Lately, for one reason or another, I've been playing an awful lot of Hot Shots Golf Fore on the PS2.  I popped it in the other night on and impulse, as I hadn't played the game in nearly a year beforehand.  Three or four hours later, I was still playing.

All that time spent with the game really showed me how little I really know about the mechanics of golf.  Even the ease to which things have been simplified hasn't helped me to figure things out.  I can do pretty well when conditions are optimal, ie. no wind, and playing the course is usually pretty simple.  However, when they throw 7kph winds into the mix, I'm not sure how much I should compensate for it, and usually end up screwed royally by the time I manage to get the ball within putting range.  Not that it gets any better at that point.
The damned putting mechanics have me completely stymied!  If there's an easy way to read the green, then I've not found it yet.  It may as well be a book in a foreign language for all the good it does me to try and read the thing.   I try and interpret the tiny dots that seemingly exist to show you the lay of the green, but I'm almost always wrong, often failing to adjust just right for the peaks and valleys.  I don't get it. 

Even with all that holding me down, it's still an immensely fun game.  I wish I had the manual for it, but my copy never had one, as it was an impulse purchase during one of Gamestop's buy two, get one free deals.  I suppose I'm going to have to search out some tutorials online, if they indeed exist.  I hope to come out of this a better golfer, at least as pertaining to the Hot Shots world, because it really is an engaging game.  I just need to stop sucking so badly at it.  :P

Wish me luck.