The Golden Tee Blog

Hey, Golden Tee fans.  It’s been a while since you’ve heard from your ol’ pal Duffer Dan.  Have you missed me?

I apologize that I’ve been AWOL but Incredible Technologies is keeping me busy.  Thankfully, my absence has created room for my much more in shape, quite less A-HOLE blogger minion, Adam Kramer to keep you all entertained.  He’s got chops, huh?  Thankfully, the hilarious electro-shock treatment is working on him.

So, while I may be somewhat out of the loop, I am definitely not  gone.  And with that said, it takes something compelling for me drop what I’m doing, come over here to the GTB and fire up the old blogin’ engine.  I present to you that compelling something…

The following is a player email that landed in my inbox.  I present it to you in its original form:

_______________________________________________________

Subject: NEW CARD NUMBER

I have been playing Golden Tee for about 5 years. I play with the same 3 guy’s about 2 times a week and probably play 2 games per day. I JUST CAN’T GET A BREAK. They hit and don’t get penalized, I hit and go in the water,sand trap or just miss a shot by inches. I spend about $25.00 a week playing this game ONLY TO SUCK HIND TIT 99% of the time, IT’S A JOKE. You would think after all this time I would have gotten better. I subscribe to your Newsletter and have taken time to analyze Greatest YOU-TUBE shot’s per hole. I also let my friends know where I’m Playing Golden Tee via Facebook.

Until I get a New Account with All My Clothing Transferred, I plan to tell these Guy’s that I will no longer play this game. Maybe Pool is my Destiny.

So if you want me to play give me a new card NUMBER

Thanks

Bill Ladas

_________________________________________________________

Now you know why we’re here and it doesn’t result in Bill playing billiards.

We’ve all been where Bill is.  It’s a level of complete frustration and passion that only comes with the game of golf.  It’s a crazy dichotomy, on one hand you have unbridled hatred for the game, as well as the people, places and things that go along with it.  On the other hand, you have a dedicated fanboy – doing everything short of wearing a “I Heart Steve Sobe” shirt and carrying around a Golden Tee pennant.

As I read Bill’s denunciation of Tee, I thought, “I can help.”  I can give Bill what he wants – I can exorcise his Golden Tee demons and give him that new life in the game he so loves to hate.  I can give Bill the 1% shove that will remove his dependence on hind tit and propel him into the future as the Golden Tee player he was born to be.  It’s time we expel the Golden Tee Tilt from Bill’s life and help him LIVE ON as a Golden Tee master.

Bill – are you ready?  It’s not going to be easy, my frustrated friend.  To build you up, we have to tear you down.  It may be painful – emotionally and physically.  It involves tools, – powerful tools.  Carnage, fire and brimstone!!!! (ok, not brimstone, but a mean paper shredder)

BILL LADAS, I CAST YOUR GOLDEN TEE DEMONS AWAY!!!!!

The official IT BAN HAMMER was used to alleviate Bill Ladas of his errant tee shots.

Then we lit a fire under Bill so he would stop getting flamed by his friends.

Next, we proved the rumor true – belt sanders can help your game.

Now, without a shred of dignity left – we can rebuild…

Bill, we’ve had a lot of fun with your situation here and it’s only because all of us can relate – you just so happened to be the one to put it so eloquently in an email.  So to complete your Golden Tee transformation, we will be fulfilling your demands and sending you a completely new account – fully stocked with GT equipment and apparel.  We hope that this frees you of the demons that have so haunted your virtual golf life.  You’re free!  Free to enjoy your Tee time in the sun, cause let me tell you something, brother – there are no Tee times in hell.

Thanks for being such a good sport and an inspiration all of us GT hacks out there.  And thanks for the permission to have a little fun at your expense.  You da man…

Good times,

- Duffer Dan

After a weekend of NFL playoff football, I came into IT Monday morning looking forward to a close battle for Shot of the Year. Unfortunately, however, I found this.

On the surface this looked like a weekend to remember. I mean 30,000 votes?! After a few seconds of excitement, my expression and excitement turned stone cold and tilt circulated through my veins. Massive Golden Tee Blog TILT.

