a quick update:

Game Golf customer service got back to me today (about 24 hours, give or take). They combined the 3 9-hole courses into one 27-hole umbrella course called Sunken Meadow State Park (Blue/Red/Green) and also corrected the ordering and par values, which also reflected into my rounds so now I don't have any birdies that I didn't earn. Really great support and an elegant solution, I think, as long as it reads everything correctly during the round.

I was exploring nearby courses and noticed some issues with holes being misordered and one where the par-3 course was lumped in as the front 9 of the 18 hole main course. I'm going to ask them whether they want to know now or wait until I played it and can give them a reference to work off of. I want to help them make their product better, not come off as an 80-year old busy body, haha.

[saevel25]

There are a few issues on the course I play. The back nine tee boxes can be about 15 yards from the front nine tee boxes in some spots. Sometimes they think I took a tee shot on hole 14 when I was on hole 7. Its an easy fix to manually change it. Not sure how precise they can get with their programming to make sure this doesn't happen. I am sure with relative error in the GPS system it would be hard to make it reasonably reliable in that type of situation.

[tlester3672]

I have had some issues with our course being a nine hole with different tee boxes for the front and back.  When I play 18, if I do not turn off the unit between 9s, it shows that I played 1-9 then 1-9 again in one round.  It also didn't allow any round I recorded that way to go towards any of the challenges I was involved in.  They are working on a way to have overlapping polygons so that it would recognize when I am playing the front vs the back.

[tlester3672]

Slowly arriving to a similar conclusion. As a stat tracker it's meh. Some of the graphs are nice to see but not telling me anything I didn't already know. I suck approaching the green from long distances because I am a crummy ball striker. As a learning tool it didn't reveal anything to me.

Anyway this is the hole I had a problem with the mapping. As you can see just a strange design. I pretty much hit my ball on the line it shows from the tee and said I was 91 yards from right edge.

How did you get this imagery?  My Game uses google aerial images.  This looks like it has the overlay showing tee locations, hazards, bunkers, greens and fairway boundaries.  Did this come from Game Golf?

[Dave2512]

Yeah playing the same course without restarting it is tricky. Even then can have some problems. I did that when they were aerating greens when one side was closed and all it picked up was one tag from the second 9 and they couldn't save it. TS offered to put blank round up for me so I could recreate it but I wasn't sure I could get everything straight after playing the same side three times in about 12 hours. First time I did it I didn't think to restart it and it was a mess editing that round.

How did you get this imagery?  My Game uses google aerial images.  This looks like it has the overlay showing tee locations, hazards, bunkers, greens and fairway boundaries.  Did this come from Game Golf?

No that is from the course site. It is just a better image to describe what happened when GG didn't determine how far I had missed a fairway by.

[fr0sty]

The thing is, too, they can improve the stats and you and everyone else will get them "for free."

I'll tell you what… I'm going to try to get one of the engineers to sign on here or something so that they can start to more directly engage with y'all here.

I've been holding out hope (and for the most part I still do) that the analysis portion of the site will continue to improve but new/better features have been thin on the ground since last summer. If you could bend the ear of someone with some clout over at Game Golf that would be stellar.

Off the top of my head:

1. Add better statistical measures: PPGIR, # of strokes to hole out by distance, nGIR (or distance to hole in regulation w/ or w/out GIRs included).

2. Add "Power User" options: Allow people to designate tags for penalties, or for tagging the hole, or just a 'reminder' tag so you can make an adjustments to shots, add comments, etc.

3. Further refine the round editing experience: Make on/off fairways a check-box (like they do for putts), add a way to move shots between holes or merge holes (for when they get misapplied, flag 'suspect' holes (or just mention any 'records' you are about to set to help catch errors).

4. Release a round uploader for Linux computers.

[iacas]

I was exploring nearby courses and noticed some issues with holes being misordered and one where the par-3 course was lumped in as the front 9 of the 18 hole main course. I'm going to ask them whether they want to know now or wait until I played it and can give them a reference to work off of. I want to help them make their product better, not come off as an 80-year old busy body, haha.

AFAIK, they appreciate the "help" and don't view it as you being a "busybody".

[RFKFREAK]

I've been holding out hope (and for the most part I still do) that the analysis portion of the site will continue to improve but new/better features have been thin on the ground since last summer. If you could bend the ear of someone with some clout over at Game Golf that would be stellar.

Off the top of my head:

1. Add better statistical measures: PPGIR, # of strokes to hole out by distance, nGIR (or distance to hole in regulation w/ or w/out GIRs included).

2. Add "Power User" options: Allow people to designate tags for penalties, or for tagging the hole, or just a 'reminder' tag so you can make an adjustments to shots, add comments, etc.

