The History of Wii Sports Resort Golf World Records

[Music] so i know what you're probably thinking how do you speed run wii sports resort golf it sounds like a joke what do you just smack the ball as hard as you can trying to hit hole in one after hole in one well not exactly the reality is it's a lot more complicated than just that you have to plan all your moves ahead of time make on-the-spot calculations while under pressure aim with impeccable precision hit incredibly difficult shots while knowing you're on world record pace hardly anyone is up to the task and over the years just a few have risen to the top to claim the world record for any stretch of time this is their story [Music] wii sports resort golf is a strange speed run given that it's a wii game the way you take each stroke is by swinging your arm using the wii's motion controls the harder you swing the further the ball goes it sounds simple enough but given the tiny target you're aiming for you need to be super precise you can also pick which club to use drivers and irons are best for long shots while wedges and putters are good for shorter range shots the first run we're going to look at was performed by a guy known as yaboi be true there probably were people who speed ran it before him but he appears to be the first person with recorded speed runs of wii sports resort golf he did a series of runs in february 2015 before setting his best time that may 12 minutes and 46 seconds true's goal was simple enough get through all 18 holes as fast as possible it all started right here on hole 1. he used the driver to hit the ball down the fairway then an iron to hit it further onto the green then use the putter to hit it into the hole three shots pretty easy right well one other thing you had to take into account was the wind speed and direction it can be one of eight directions and range anywhere from perfectly still to 20 miles per hour he had 20 mile per hour wind to the west on hole one so he had to aim all of his shots quite a bit to the right of where he thought they needed to go it worked out pretty well and he was able to get himself a birdie for hold 2 the hole is close enough to the start that you can hit a hole in one but true actually didn't want to do that because of the game's internal system that more or less controls how this game is speed ran the replay system although hitting really impressive shots like hole-in-ones or chip-ins seem fast they ultimately end up losing time because if the game thinks your shot is good enough it will show you a long replay of it the game's system is complicated but replays are generally triggered if one of three conditions is satisfied if you chip the ball in off the flag or have the ball hit the flag and land close to the hole if you putt the ball from far away or with a curved angle or if you hit the ball from very far away and it either lands in the hole like a hole in one or lanes within a few feet of the hole the distance the ball can land from the hole and still trigger a replay depends on how far from the hole the shot was from so true's strategy for hole 2 was to hit the ball onto the green but not so close to the hole that triggered the replay then put it into the hole he did so successfully on hole 3 he accidentally hit a tree but was still able to get a solid birdie out of it on hole 4 he missed the putt on a shot that might have triggered a replay if it went in that on hole 5 he overcompensated for the slope of the green holes 6 and 7 on the other hand featured long putts that just barely made it in the hole hole 8 featured an interesting situation he hid it super close to the hole but then it started rolling since it took so long to stop moving and go to the next shot it actually would have been faster to land further away it's just another example of the accurate shots not always being the fastest ones hole nine had another pretty bad missed putt then true was on to the back nine hole 10 featured a very long putt then hole 11 had this shot that probably missed the replay by half a foot nice approach hole 12 has two paths you can take you can go to the right around the fairway or aim for this tiny patch of grass on the left the left path is ever so slightly faster on average but depending on the wind the right path is sometimes the better move true went to the left and made it through hole 13 is an example of how a bad score can still be fast true's first shot landed in the bunker but that meant it didn't roll after landing so he was able to really quickly set up for the second shot then tap it in on the third one remember a worse score on a hole doesn't necessarily mean it was slower hole 14 is infamous for its trees that line the portion of the course you want to aim at true hit one with his first shot but still converted it into a birdie after a nice shot onto the green later on he unfortunately missed another tough putt on hole 15 and then on hole 16 he had a tough decision to make there's once again two paths to take here either going around to the left or risking a shot right through the trees to just barely make it onto the green the right path is undeniably faster and true lined up to go for it but then he saw the wind blowing to the west which would have made his shot much harder so he backed out and went left he still got a birdie it just wasn't as fast as it could have been his first shot on hole 17 made it onto the green but it was far from the hole he had to do two putts to get it in and finally he was on hole 18 a hole made up of several islands to shoot onto he made it onto the green in two shots missed the putt then tapped it in to complete his world record speed run there were obviously a decent amount of mistakes in this run he missed six putts across the 18 holes for instance there was also a lot that true did well he finished 13 under par and he wasted little time between shots by very quickly lining the next one up it was a solid start but there were still improvements to be made however for the next three years nobody else really ran the game at the top level by early 2018 true's time of 1246 was still the world record with nobody else even getting close to it but that all changed in february 2018 because seemingly out of nowhere one of the most famous speedrunners in the world began running the game the runner surprisingly enough was super mario bros world record holder derbien darby and learned the game for the 12 hour challenge an event created by speedrunner golden where you pick a game and learn how to speedrun it in only 12 hours darby and ended up settling on wii sports resort golf and quickly