I quickly realized that the spike in voting was the direct result of an Internet bot, which Wikipedia describes as the follow, “Internet bots, also known as web robots, WWW robots or simply bots, are software applications that run automated tasks over the Internet. Typically, bots perform tasks that are both simple and structurally repetitive, at a much higher rate than would be possible for a human alone.”

Ding, ding, ding. And so it turns out that our first-ever Shot of the Year vote has as much validity as the Baseball Hall of Fame.

It took me most of a week to come up with a solution, and I have, but before we discuss our Shot of the Year winner I have to ask the following. Are people this lame? Bored? Weird? With no prize other than Golden Tee notoriety and bragging rights up for grabs, someone still decided to use a voting bot on a Golden Tee Blog. While posting on a virtual golfing blog won’t have women flocking my way, rigging the GTB (with no monetary gain) would fall under the same category as the guy that brings an entire gallon of water to the gym. Or the guy that takes out the catcher in a 12-inch softball game. It’s just that pathetic.

I mean come on, folks.

And so we come to this. We still need a Shot of the Year but our 30,000 votes are more or less completely useless. Consider the following to be executive decisions carried out by the marketing team.

The “Pig Bounce” Shot has been officially disqualified from the competition. Whether or not the Internet shenanigans were a direct results by the “oink” crew, this brilliant effort is relinquishing its spot on top. This shot will not be removed  – it simply cannot go on in our disjointed contest.

This was by far the most enjoyable shot to watch and will be a YouTube staple for years to come, but this cannot be our Shot of the Year. BANNED from competition.

With that shot out of the equation we are left with four – all of which are worthy of being in contention. Still, we believe that one of these shots separates itself without question.

Brian Bernhardt’s super albatross is a shot worthy of a showcase. I was standing right next to him when he hit it and I can confidently say that I will never see anything like it ever again. It took skill, power, luck, and one hell of a kick to get into the cup – but getting an ace on a par-5 is an achievement worth celebrating. Because of this, his shot on Savannah 12 (at the Minnesota Open by the way) is our 2009 Shot of the Year.

While this wasn’t how we wanted to come to a solution, I feel in this instance the correct shot has been selected. Congrats to Brian on winning this title and congratulations to the other shots as well. All of these moments are the reason YouTube replays are so cool, and we appreciate all of these efforts.

Getting back to the spam, it’s safe to say that this contest went no where near what I expected. I certainly learned a few things while putting it together and will definitely do things differently going forward. And to the spammers out there most likely reading this straight from their mother’s basement. I have only one thing to say, that can’t be said any better than by the fine folks of WWE – which I imagine you Wordpress bot users/abusers have probably already seen.

After literally tens of thousands of Golden Tee Great Shots, the field has been narrowed down to five. Now the rest is up to you.

Throughout 2009 we saw some absolutely ridiculous shots that wowed us GT nuts each and every month. While many of these shots were worthy for a spot in our monthly feature, only five of them made the cut to have a chance at Shot of the Year.

Up until now, the marketing team had the honors of selecting the monthly winners. It would only be fitting, however, to allow the players and the fans to have the say with supreme GT bragging rights up for grabs. Below are the five finalists for Shot of the Year along with a poll so you can cast your vote. Our winner who receives the most votes between now and January 15^th will be celebrated on Goldentee.com and the GTB for years to come!

And your finalists are…

Selection #1: This shot was hit back in February and featured one of the most bizarre shortcut attempts in recent memory. While it may not look like it, this shot was certainly planned. The outcome, however, was too good not to have a spot in our final five.

Selection #2: Our only animal-aided hole-in-one of ‘09 made some serious noise on the GT social media sites and for good reason. The “oink” you hear mid-shot is something that many GT fans will never forget and the bounce that followed was even sweeter.

Selection #3: Here was a 1^st in 2009, a hard-to-come-by super albatross, aka a hole-in-one on a par-5. This also just happened to be one of the longest shots of 2009 and was hit only months before 2010 debuted. Unbelievable effort here and perhaps the most “skilled” of the bunch.

