4/15/21
Round 1: -18 Best Golfing I've had in months! All birdies and eagled the first two par 5 holes. After the front 9, I was on World Record pace by shooting a 24, or -12 under par.
Sadly though, I was only half way through the round.
On the back 9, I immediately cooled off with a couple of pars. Nothing much I could of done. I was ball striking all most perfectly, but missed a couple of greens by a pixel or 2 and that was a wrap on the WR chase and I finished strong with a 54 (-18).
Round 2: -8 Got a par on one of the earlier holes and decided to continue for practice. Nothing of note to talk about.
Round 3: -16 Decent round before I went to sleep for the night.
4/17/21
Round 1: -17 Hole in One on the par 3, 3rd hole. The wind was 7mph blowing to the east sideways. Used a 3 wood. Was -11 through 9 holes and then decided to visit "Parsville: and parred 3 of the next 5 holes. Hung on for shooting a 57.
4/21/21
Round 1: -17 Birdie three of the first 4 holes, and then pulled a rabbit outta my hat on the par 5, 5th hole. Hit driver, then absolutely mashed a 3 iron for my 2nd shot. The ball took no detours and went straight into the hole for a DOUBLE EAGLE! The "DE" is much, much more rare when compared to a Hole in One. Since April of 2018, I've made 34 hole in ones compared to only 5 Double Eagles. Of course, they are always a big boost in confidence and energy which believe it or not is very required when the goal is not to miss ONE shot throughout the entire round of Golf.
So after all that excitement, I was -11 after the 9th hole. The back 9 however, was a different story. My worst enemy showed up at the 10th and his name is simply "The Wind God." He would peek in once in a while. Usually for a hole or 2. Sometimes he would show up on extremely important par 3 or par 5's, which can absolutely be ruined by wind and the eliminates any potential for a World Record. The wind god came back with a Vengeance this time. He brought 12 mph wind for 8 out of the 9 holes!!! Those numbers are very, very rate.
Despite that, I kept my shit together and somehow shot an amazing -17! I wrote in my golf journal that that particular -17 currently might be one of my top 10 rounds of GOLF to date! That's how ridiculous the wind was and you add in that double eagle and how I kept getting birdies in those conditions make it one of the classics in the run to breaking a 50(!) score.
Shoot an -17 today and the round included an Ace on the par 3 3rd. Should of been an -18 but lipped out the last put on the 18th hole. That shit happens though. That’s nes Golf for ya.
Wtf.
Made me go back and count how many hole in one’s i gotten since i started documenting them in April of 2018 and the final talley is 33! The more you know…
One of those amazing rounds where my approach shots were as accurate as a drone shot in Afghanistan. I was 11 under through the first 9 holes. All birdies and 2 eagles on both par 5s. That is mandatory when going for the world record. But then a couple pars happened and then parred a Par 5 which is like a bogey when you realize you are going for an eagle or bust.
The game is GOLF on Nintendo Entertainment System. The name of the game already leads to problems when googling “GOLF” on NES world records. It is one of those games that everyone’s uncle had back in the late 80s to early 90s and almost everyone’s experience with the game usually lasted under 5 minutes.
It’s absolutely not a game one can pick up and be good at. You need to get the timing down, learn the course, and learn about how the wind affects your shots and how to use it to your advantage with slicing or hooking the ball appropriately. Once you master that and have a feel for each club and how to get good scores, the game unlocks itself and become something much, much greater and I love getting in a “flow state” and shooting really good scores.
This game is more like a proof on concept game. Something you would show your boss to prove that, if given the time, you could create a decent game. There are absolutely no bells or whistles. You don’t have to choose a course, since there is only one. You can’t choose a character, since everyone has to use Mario’s uncle. Player 1 gets White Shirt Mario. Player 2 gets Red shirt Mario. There is NO MUSIC at all, which to me is the worst thing left out. I would of loved it if guy that made the Tetris music would of created a few tracks for this game. The only noises that come from the game are as following: when ball is in the air it gives off a tonal whistle. The higher the shot, the higher the “whistle.”
I dabbled with the game as a kid, but never put the time and practice one needs to when they want to be one of the best players out there. In 1998 though, I visited my aunt and uncle in Los Angeles for a 3 week vacation. Now that I’m older, I realized it was more a vacation for my parents and for my aunt, it was a free baby sitter during the days she went to work. I didn’t mind watching over my 6 year old lil cousin. She was a good kid and listened to whatever I said. I was only 14 and in a city that required a car to get about on the highways. Highways everywhere. I still remember that. So my cousin and I were stuck at my aunts house, and in the back room, there was an older tv with a old Nintendo hooked up to it. There were 3 games there. Mario Bros (of course!), Tetris, and Golf. In those 3 weeks, I got really good at Tetris and great at Golf. I would play all day and whenever I got a killer score on either game, i would pause it and wait for my uncle to get home from work, and then he would try to beat my score from that day.
My Golf scores got better and better. More importantly though, i got more and more consistent at getting those good scores. I remember getting a -14 under and being super excited. The round didn’t have any bogeys in it and i was very proud of myself. By the time I left Cali, I shot an -18 and birdie all 18 holes. The internet was still just mostly used for emails and chat rooms. There was info on popular video games, but for a game like “GOLF” on a 15 year old system, well, that was nonexistent. I went back home on the east coast, and my GOLF days were behind me… I thought.
Fast forward to 2018 and I was bored. I was randomly at a video game store that bought and sold older video games and right there in front of me was a used NES and they had a solid lineup of games for sale. I bought the NES and got a bunch of games that I loved as a young kid in the early 90s. I brought home Tetris, Legend of Zelda, Mario 1 and 2, Wizards and Warriors, StarTropics, and finally GOLF. Within a couple of months, all those games were in a drawer and out of sight. Golf however, stayed in my NES and hasn’t left since.
I decided in April of 2018 that I was going to go for the lowest score ever on the game. First off, i had to find out what WAS the lowest round in the game. Ive found a couple -22 and one or two -23. On reddit however, i found this screenshot and my heart ached.
Legit?
In the World Record universe, this picture alone is not enough to verify the score as legitimate. In my eyes though, not many people stream or record there GOLF outings and I’m not surprised there isn’t a full video run of this score. And honestly, this was always the score that I had in my mind as the perfect round. This is the score Ive been trying to achieve for the last 3 years now.
Stay tuned, as for I plan on posting a Hole by Hole breakdown on what I need to do to score that “perfect” 24 under!
The history of SaltyChip is a history of a male named Kevin, and wherever he travels, so do his trusty notebooks with his favourite pen. A Pilot G-2, with a 10 on thickness. Anything less, and Kevin has a problem. In the past, People close to Kevin all knew about his notebooks and loved contributing to his short stories whenever they had ideas come about.
Notebooks. When talking about the birth of SaltyChip, we must bring up Notebooks. Three ring binders with the three-holed paper a thing of the past and always felt disposable, especially since the paper was notoriously flimsy and would it’s holes would rip and look like shit. With notebooks, the paper and the contents inside would feel safe. I felt like anything I wrote inside my notebook, would be safe for a long time to come. In 10th grade I had this red notebook in school that wasn’t tied to any of the 6 classes I had each day, but rather was quickly turning into an idea notebook from me and anyone that sat by me in class. It was a way to pass the boredom away.
The first and most important notebook was the well travelled and known, “Red Notebook.”
SaltyChip’s Eastwood Golf 