discovered how tough it was to aim accurately on every shot stop it's like oh it's i've messed up every single one of these parts [Music] but he got a lot better and after the challenge ended he continued running the game he found success with it lowering his personal best down close to the world record using mainly the same strategies as true did as of february 7th he was just 5 seconds behind the record later that same day he got a run that was ahead of the record by 5 seconds thanks to a really accurate shot on hole 2. keep in mind his splits are comparing to his personal best not the world record he missed an easy putt on hole four but the record missed the putt on both holes four and five so after hole five derbien was 15 seconds ahead of true's record unfortunately the next few holes were less than ideal i should have i should have no that was bad yeah that's a little too much too much in the juice department [Music] he lost 26 seconds over holes 6 7 8 and 9. that meant he was 11 behind the record but there was still a lot of time to save true had some missed putts and other bad shots in the first half of his back nine so darby got to work bringing it back [Music] [Music] that's beautiful that was that's beautiful [Music] darby was actually a second ahead of the record going into hole 15. he was in a good position and if he didn't miss any putts he had a good shot of beating the record and perhaps that pressure was on his mind when he got to the end the whole 15. not that oh it went in holy crap this was a really good run on hole 16 he was committed to going for the right side strat pretty much the best case scenario here was getting it in three shots one shot to get it into the bunker or somewhere in the general vicinity of the hole then one shot to get it in position for a realistic putt then one shot to put it in that's what he was going for instead this is what happened nice shot yes yes you can't make that shot off [Music] the ball skidded off the bunker just enough to slow it down and have it land right near the hole it was insane and it paid off darby and was now 23 seconds ahead of the world record his last two holes didn't even have to be that great and they weren't he had to do two putts on hole 17 and he took an extra shot to get closer to the hole in 18. it was still enough to snag the world record [Music] this speed run of wii sports resort golf is a perfect example of a law that i call the derbian effect derbien had several hundred even thousands of viewers watching him play wii sports resort golf a category that had just six runs and a world record that hadn't been seriously challenged in three years when a runner of his popularity brings that much attention to a game with a small speedrunning scene it's bound to give it a huge boost and as a result of the derby in effect within days of his record wii sports resort golf had three new runners going for the world record alaska xp 2 md cross and 10 dog the first one to strike was alaska xp2 just four days after derbyn's world record alaska had ran the game months prior and was actually second place behind true but darby's push for the world record inspired him to keep going so he lowered his personal best multiple times in early february on february 11th just four days after derbyn's record alaska had a great run going after the first seven holes he only had one real mistake up to this point a single missed putt on hole 4. unfortunately this was his whole 8. of course no dude no god damn it dude thankfully alaska cleaned up the run quite a bit in the back nine he hit this super long putt on 13 then actually matched derbien's insane hole 16. after a par on 17 and a birdie on 18 alaska had himself a new world record [Applause] md cross was next he had a unique skill set he quickly became known for being extremely good at hitting shots but struggled to avoid replays and use the best routes for example take this run of his on february 13th he nailed putt after putt in the first nine holes but then accidentally hit this shot on hole 10. it triggered a replay that lost some time and then two holes later on hole 12. [Applause] still thanks to hitting most of his putts he was nine ahead of the record after hole 15. he didn't get the insane whole 16 that alaska had and he missed the putt on hole 17 but an excellent hole 18 was just enough to beat out alaska with a 12-19 is that correct he got it 12 19. boom alaska and cross would each lower the record one more time over the next three days these two runs followed the same pattern of cross typically being more accurate with his shots but taking longer to set them up he ultimately had the record of 12 12 by february 16th before 10 dog was on a record-paced run the next day 10 dog loaded the game via usb which reduced the loading times between holes by about 6 seconds overall this method of playing the game would later be banned but tendog was allowed to use it at this point in time anyway tendog missed a putt on hole 5 and he triggered a replay on hole 6 but was even with cross after the front nine after pretty much maintaining his pace he got into hole 18 just a few seconds behind the world record if he could get an eagle instead of cross's birdie he'd just barely get the record he would have to put the ball in after this shot regardless of where it landed this was going to be tough he missed world record by one second this is when a fourth competitor entered into the scene sir tyler he lowered the record to 1207 with an unrecorded run but on february 20th he took it down to 1205 with a video unfortunately the video quality is pretty awful it's not worth looking at this run too closely so here's where the situation was at it had been less than two weeks since darbian's record six new world records had been set in that time with the latest run clocking in at 1205 six seconds from a sub 12 minute run with four top-level competitors going for it it was a mad scramble who was gonna get the first 11 minute time well the day after sir tyler's 1205 md cross was in position to smash it he was virtually perfect through eight holes then even after missing a tough putt on hole nine he was five seconds ahead of the world record he had a clean 10 and 11 then nailed the left side strad on hole 12 to pull 12 seconds ahead he kept hitting all of his shots even hitting the flagpole on hole 14 and then it was time for hole 16. a hole that tyler messed up pretty badly in his record all cross could do was aim to the right and hope for the best [Music] first time i've seen him get on the grief cross was now an incredible 33 seconds ahead of the world