Career BatiGoal's Augusta National Golf Club Challenge

[BatiGoal]

The Augusta National Golf Club Challenge

- challenge link -

 

Update 10 - Hole 10

Hole 10 - Camellia (Par 4)

An absolutely monstrous challenge for anyone of any skill level. Arguably the toughest hole on the course, this season will require a total squad revamp. Before this point you've been able to keep *pretty much* whatever players you want. Not now. Even a bogey is tricky to get on this hole.

Challenge - At least 15 members of your squad must be Asian or American. On the 30th of every month, you must demote your 2 best performing players (Av.R wise) and never use them again. In January you may promote two players back up from the reserves of your choice. Win as many trophies as possible.

• Birdie - Win all trophies
• Par - Win all but 1
• Bogey - Win all but 2
• Double Bogey - Fail to win 3 of more

 

Welcome to yet another update, this career seems to just keep going and going and going.. I think I'm in season 12 now tho I may have lost count. Perhaps it's better to not know and just play hole after hole until we reach the end. It's a marathon but fortunately we're over halfway and if we've come this far I think we're standing a good chance to finish the job. As for this Hole 10 challenge, I'm not gonna lie, by far my least favorite because of the very lengthy pre-season dealings. The crux is in the pre-season preparations, which took by far much longer than the season itself. Having a good American/Asian & Co squad is 75% of the work, the other 25 just tactics and smart subs. Let's move on to the pre-season work..

 

Transfers In

I brought in an entire new squad. 34 men. We're losing 2 per month so if we're starting with 30+ players in August we'll end up with a group of 20+ by December. Then in January I'll re-assess and get more players in if needed. In this case and with the challenge we're facing I rather have too many than too few.

 

Transfers Out

My entire (original) squad is getting a fresh experience elsewhere this season. Of course I could've kept a few at the club but I don't want to risk losing them forever. I have loaned all of them out except Donnarumma, no one came in for him so he played his part in the squad. I figured GKs don't get very high overall ratings anyway so pretty sure he's safe from being cut from the squad. Also, if I hadn't loaned them out they would all most likely be unhappy with being demoted, no gametime, refuse contract renewals, strained relationships, hate me forever etc etc, I foresee more problems than I can handle so a safer adventure outside Milan is our best bet at keeping this Italian squad happy and in good shape for next season.

 

The American / Asian Squad + others

The squad must consist of at least 15 American/Asian players and we've got 16 here. So we're good. The most important thing I needed to keep in mind is that as we're losing 2 players per month we're going to need to have enough replacements. Quality replacements. 95% of the time the highest AvR players are the attacking-minded ones, AMCs, FCs etc so my squad consists of roughly 2 GKs, 10 defs/def-mids and 20 att.mids/forwards this to cope with the inevitable high turnover rate that is bestowed upon us this campaign. A massive challenge but we're ready!

 

2 Highest AvR's Removal - August to December

Spoiler

August

September

October

November

December

November and December saw us losing 4 very good players. That was hard to take. Madrigal got injured so I was unable to bring his AvR down so to speak hehe! And Hyndman just kept delivering so he had to leave the squad as well. December was even worse losing Regolanti and Dele Alli. Dele Alli may already be 32-33yo but he's absolute quality. Not the best attributes anymore and no longer in his peak but he was my best scoring midfielder. A massive loss which is why I decided to bring him back in January along with Regolanti. Both December "cuts".

In January you may promote two players back up from the reserves of your choice.

So that's what we did. Gianmarco and Dele are back into the team.

 

2 Highest AvR's Removal - January to May

Spoiler

January

February

March

April

Last game was before 30th May so May needn't be included. So it's another bunch leaving the squad as per the challenge rules. Alli was such a brute it was inevitable that he was going to be cut again. He lasted January but February was the end of the road for him once again. But this time for good. Other painful losses were Pepe and Narduzzo. They were subs and they played about 10 games each but they did really well everytime they came on. Someone's gotta go tho unfortunately.

Now onto the business side of things and what this challenge is really about.. winning trophies. Like always we're going for the top score; Birdie - win all trophies from a possible 6, miss out on one and we get Par.. I'm not even looking at less than that. This squad is strong and we're ready to win it all! Going for 6 trophies!

 

Final 1 - European Super Cup

Great win in our first final. Solid show and that's one down. Five to go..

