Oh geez. This has been a journey. Took me all month to get back here.
After my system kept crashing I was urged to update all the drivers. After that some issues cleared up and others were created.
But the game still wouldn't run correctly.
Then a friend in Alabama mailed me an extra GeForce card he had around and that created an entire new set of issues.
Eventually, my system just stopped working. However, another buddy in Seattle walked me through updating the BIOS.
A few shaky restarts, a Windows reinstall, all the drivers updated, and it's like an entirely new computer.
And this game is gorgeous. I mean absolutely beautiful. But now that PC performance is normal, I'm realizing the game really isn't that fun after only a couple of days.
The physics engine is arbitrary (i.e. the wind is blowing 6mph to the left, I aim my shot heavy to the left, but for some reason it "just happens" to glide right against the wind and land perfectly in the middle of a bunker on the far right of the fairway.....really?... how?), the commentators don't seem to know what's going on (they'll say I'm coming off a bogie when I just shot an eagle), and no matter how far outside of the arc I aim when putting, I miss just an inch to the left 100% of the time, which is statistically impossible (literally, EVERY time to the left even when I aim FAR right of the arc and should be a foot to the right of the cup).
Turns out the game feels either rigged or just very poorly coded, and just isn't fun. Astonishingly beautiful, but not fun.
Anyway, that's a different kind of ticket.
This specific issue on this ticket has officially been solved.
