Tom's Blog

[flaminghotsauce]

Hey Tom. You never mentioned the name of the program Scott found that converts to MP3.

[Tom Goodrick]

He didn't find a program. He wrote one. Sorry, but it is not generally available.

(I have seen his Python source code but don't understand it. If I studied it I could maybe make some sense but Python code is pretty brief.)

[Tom Goodrick]

Anyone interested in aviation can get good and comprehensive news for free. There may be some restrictions but they are not apparant. You can register with Aviation Week. (Google it to get the correct web site name.) You can go to that site anytime there is aviation news and get up-to-date info. You can also sign up for weekly bulletins in several areas.

I subscribed to Aviation Week off and on during my career (it was expensive). Subscriptions were restricted to those with jobs in the aerospace industry or Government. But I registered the other day and had no questions to answer. There could be a problem if you are using an email account or web provider outside the US.

You never know until you try. It's free!

[Allan_Lowson]

Thnaks for the tip, it actually worked fine with my UK based service provider email account, but I will probably shift it to an on-line account that I can access during lunchhours at work.

[Tom Goodrick]

I made a fairly long flight today. That is becoming very rare. I flew an Aero Commander 680 with a pressurization module from Oklahoma City to Huntsville, AL in RW. Listedned to nice soprano music and read a download on cleaning up Vista to avoid DropOuts in audio recording.

Had a nice tail wind at 17kft so the flight took a little less than 2.5 hours. Had a cross wind come up strong and sudden on final but I handled it OK.

[Tom Goodrick]

TIGER WOODS PGA TOUR 10 FOR WII

I have had this for a few days. It is a good program. Its no better than 08 in any way that I can see. It is a lot harder to hit long and straight. Putting and short wedge shots work well. You gain new courses for a total of 28 including many courses from 08. But several good courses are missing.

It comes withan extension module to the control wand that adds some better accelerometers. I can't see any good difference. The bad difference is that it pulls hard left forcing a bad hook on every shot unless you go throth the "Club Tuning" operations. This is good, like a private driving range where you can adjust your clubs. You can almost take out the hard right draw. Not quite all.

There is no evidence the extra accelerometers improve anything. They add heft to the controller making it tougher to play tennis. For the first time in many months I lose tennis games.

If it turns your on, you can play in the rain.

I went from hitting 330-340 yard drives to hitting 230-265 yard drives that often veer left. It was a birthday/father's day gift.

It takes a lot of arm effort to swing hard. I usually get 70-80% power in my swing. I have seen 100% on rare occasions.

But I have no trouble beating Donatello.

It's nice to have progress. I was almost getting tired of having over $4 million beating all the pros most of the time.

[flaminghotsauce]

Hmm. So it sounds like it's more realistic.

I've not played my Tiger Woods golf for a good while. I like it, but I don't like taking the time. I will play Wii sports golf a couple of times per week, though.

I actually have been getting out and playing real golf lately. While shopping for funeral clothes for the youngest children, I found a set of irons, a 5W, and a bag for $15 at a local Salvation Army. The grips were all new, and this is less than regripping my old clubs. So I bought them and have now played two rounds of golf with them.

They are a game changer. The irons have just a bit more weight around the bottom and feel hefty, and the 5W is a bigger head than my old one. I've dropped a LOT of strokes off my typical game. I used to shoot in the mid 80's when I was playing regularly, but in the last few years I was more like 110-ish range. My short game had vanished, my irons from the fairway felt like I was hitting rocks and stones. The only thing I could hit was my driver. But now I am hitting even the long irons well.

I even had a Wii game like moment the other day. I had rolled my second shot right of the green on a par four. It settled deep down in some four or five inch grass next to a tree. I aimed for landing the chip just on the front edge of the left-sloping green so it could roll up close. I hit it exactly at the spot I was aiming for. Like a quarter-sized light spot in the grass. It then rolled over, and turning left down the slope, chased the line and rolled in for a birdie. Unreal! Tiger would have been proud of that shot.

But reality set back in on the next tee.

[Bill Von Sennet]

We ordered Woods 2010.

Courses added - Tornberry (2009 British Open), Bethpage Black (2009 US Open), Hazeltine (2009 PGA Championship), Bay Hill (Arnie Palmers Invitational) Bay Hill may have been in TW 2009, but its not in my current TW 2008.

Pro's added Rocco Mediate and Anthony Kim.


We should get it by Friday.

[Tom Goodrick]

I hope you can enjoy it without hurting yourself. The swing is different and seems to require more vigorous action than the swing in PGA 08. There is no "num-chuck" swing where you essentially dial in a swing with a joystick. My son Craig liked to use that on PGA 08 but then he works all day on his feet.