 

Final 2 - Italian Super Cup

I'm always a little worried when facing Juve but we did great again. 2 trophies in the bag already.

 

Final 3 - Club World Championship

3/6. No chance for this opponent whatsoever. By this point are squad is looking rather thin-ish but we're still capable of dominating games.

 

Final 4 - Italian Cup

Really worried about facing Juve in our second confrontation but we got the win in a fairly even game. Perhaps luck. It's 4/6. We got Bogey at least.

 

Final 5 - Champions League

Arch rivals Internazionale totally dominated. No shots, nothing on target, no CCCs, absolutely zero chance. Best performance by far with a squad of 18/19 players, and not even our best men. 5/6. Par is a fact.

 

Final 6 - Serie A

And the league is ours as well. Parhaps the easiest of them all but we had to wait (almost) the longest for this one. With 6/6 trophies in we earned a well-deserved Birdie. I'm delighted with the result. I definitely had to work hard to get this one. Brutal challenge I must say.

 

Golfer BatiGoal - Manager Profile

Naturally this madness has had a big toll on my pretty 20s. I no longer got 5 but I'll do my best to repair the damage during next season's challenge. If the challenge rules permit that is. But I'm confident it'll go back to green by the end of this marathon career.

 

Challenge Progress - Golf Scorecard

Birdie noted!

A fine start to the 2nd series of our Augusta Golf challenge. Let's try to keep this momentum into Hole 11. I can't say I loved playing this challenge, I'm exhausted, but it was worth the effort. We're back to the -7 score after a little bump along the way and we're planning to knock it down by a couple more strokes. Hole 11 here we come..

 

Thanks for reading and hope you stick around for the next update. Should be a cracking one.. with... oh no, clean sheets. Nobody mentioned clean sheets!! I know how to get players firing up front but keeping things tight at the back isn't exactly my forte.. this could be my 2nd Bogey..

 

What to expect in the next update

Spoiler

Update 11 - Hole 11

Hole 11 - White Dogwood (Par 4)

Many golfers make the mistake of thinking this is a relatively straight-forward hole from the off, which is also one of the reasons why it's statistically one of the hardest on the course. Just like the course itself, this challenge looks simple, but the targets are very tough to hit, especially seen as the squad will need some serious work from the depleted bunch that finished season 12.

Challenge - Team must keep as many league clean sheets as possible in one season.

• Birdie - 30+ clean sheets
• Par - 20-29 clean sheets
• Bogey - 10-19 clean sheets
• Double Bogey - 9 or less clean sheets

 

Edited January 15, 2018 by BatiGoal

[Ashez]

Very impressive Bati! This challenge takes some serious thought and you did well! I remember doing the "Averaging Out" challenge in the CC, the final against MM96 IIRC and I proper ballsed it up as my approach was all wrong in hindsight. 

[Titjes]

Another hole well played @BatiGoal Keep up the good work  

[Real_Random]

Just caught up amazing results, great job getting 6 trophies

[Taff]

Amazing work dude and we all know you love a squad rebuilding challenge so I knew this would be easy for you

[samhardy]

Profile taking a hit, oh dear. Can't wait to see you bomb in the next one  Other than that decent work.

[BatiGoal]

Thanks for the comments

I knew this challenge would require a lot of planning etc which is why I was dreading it, I'm kinda trying to keep a steady pace to this career so I get my name on that leaderboard before the year's end Hole 11 is already underway and it's .. uhmm .. interesting.. actually forgot to remove Dele Alli -whom may never be used again- from the squad before the transfer window. Hasn't played a single game (luckily) but just totally forgot to remove this retiring lad. Nearly ruined this career FFS.. Gotta keep the focus..

[MonicaSweetheartFan]

Getting out of my usual lurking modus to say that this challenge has left me thoroughly impressed with your skill and game knowledge. I've been enjoying this big time, keep it up!

[forbes5]

This is brilliant mate, keep it up! 

[BatiGoal]

5 hours ago, MonicaSweetheartFan said:

Getting out of my usual lurking modus to say that this challenge has left me thoroughly impressed with your skill and game knowledge. I've been enjoying this big time, keep it up!

I'm always extra happy to make lurkers come out for a comment.  very much appreciated! 

1 hour ago, forbes5 said:

This is brilliant mate, keep it up! 