Selection #4: Our one and only shot to make the cut from a 2010 course was the best of many outstanding Monument Valley moments. A favorable wind/ball bounce made this shot defy all physics on it’s way to jumping over the giant wall and just barely make the green. The rest was history.

Selection #5: Our final shot was the only old school course featured in our final five. There’s no doubt that this shot required an obscene amount of luck on its way to finding the hole, but it managed to do just that. This was also the only Skins Play shot to make the cut. Words really can’t describe the following 22 seconds.

You’ve seen the selections, now you have the chance to decide which shot deserves a spot in Golden Tee history. Vote early, vote often, and cast your vote below between now and January 15^th and stay tuned to the Golden Tee Blog and Goldentee.com for more!

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Photo from the Busted Racquet Blog on Yahoo.com

Last Saturday night at the US Open, female tennis goddess Serena Williams was charged with a costly one-point penalty on her match point after showering a line judge with profanity-laced complaints over the judges foot fault call on her last serve.  Williams’ tirade made McEnroe’s historic hissy fits sound like he was an Eagle Scout.  Her tantrum included multiple f-bombs, swear-filled death treats and even the old high school P.E. class standby

“…I’m [expletive] going to take this [expletive] ball and shove it down your [expletive] throat…”

Ahhh, Serena…  What fodder you’ve provided us sports and entertainment bloggers around the globe.  The idea that someone of your superstar stature can also have an immature spaz session just makes all of us humans sleep that much better at night.

So this epic meltdown got me thinking about none other than Golden Tee Golf. Believe it or not, I’ve seen Golden Tee do amazing things to grown men. Cry, bleed, break appendages, kick, scream, fight, scratch, holler, fall over and yes – hurl.  Considering these realities – as sad, depressing and unfortunate as they all are – I’ve never seen any of these tilt sessions cost a Golden Tee player a match, big or small.

And while nobody has ever lost a World Championship for threatening to shove a  trackball down Gary Colabuono’s throat, I can say that players have lost certain privileges in Golden Tee for use of profanity in their LIVE nicknames. Golden Tee games are like mini-blinky billboards in thousands of bars and taverns across the globe and thus, monitoring the “naughty name” filter is actually the duty of – you guessed it – your friendly Golden Tee marketing department.

MORRISON’S LIST

Evil Mr. Morrison

Scott Morrison is the VP of Marketing at Incredible Technologies.  He’s a nearly 25-year vet of IT, he’s my boss and the long-time keeper of the dreaded LIST.  Since the dawn of online play, Morrison has managed this filter and has constantly amended it to keep up with different generations of filthy, offensive GT slang. Until now, the LIST remained private in Morrison’s office – he’s been like a school principal playing with confiscated contraband. But due to my Serena-induced inspiration, and need for attention on the GTB, Morrison gave up some juicy facts of the LIST so we can all get our juvenile giggles out of our systems.

Below you will find highlights of the banned name LIST for all online IT games. And while we’re not rated G here at the GTB, we’re not XXX either, so I stuck with this somewhat censored highlight reel.

• The LIST is 1,240 garbage words in its entirety
• The F-Bomb is spelled 19-different ways, with more being added often
• Adding “BLOWS GOATS” to everyone’s names was the most common infraction in the late 1990’s  (Thanks Wayne’s World!)
• In case you’re wondering ASS and ARSE are both bad words.
• Dear fifth graders – POO, POOP, POOTASTIC and SUPERPOO are all naughty in GT land.
• In the 2000’s, “SUCKS” has replaced “BLOWS GOATS” as the most common infraction.  Personally, “BLOWS GOATS” was way better…
• Hmmm, how to approach this fact…  The following words are second words in a compilation of the nastiest no-no’s on the LIST. Use your imagination, I guess…  , ____PIRATE, ____TACULAR and ____DUMPSTER.
• Thanks to Dannyboy Beall, names similar to WWWWWWWWWW are BANNED!!!!
• Finally, I offer DIXIE NORMUS! Now come on – that’s funny.

So the next time that your buddy is in the bathroom and you decide to change his name to SUPERPOO, think of Serena Williams, Scott Morrison and the LIST. And for old time’s sake, George Carlin!

Good times,

- Duffer Dan “Blows Goats”