record with time to save on hole 17 since tyler only got a par he was on pace to get an 11 20 x this was incredible unfortunately he barely missed this putt on a hole 17. so his pace fell back to the 1130s but this was a chance to get a massive world record he just had to get through hole 18. get up there get up there [Music] i am so bad at this game a triple bogey on hole 18 cross missed the record by six seconds sub 12 would just have to wait until later that same day oh you gotta get some 12. you got some 12. oh my god holy we got some 12. oh and so cross had just barely taken the record to a sub 12. but it clearly had the potential to go much lower cross triggered a replay on hole 5 and holes 7 and 14 were pretty disastrous besides he just had a run that was on 11 20 pace going into the last few holes and even that run wasn't perfect so yes there was an 1159 but the community's work wasn't done yet the top four runners were all still there ready to take the run lower into the 11 minute range so over the next few weeks here's what they accomplished [Music] oh my god what [Music] and at this point something very interesting happened after a guy known as the roadrunner tied the record with 1134 tyler just started to take off while the other competitors stayed in the background tyler kept going he wasn't doing anything drastically different he was just hitting nearly all of his shots and wasting no time sub 12 had been smashed was sub 11 a real possibility now [Music] 11 16 [Music] and then something big was figured out while tyler was in the middle of his grind to lower the record he and tendog made a forum post detailing a new strategy that would forever change the way wii sports resort golf was played pin manip [Music] the pin location refers to the location of the flagpole and subsequently the hole on each of the 18 greens its exact position is random each time you play which speedrunners just had to accept sometimes the pin location would be favorable to make an easy putt while other times it would be on a slope or in a much harder position but in march 2018 tendog made a speedrun.com forum post explaining how the system isn't actually as random as it seems as it turns out there's a total of six pin locations on each hole three are a pins while three are b pins the b pins are easier than a pins they're located usually in the center of the green typically away from slopes the a pins on the other hand are farther from the center and on slopes the way the game determines whether it'll give you an a or a b pin is your overall score if you're doing well and are significantly under par the game tries to make life harder on you and gives you an a pin if you're struggling and your score is worse the game throws you a bone by giving you a b pin now speed runners are pretty good at the game so without exception they were getting a pins on every single hole and that just made sinking all of their putts even harder so this new understanding of how pins worked was nice and all but did it actually matter it didn't until tyler and ten dog figured out how to use it to their advantage water strats on hole one the game forces you to give up and move on to the next hole after missing enough shots so on hole one you could just hit the ball into the water over and over again until you moved on the hole too it takes six shots to get a give up on hole one and this is about four seconds slower than the traditional strategy of getting a birdie however it also puts your score at plus 8 meaning you're set to get the easier b pins on nearly every single hole until the end so even though you lose a few seconds on hole 1 it made life way better in the long run all of those missed putts from previous runs would now become a lot easier with pinmanip to his advantage tyler kept doing attempts he got an 1107 unrecorded and then on march 19th he got a great run going early he did the give up on hole one then kept moving thanks to better pin locations he was getting birdies and eagles on a bunch of different holes it wasn't perfect since he still did miss a putt on hole seven but in general it was obvious the pin locations were helping a lot he got a couple parts in the back nine but still had a slim chance at sub 11 after a solid birdie on hole 16. hole 17 was another birdie and then he answered hole 18. if he could get an eagle here completing the hole in three strokes he had a shot at sub 11 but he needed to play perfectly that's definitely over there i'm gonna have to need a five iron with all the backs that i can get yes yes yes that's good tell me it's good oh god yes oh yes oh my god just barely 10 59.1 and so the wii sports resort golf world record have been brought under 11 minutes it's important to keep in mind that this still happened in march 2018. darby's record was just a month and a half earlier over the course of those six weeks everything had changed 19 new world records were set by six different runners lowering the record down almost two full minutes but after this 10 59 tyler and most of the rest of the community took a break he was cemented at the top of the leaderboard with nobody else coming within 30 seconds of him and he lowered the record down time and time again over the past month and so for the first time since darbian's record the world record remained stagnant for one month starting in april 2018 tyler spent the next several months running the category on and off as was mentioned earlier no one was even close to him so he was the only hope to keep taking the record lower even though the world record was under 11 minutes there was still time to save tyler could avoid the few missed putts he still had get more birdies and eagles instead of pars and be faster between each of his shots so that's what he worked on doing he got back to back records in the 1050s in april before coming back for more in june he had a run that was 13 behind the record after the front nine thanks to some missed putts but went all out in the back nine birdie after birdie with eagles mixed in too it would end up being a huge world record of 10 40 and given how far behind he was early this run proved that a time in the 1020s was possible some more months passed after this record but in september something absolutely insane happened something that nobody could have seen coming that changed the way viewers would see wii sports resort golf speedruns tyler got a capture card armed with a clear video feed tyler would continue doing attempts and lowering the record over the course of 2018. his attempt counter showed that he had done more than 13 000 runs of golf that's a lot