Thanks biggie 

[BatiGoal]

The Augusta National Golf Club Challenge

- challenge link -

 

Update 11 - Hole 11

Hole 11 - White Dogwood (Par 4)

Many golfers make the mistake of thinking this is a relatively straight-forward hole from the off, which is also one of the reasons why it's statistically one of the hardest on the course. Just like the course itself, this challenge looks simple, but the targets are very tough to hit, especially seen as the squad will need some serious work from the depleted bunch that finished season 12.

Challenge - Team must keep as many league clean sheets as possible in one season.

• Birdie - 30+ clean sheets
• Par - 20-29 clean sheets
• Bogey - 10-19 clean sheets
• Double Bogey - 9 or less clean sheets

 

Updates are coming in thick and fast now. Let's just say it's the silence before the storm so I need to make the most of it. Before I post the update I'd like to share a player profile that deserves a mention. If you read my Hole 10 update you may remember a certain player named Dele Alli. He was one of my main starters that I'd gotten on a free. He was a few days short of his 33rd birthday and tbh I was actually unsure I should sign him, better said, his attributes weren't looking good at the time but he was a free agent and I was in need of players for my over-sized squad to suit the challenge. He improved massively and he delivered big time on the pitch scoring and assisting like the Alli in his prime. As per the challenge rules he got cut from the squad due to his high AvR, moved back in in Jan. and eventually earned his permanent cut in Feb. and never to be used again. He got demoted to the Reserves and remained there ever since. As I started my journey into Hole 11 I only noticed he was still at the club when I got his retirement message. So I kept him in the Reserve Team until his retirement day arrived but I was just stunned how great he still looked as a 34yo.

It's just one of those phenomenal players that never seems to age. 11 greens and 17 pace at 34 years of age. What a legend !

 

Moving on to the challenge..

 

Tactics

We're going to battle for clean sheets so it's only sensible to alter our attacking formation to a slightly more defensive one. It's all about keeping that 0 so the changes we've made to our main formation are going with a balanced mentality rather than an attacking one. I felt defensive mentality was going to put us under unnecessary pressure and giving away too many opportunities to the opponent and that's just not my style. The second alteration was dropping my Wing Backs a line to FBs. I think this helps securing the backline somewhat and hopefully get us 30+ clean sheets for a Birdie. It's a tough task I admit, and it's even funnier that I was under the impression it was in all competitions. It wasn't until mid-season that I re-read the challenge rules and noticed we're talking about League Games ONLY lol oh dear.. can't lose focus for a split second. Let's see how we fared..

 

After 9 Serie A Games..

6 clean sheets in 9 games. I'm delighted with that but sadly that's not going to cut it for Birdie. Man, this challenge is tougher than it looks. We're just starting and I feel I already need a miracle to achieve a -1 score. Gotta keep faith tho..

 

After 19 Serie A Games..

7 clean sheets in 10 games. For my standards that's awesome but again not enough. I'm exactly half-way now and I'm on 13/30 zeros whereas I should've been on 15. With another 19 Serie A games to go I need to score 17!! clean sheets for Birdie. YUCK!!! that's impossible. That's never going to happen. Or.. did my ultra defensive tactics realize the impossible??

 

After 29 Serie A Games..

Not even close. With just 4 out of 10 games those defensive tactics went straight to the bin. It's teams scoring ugly goals last minute, undeserved penalties, starting games 0-1 when my players clearly weren't ready yet. It's just really difficult to keep clean sheets it seems. Oh well, gotta keep fighting for Par instead then. 17/30 for Birdie is mathematically dead now but 17/20 for Par looks achievable with 9 games to go.. Or.. Is this one of those challenges that sees everything turn against me??

 

After 38 Serie A Games..

Fortunately not. 7 out of 9 games is perfect. I'll gladly take this and ending with 24 clean sheets out of 38 league games is pretty decent I think.

 

Clean Sheets

Here's the confirmation of our achievement and the Par we scored. Well, at least no 2nd Bogey (yet) so I'm happy. Inter didn't do too shabby either with Par as well hehe!