You might be able to swing one-handed while sitting in an armless dining chair. One thing that is needed is that the swing must start aimed at a ball on the floor and then must pass through the same spot after the backswing. The other thing is that the swing must be fast. I take a normal stance addressing the ball just back from my left foot a few inches. I hold the wand with both hands ina locked grip but make sure I can wiggle the wand fore and aft because that is part of getting the full power. I have to move my right foot back a little from its moderately spread position. During the backswing I rotate my shoulders so that at the max position I am looking straight over my left shoulder at the ball. Then I try to swing easy but fast pulling in my arms slightly so the wand passes over the ball no lower than when I started the swing. i flick my wrists forward as the wand passes the ball. This is very strenuous and it is a trick to remain balanced during this. I often stumble one way or the other after the swing.

the swing is wearing on the fingers, wrists, arms, shoulders and you have to be careful not to mess up your back.

For all this effort I often get 100% power (never more) and that gives my drive 260 yards on a level fairway with no wind. The only place you get level fairways is at Doral so that is where I practice driving. Unfortunately, in this version you cannot turn off the wind. It is always at least light and variable - up to 8 mph.

As I had in PGA 08 I made a special course named TEST where the first nine holes are all par 5's at Doral (except for the 9th which is a par 5 at Banff (beautiful course)). This course makes it easy to measure your drives. The back 9 are all par 3's from various courses for check iron accuracy and for putting practice. The 18th is the 18th at Pebble Beach.

There is one new feature you will like and will probably find absolutely necessary as I did. Some of the new extensions for wands (with extra accelerometers) shoot straight. Scott has one of those. But mine was biased strongly to a draw with the ball ending up 60 yards left of center even when I biased it for a fade by holding the wand rotated 45 degrees clockwise (on its axis). This is why they included a new feature called Club Tuning.

Club Tuning allows you to check each club (including all drivers (8.0 to 10.5 degree loft) for four different things including fade-draw. You first select Driver and then try all the different lofts until you get one you like. This is like a driving range with a marked scale and a target circle centered at the nominal distance for the club. You hit away, adjusting your swing and then tuning the clubs. In my case I have all the woods biased full right for a fade. This lets me hit them straight. (Even with this I have to rotate the driver for a fade to hit straight.) The tuning changes you make to each club stay with you when you play with YOUR bag of clubs.

Unlike in PGA08, I see no easy way of unlocking courses in PGA 10. You have to play tournaments at those courses AND WIN!

I have been having a lot of fun playing the 17 unlocked courses from the Blue Tees. On any Tournament, you must play from the Black Tees and that means there will be times you can't even hit to the fairway! Whenever you play with an AI player, you can make about $950 when you win even from the Blue Tees. That is what I have been doing. I enjoy beating the cocky Donatello.

I now own a complete set of Cleveland clubs so I get $700 from sponsor's fee anytime I play and lose a Tournament. My character - a little slimmer than myself but I am catching up with him - looks rather dapper in clothing from the Pro Shop.

I have lost 5 lbs in the last week.

[Tom Goodrick]

One course I was sorry to see missing from PGA 10 was The Falls in Henderson NV. But yesterday I played its replacement - Wolf Creek, also in Henderson. That is a truly amazing course. There are at least as many large elevation changes as The Falls plus more interesting hazaards such as such as water in steep canyons. On the 5th hole (I think) checking my tee shot showed the driver would work to drop 108 ft and land on the fairway not far from the green. But my shot landed short on a desert knoll protruding into the three-D trajectory and that was OB. I had to aim 90 degrees right with a medium iron to drop one on the fairway. I shot 74. Donatello shot 90.

[Tom Goodrick]

In the past two days I have had some fun with PGA 10 but have also had some dissappointments. I had played Sawgrass as the first course played in this version. I scored 78 and Donatello scored 80 from the blue tees. Sawgrass is the second amatuer/PGA tournament on the schedule so, after playing most of the other courses, I decided to tackle the tournament. First i played a practice game with Donatello using the black tees. I scored 68 or 4 under par. Dom scored his usual 80.

In the tournament I scored +8. I had several 3-putts and a couple 4-putts. I always have played using "Presision Putting". Once again they started me on the first hole with "Classic Putting" in which the ball does not go far. (There is nothing "Classic" about it except it was invented for PGA '09 which most of us boycotted because of the lousy putting.) To my surprize I was invited back for the second day. I have not returned and won't for quite a while. The next day I played another practice round from the black tees. (All tournaments must be played from the black tees where it is sometimes hard to reach the fairway with your tee shot.) I quite the practice round after 9 holes when my score was 44 or 8 over par. I had trouble reaching the fairways and missed several close putts.