of attempts and a few months later he would begin using a trick that gave him just slightly better odds than a new record wind minute in march 2018 ten dog explained how just like the pin locations the wind wasn't entirely random either as was mentioned earlier there's eight wind directions the game is forced to select one of the eight directions for each of the first eight holes without repeating any then do the same for the next eight holes before two random directions for the final two holes so whichever direction you get for the first hole you can guarantee you won't see again until at least whole nine this comes into play on holes three and five two holes where generally eagles are only possible if the wind isn't blowing south in any of the three directions if you get a southern wind on hole one that means that specific wind direction was eliminated for holes three and five two since it can't be repeated so if tyler saw wind on hole 1 that didn't point south in some way he would immediately restart and try again hoping to boost his odds by a bit by taking one of the southern wins away naturally this would increase his attempt counter since more than half of his runs were reset just seconds into it it also is convenient because of a new timing method that runners began using runs used to start upon selecting 18 holes from the menu but now started upon pressing restart that meant the timer now started with about 3 seconds added to it already to compensate since the game begins quicker after hitting the restart button over the next several months tyler took a few seconds off the world record there were highlights such as this run where he got eagles on holes three and five but missed several putts after before bringing it back with this shot on hole 18. by november 2018 tyler had taken the record down to 10 35. he had set the past 13 world records in a row and quite simply seemed untouchable he had a 43 second lead over second place and the odds in any of them catching up were minuscule it's remarkable to see someone this dominant in the game for this long you occasionally see it in people like andrew g with super mario bros or arcus with ninja gaiden just like them tyler had no rival he was just too far ahead and there was only one person who could stop him this is danny better known as the world record holder in the original wii sports golf by a mile his closest rival in that game was none other than tyler himself but danny had a big lead he was the undisputed champion of wii sports golf holding the same type of stranglehold in that game as tyler in wii sports resort everyone was waiting for him to start playing wii sports resort golf and he finally began in march 2019 dany was pretty much the only person in the world with the skill needed to catch up to tyler so everyone was quickly monitoring his progress he posted his first personal best on march 16th this is where he got his time to by april 6th it became obvious right away that danny was gonna make a push for the world record he was the only one who could do it one of his big strengths was sinking putts quickly and accurately he rarely missed and never took more than a fraction of a second to aim it was remarkable to watch just a few days later he got a run going that was looking good early he got the eagle on hole three but didn't get the win for it on whole five still his front nine was nearly perfect as he sunk putt after putt on every hole he kept it up in the back 9-2 and was 9 seconds ahead of the record after hole 16. unfortunately on hole 17 his first shot went into the water causing him to lose his whole lead still thanks to an eagle on hole 18 he managed to finish just over two tenths of a second ahead of tyler it was just barely a new world record and it took him less than a month after starting but danny wanted more so he kept playing and about a month later he had this run they looked innocent enough early after getting birdies on both holes three and five after the front nine he was eight seconds behind the record but he wasn't out of it yet because he kept hitting putt after putt on hole 17 he went for a different strategy the intentional give up he repeatedly shot the ball into the water over and over similar to on hole 1. it's a couple seconds slower than getting a birdie here but it's faster than the par and given how difficult a birdie can be it's usually safer to just take the give up and lose a tiny bit of time so he had a bit of a lead going into the last hole where he would need an eagle to beat the record shot 1 was good but danny undershot the next one landing far from the hole an eagle seemed impossible but then he did this what was that well the flagpole in wii sports resort golf has some weird properties it may look like a cloth flag but it acts like a wall if you hit it the ball usually just drops straight down so danny pulled out a driver which shoots the ball faster than any other club and aimed right for the flag it's really precise but possible to hit that tiny target and danny did at the end of a run on world record pace it was amazing and it was enough for a new world record of 10 27 for the first time in several months tyler had been knocked off the top danny was the new champion and even though tyler had been so dominant in the past this time he wasn't even trying to beat it so danny's record stood alone and then nine months later tyler came back he had one goal in mind beat 1027 which he had made splits for to compare it to and on attempt number 18402 he had a shot at it he was half a second ahead going into the last hole if he could get an eagle he would get the record all he had to do was sink this putt and he would once again be crowned the champion of wii sports resort tyler had some work to do [Music] so [Music] he was back after 20 000 attempts of wii sports resort golf tyler had himself a 10-24 he was once again alone on top of the leaderboards but he wasn't done yet [Music] hmm by june 2020 tyler had taken the record down to 1014 which is where the world record stands today tyler is the true champion of wii sports resort golf it's hard to argue with nearly 26 000 attempts and 19 world records his name currently rests at the top of the leaderboard and it'll probably stay there for a while how low can the speed run go adding together the fastest front nine holes with the fastest back 9 comes out to 1005 but getting under 10 minutes is theoretically possible md cross was the first person to get an 11 minute run tyler was the first to get a 10 minute run so who's gonna be the first to get a nine minute run thanks for watching [Music] you