3. Further refine the round editing experience: Make on/off fairways a check-box (like they do for putts), add a way to move shots between holes or merge holes (for when they get misapplied, flag 'suspect' holes (or just mention any 'records' you are about to set to help catch errors).

4. Release a round uploader for Linux computers.

This would be great.  I love stats so any improvement in that stats like you suggested would be great, IMO.

[Dave2512]

3. Further refine the round editing experience: Make on/off fairways a check-box (like they do for putts), add a way to move shots between holes or merge holes (for when they get misapplied, flag 'suspect' holes (or just mention any 'records' you are about to set to help catch errors).

This would make GG a lot easier to use and more powerful. The editing isn't horrible it just doesn't do much and being able to flag an error without creating a TS case would save a lot of time for everyone. I mentioned earlier they need on/off for bunkers, FIR, GIR, pretty much everything on the editing side.

Add to that more detailed scrambling stats and I'd like to see refining of the analysis, being able to see more of the graphs without mousing over dots.

[fr0sty]

Since Fairway/Green (bunker?) determinations are made automagically based on location, having the option to display where GG thinks the Fairways, Greens and Bunkers are could be really helpful. Paired with a 'report this' button it could be a really easy way to crowd-source corrections, and additions to their mappings.

[iacas]

Since Fairway/Green (bunker?) determinations are made automagically based on location, having the option to display where GG thinks the Fairways, Greens and Bunkers are could be really helpful. Paired with a 'report this' button it could be a really easy way to crowd-source corrections, and additions to their mappings.

They could draw the lines around the edges, yeah, maybe.

Hold tight with some of these things, guys. I'm working with GG on having a representative come onto the site. We'll start a new thread when that happens. Start making a list of the things you want to address or discuss.

[Dave2512]

Since Fairway/Green (bunker?) determinations are made automagically based on location, having the option to display where GG thinks the Fairways, Greens and Bunkers are could be really helpful. Paired with a 'report this' button it could be a really easy way to crowd-source corrections, and additions to their mappings.

Probably wouldn't take much for them to incorporate the report a map error function into the editing process. It's on the dashboard easy enough to use and they get right on it if you contact them with coordinates. Access during the edit that forwards to GG would be slick.

[fr0sty]

Start making a list of the things you want to address or discuss.

Will do.

I have a baker's dozen already and once I actually play this weekend I'll probably have a few more...

[dkolo]

AFAIK, they appreciate the "help" and don't view it as you being a "busybody".

Good to know! I'll definitely offer my help.

They could draw the lines around the edges, yeah, maybe.

Hold tight with some of these things, guys. I'm working with GG on having a representative come onto the site. We'll start a new thread when that happens. Start making a list of the things you want to address or discuss.

Got a ton loaded up. Very interested to have this discussion

Since Fairway/Green (bunker?) determinations are made automagically based on location, having the option to display where GG thinks the Fairways, Greens and Bunkers are could be really helpful. Paired with a 'report this' button it could be a really easy way to crowd-source corrections, and additions to their mappings.

Editing my first round, I was really surprised this wasn't already the case. Seems like a no-brainer: have them guess but let us override it with a toggle or radio button. Resolves a bunch of issues at once and I don't see the downside.

I've been holding out hope (and for the most part I still do) that the analysis portion of the site will continue to improve but new/better features have been thin on the ground since last summer. If you could bend the ear of someone with some clout over at Game Golf that would be stellar.

Off the top of my head:

1. Add better statistical measures: PPGIR, # of strokes to hole out by distance, nGIR (or distance to hole in regulation w/ or w/out GIRs included).

2. Add "Power User" options: Allow people to designate tags for penalties, or for tagging the hole, or just a 'reminder' tag so you can make an adjustments to shots, add comments, etc.

3. Further refine the round editing experience: Make on/off fairways a check-box (like they do for putts), add a way to move shots between holes or merge holes (for when they get misapplied, flag 'suspect' holes (or just mention any 'records' you are about to set to help catch errors).

4. Release a round uploader for Linux computers.

Basically the takeaway is for them to err on the side of more labeling / sorting options via overrides that those who want to use them can have available.

I have had some issues with our course being a nine hole with different tee boxes for the front and back.  When I play 18, if I do not turn off the unit between 9s, it shows that I played 1-9 then 1-9 again in one round.  It also didn't allow any round I recorded that way to go towards any of the challenges I was involved in.  They are working on a way to have overlapping polygons so that it would recognize when I am playing the front vs the back.

Just so I'm understanding you, does it show up as 18 holes with two game lines per hole? And that you'd rather it show up as separate 9 hole rounds? Just clarifying.

[Dave2512]

Just so I don't forget it would be nice to be able to PM someone you follow/is following. Commenting on rounds is really not the place to do it having the entire world seeing it. I would like to be able to invite local players to join me for a round and consider challenges etc.