Just last Thursday, early afternoon, I was starting the latest Golf Clash tourney. This was one of their regular tournaments, held every other week or so. This week, there will be a special shortened three day event, compared to the usual one that takes place over an entire week. Anyway, I began the first hole. My first shot was great, but my opponent landed off the fairway. My opponent's second shot got onto the green, but missed the hole. For my second shot, all I had to do was hit the ball the win with an eagle. The wind was in my favor, and I was close enough that it would be hard to miss. I took my shot. I scored a "Perfec." meaning that the ball would go exactly where I was aiming. It rolled directly to the hole, and then it just stopped. Right on the lip of the hole. I guess I either didn't give it enough power or enough topspin to make the distance. So, instead of winning with an eagle, I drew with a birdie on my next shot, as my opponent also made their putt. While I would have loved getting the extra stroke, I was okay with only getting a birdie and the draw. I went on to the second hole. That's when everything fell apart. My opponent shot first, but I was having connection issues while my opponent played. That is actually a common occurrence with this game, especially since I also have inconsistent wifi at my store. At the time, I though nothing of it. Then came my turn. I had multiple connection warning as I set up my shot. They barely cleared up in time for me to play before my time ran out. As it was, I had less than five seconds to finish my turn. I made my shot, but I wasn't able to set it up correctly for the wind and I landed in a bunker. My opponent then made their putt, easily. I still was getting connection notifications. Now, shooting from a bunker isn't great, but I felt I was close enough to make the shot, with my equipment and skill up to the challenge. Unfortunately, my gauge swung wildly to the left just as I was making my shot. This turned a perfectly aimed shot to miss, well to the left of the hole. To add insult to this injury, a notification came up after the ball stopped rolling, saying that my connection was too bad and that I would be forced to forfeit the match. I had already lost! How could I forfeit after the game had ended!? I wisely decided to wait to finish the round. I usually take my time to play a round, as one usually gets two days to do so. When I went back to play later that afternoon, the game had posted a notice on Facebook that there had been major connection issues all around the world. The problem was so bad, that the game was taken down for maintenance. I wasn't sure if I had been effected or not, but I wouldn't be able to play again until that evening. Against my better judgement, I decided to play the remaining sixteen holes that night. That was a mistake. While the connection issues had been resolved, something was still off. I had a hard time logging in to play. The controls weren't responding well, either. Most of my shots were just a little off. Sometimes, my opponents seemed off as well. In hindsight, I should have waited to finish playing the round until Friday, but I was going to be somewhat busy that day, so I went ahead with the round. I ended up with a very dismal score, but I finished. I knew I wasn't going to make the next round, because of my bad start, that I didn't care about how I finished. The next day, Golf Clash posted that they were expanding the number of people moving onto the weekend round. If I played a little better, I might have made the cut. Instead, I had my worst showing ever at that difficulty level. While this confusion was going on, I all but missed that Apple had notified me that updates were available. Somehow, I had missed the notice that Apple newest OS, Big Sur, had debuted that day. I never update immediately. I usually wait a few weeks, to make sure all of the problems get worked out. Also, in this update, a major feature was going to be removed. Since I needed this feature to play one of my games, I was going to postpone upgrading until the game gets taken down in December. Well, when I searched about Big Sur, I found out that many users were experiencing problems with internet connectivity. Even users that hadn't upgraded yet were noticing problems, like me. Apparently, a workaround to get Macs to identify the new system prevented direct internet access. Since all Macs use the same basic interface regardless of which system they are using, all Macs experienced the problem. I am guessing that I was dealing with the issue while I was playing that night. I got a slowdown for many of my plays. This could have led me to aim improperly, leading to my meltdown. And while the servers hosting my game wouldn't have been affected by this and causing the shutdown from earlier in the day, the new details for the game might have been downloaded from a series of Macs or so. This might have been a secondary cause for everything. I could be wrong, but it is a coincidence. Either way, I failed miserably. I have chance for redemption. Two actually. Now all I have to worry about is having enough in game purchased gear to compete at an equal level. I went through a lot trying to improve my chance last week, that I am down more than I would like. I least I don't spend real money on this game, or I would be even more frustrated than I am now.
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