On Golfing with Flippers

In the course of this weekend's tournament (of which more next post), I was introduced to the concept of PinGolf during its qualifying rounds. Essentially, there is a target score for each table on the "course", and your object is to reach that score in the fewest number of balls ("strokes"). If your game ends and you haven't beat the target score, you record your score and start a second game, counting the sum of the two scores until you reach the target score.

While there seems to be many variations in the particular rules used, we played as follows:

• Each ball played counts 1 stroke.
• A played extra ball also counts 1 stroke.
• If you have to play a second game to reach the target score, you take a penalty stroke. (Which means if you reach the target score on the first ball of your second game, your score is 5 strokes: 4 for the balls and 1 for the second game penalty. Therefore, it is better to play an extra ball on the first game rather than have to start the second.)
• If you still do not have the target score at the end of your second game, you take the maximum 8 strokes for that table.

We used the following machines for our PinGolf...if you have access to these tables, try a round or two and see how you do!

• Addams Family - 54,400,000
• Family Guy - 18,700,000
• Iron Man - 8,300,000
• Lord of the Rings - 21,700,000
• Pirates of the Caribbean - 10,500,000
• Scared Stiff - 6,600,000 (If you're using the TPA version, your target score is 66M.)
• Simpsons Pinball Party - 7,300,000
• Sopranos - 23,300,000
• World Poker Tour - 17,700,000

 

[Andassaran]

I don't think 66M is a fair PinGolf target for Scared Stiff on TPA... took 9 balls to get there across 2 games. So 10 strokes. The tables are made easier on TPA, but not by a factor of 10. 19.8M seems a little more realistic though, since the default replay score on SS is 6M. And 10.5M for Pirates? ... seems a tad low. I have access to one of these, and I can hit that on the first or second ball fairly consistently.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

I don't think 66M is a fair PinGolf target for Scared Stiff on TPA... took 9 balls to get there across 2 games. So 10 strokes. The tables are made easier on TPA, but not by a factor of 10. 19.8M seems a little more realistic though, since the default replay score on SS is 6M. And 10.5M for Pirates? ... seems a tad low. I have access to one of these, and I can hit that on the first or second ball fairly consistently.

I didn't set the scores for the tournament, but 10.5M on Pirates was one of the easier ones. (Some of the others, like the scores for LOTR and TSPP, were significantly more challenging.)

As far as 66M on TPA, one good trip through Coffin Multiball Extended, Crate Multiball Extended, and Monster Multiball should get you there. My high scores on TPA are typically 10X my high scores on real tables, so that's why I chose that score for the target. If you look at my high score list, you'll actually find that my current TPA high score on Scared Stiff is almost 18X my real one.