So I took Donatello to Scotland where we were joined bu Hamish McGregor (wearing kilts) for a round of 'skins" at Turnberry (from the blue tees). That was great fun. I won $825, Dom won $325 and Ham won $300. This always makes for an interesting game as the pot accumulates when holes are tied and pots become more valuable near the end. (No stroke score is kept.) Putting ends as soon as there is a tie or no remaining putts can win the hole.

We were serenaded by bagpipes on the 18th green.

Then later that day reality came crashing back when I tried Pebble Beach from the blue tees and shot 78.

[Tom Goodrick]

There is a summary of PGA 10's features at:

www.oobgolf.com/content/reviews/product+reviews/1-2804-Tiger_Woods_2010_Review_Wii.html

The writer has something to do with GOLF Magazine.

I take issue with it in a few aspects. The idea that you can turn it on and play all those nice new courses, including Beth Page, is not correct. There are two ways to start playing. One is to make an image of yourself that will serve to accumulate winnings and points that enhance your abilities. This person is barred from 10 of the courses until such time as they become "unlocked." I have yet to learn how to unlock these courses. I asume you must either win a tournament on the course or score in the top 10. I suspect you have to win.

The second way to start playing is to click on "Play Now." You can do this and start playing at Banff. But you could start playing at Banff with the image you make of yourself. This way you will look just like Tiger Woods (but will not play like him). I could not find any way to select various courses in this mode. The first course in the list is Banff and that is what you get.

You can in fact play Beth Page at the start with your image because, while it is locked, it is the first scheduled tournament you can play. But 1) you will play from the black tees and 2) you will do so poorly that you won't be invited back so there is no way you can come back later and practice.

I should clarify what is meant by "playing a tournament." one selection you can make is "game mode" where you selct the type of scoring, the number of players, pick yourself and then up to four computer-controlled or "AI" players, select a course and go play. When you do this, you see yourself and each of the other players hitting the ball from tee to green. It is very much like watching golf on TV except that you are involved. You see how you are doing compared to the others. If they do well, or do poorly, you see it. BUT when playing a tournament, you see no one but yourself and names on the leaderboard. The scores of the other players change "randomly." But there is a relation to what you do. As I saw in PGA 08 where I improved considerably during the first few months, when you start doing well, the others will do well too. I started setting course records at all the courses that were extremely low - like 52 which is unheard of in PGA events. When I did, the next round would show all the others moving down in the score until on the third round, half the field was below 56. The lowest ever shot in a real PGA tournament was 59. So what do your think the computer was doing? Right. It was making up new numbers that were close to my scores to give me some competition. So now I do not trust any opponent I can't see while he plays.

If you don't mind playing from the blue tees and 3-putting now and then, you will enjoy this game and get some exercise doing it. But don't expect to move up through the ranks of the PGA.

[Tom Goodrick]

Here's a bug report on PGA 10. (I treid sending it to EASports but they did not want to hear about it.

Get four golfers together, 3 being cpu-controlled, and play just the third hole at Fancourt. You will be the only one who can finish the hole. It sure makes the "Pros" look stupid.

[Bill Von Sennet]

We received our Tiger Woods PGA 10 yesterday.

Took me awhile to make my picture, and I couldn't come close to my TW08 look.

Glad I got a new hip last year, because I can't play it sitting down.

It took me until today to find out how to play the locked courses.

Click the Top button "Play" and then you can select any course. I didn't see it at first, and every time I tried I ended up at Bannf. But after you select the number of golfers, scroll down to the second page and you can select any course.

I just played Rocco Mediate on the first hole at Oakmont. I'm having a period of adjustment with the precision putting. Often I swing it too fast and go way past the hole. But I am improving.

Before I figured out how to play any course, I tried a couple of the Challenges. I won the easy one at Bay Hill, but flunked on the medium one. At Oakmont I even lost the easy one.

The driving and iron shots are much more realistic. I get 100% some times, usually in the 95% range, some times I flub them and come up far short.

[Tom Goodrick]

Thanks for that info. I'll use it tomorrow.

I have enjoyed the Skins games with Donatello and McGregor. But the total pot on those was only $1450. I played Colin Montgomery and Jim Furyk in a Skins game and found that I could do better than I thought and tghat the total pot was $5850. I got $2550, Monty got $3000 and Furyk got $300. Monty generally out drove me but I sank a lot of putts. We tied a lot of holes which made for big pots on the next holes.

Still, the easy way to get money quick is to play Donatello or one of the other amateurs in 2-man stroke rounds.

Glad to hear you can drive all right.