Channel: Summoning Salt

Views: 2,760,101

Rating: 4.9500432 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: _XkKufyIiAY

Length: 36min 51sec (2211 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 27 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/XxZannexX]

The way Summoning Salt can evaporate ~40 minutes learning the history about a golf game, and leaving you wanting more is amazing.

[u/Krillinfor18]

Me about to click on this video: Man. I don't give a fuck about Wii Sports Golf.

Me about 30 minutes into this video: Do it Tyler! Do it!!

[u/Frofidor]

Its funny to me that getting accurate hole in one shots is not optimal just because of the replays that can happen when your shots are too good. I suppose it could be just as hard to aim for 'just good enough' on every course though.

I think I would be more interested in seeing the world record that also tries to get the lowest possible score as well.

[u/Mista_Wong]

It's interesting how much thought goes into this game from a game design point of view. For many people they might think that a set map with a random hole placement is good enough. But Nintendo went the extra mile to determine whether to assist struggling players. And the fact that the wind isn't random either must have some interesting thoughts behind it.

It'd be interesting to know all these little tweaks Nintendo makes behind the scenes in their games. Perhaps that's how they're able to make so many fun games.

[u/CountMecha]

One thing I really like about Summoning Salt is his ability to effectively subvert his own tropes. I feel like in pretty much every video he has some moment where he's like: "And then something happened. Something no one could have predicted. Something that would change the trajectory of speedruns from here on." And then he goes on to explain how someone discovered a new strategy or whatever. Only this time he sets up that up and instead says: "Tyler got a capture card." That was so funny and good. The way he injects humor into these videos is excellent.

[u/Miroglyph]

The only channel on YouTube I have enabled notifications for. His content is amazing every time without fail regardless of how much or little I cared about the game going into.

[u/corrupT123123]

I was like, “I’ll watch the first 5 mins of this then go to sleep” 30+ minutes later... “wow that was so amazing “

Fuck Danny go Tyler

[u/SlendyIsBehindYou]

Summoning Salt has hands down the best soundtracks of any content creator I watch, and then he goes a step farther and timestamps all of the songs he uses in a Google doc. I'm a huge synthwave fan and I've discovered so many artists through his vids

Patricia Taxxon's "Wavetable" is the new gem from this video

[u/SirDingleberries]

This is one of those videos you can just tell that Summoning Salt had tons of fun making. It really shines through and makes the story being told so enjoyable.