 

Game Of The Season

This game had me on the edge of my (subway)seat so I'd like to share this with you. Juve are always a tough team to beat no matter what competition and no matter how far you're in a career. This specific match was nuts. Trailing 3-1 mid-game we fought back to force ET 3rd minute into stoppage time, where I'd given up hope already. The 4-3 from Dolberg seemed to have taken the trophy away from me once more but a late 121st min. equalizer forced yet another decider which ultimately ended in our favour. Luck was definitely on our side this night. A small trophy which makes no difference to this career but I loved the win

 

Golfer BatiGoal - Manager Profile

The previous challenge did loads of damage to my pretty manager profile page so I'm still trying to repair and restore my set of 20s. It's hard work but with time we'll get there. Just hope the next challenge doesn't set me back a few seasons again.

 

Challenge Progress - Golf Scorecard

Par noted!

So there it is. We earned Par and our -7 score remains. In all fairness, I think Birdie simply wasn't achievable for me. Scoring 30/38 clean sheets and allowed only 8 opponents to score against me was too much on the day. I really need better tactics if I'm to achieve that big so in the end I'm perfectly happy with a 0 score on the card. No improvement but no damage either. It's a step closer to Hole 18 and the end of this ride.

 

Thanks for reading and hope you stick around for the next update. Should be a cracking one.. with.. unfortunately another set of players leaving the club. My best GK-DEF-CM-FOR.. my dear "spine" of the team being replaced by Chinese amateurs?? please NO!!!

 

What to expect in the next update

Spoiler

Update 12 - Hole 12

Hole 12- Golden Bell (Par 3)

Here we go then - the hole which sees more meltdowns than the Stadium of Light sees every season. This nightmare of a hole is guarded by a lake and several bunkers around it, as well as a sloped green, and when the wind is howling most players are pleased to keep the damage down to a minimum. So as you'll now expect, the challenge that awaits you managers is not particularly pleasant, even if it is just for half a season.

Challenge - From the previous season you must sell your best GK, defender, midfielder and striker (Av.R wise) and replace them with a Chinese player. If there aren't enough Chinese players on the database you'll have to do without a replacement. Must not lose any game in all competitions until Jan.15.

• Birdie - 0 or 1 lost
• Par - 2 lost
• Bogey - 3 lost
• Double Bogey - 4 or more lost

 

[Taff]

Clean sheets are a bitch to keep especially with this stupid 30 yard screamer big/issue in this game, but par is very respectable BG so we’ll done

[BatiGoal]

Thanks @Taff I'd need an extraordinary season to realize that Birdie so can't be disappointed with this.

[Real_Random]

I agree with @Taff, the game is goal heavy for both sides this year which makes clean sheets harder then ever. Great season though, good luck with your Chinese players. KIU

[BatiGoal]

Thanks @Real_Random but yeah the next one's going to be odd for sure as I've only got 3 Chinese in the 11000+ database 

[Taff]

3 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

Thanks @Real_Random but yeah the next one's going to be odd for sure as I've only got 3 Chinese in the 11000+ database 

Try Krem Ofsum Yunguy, class player I'm sure you'd love him

[BatiGoal]

2 hours ago, Taff said:

Try Krem Ofsum Yunguy, class player I'm sure you'd love him

[danovic78]

Decent par here but keeping clean sheets is tough indeed but I guess playing in Italy may have helped as its not known as a high scoring league.

[BatiGoal]

It is since I'm managing AC  thanks @danovic78

[danovic78]

16 minutes ago, BatiGoal said:

It is since I'm managing AC  thanks @danovic78

Never in doubt! 

[BatiGoal]

The Augusta National Golf Club Challenge

- challenge link -

 

Update 12 - Hole 12

Hole 12- Golden Bell (Par 3)

Here we go then - the hole which sees more meltdowns than the Stadium of Light sees every season. This nightmare of a hole is guarded by a lake and several bunkers around it, as well as a sloped green, and when the wind is howling most players are pleased to keep the damage down to a minimum. So as you'll now expect, the challenge that awaits you managers is not particularly pleasant, even if it is just for half a season.

Challenge - From the previous season you must sell your best GK, defender, midfielder and striker (Av.R wise) and replace them with a Chinese player. If there aren't enough Chinese players on the database you'll have to do without a replacement. Must not lose any game in all competitions until Jan.15.

• Birdie - 0 or 1 lost
• Par - 2 lost
• Bogey - 3 lost
• Double Bogey - 4 or more lost

 

Let's waste no time and get straight down to business.. removing highest AvR? Not again!!

This means these 4 lads are leaving the club.

GK - Pascali. He's been a sub GK but got a better rating (7.16) in his 10 games than Donnarumma (6.96) This was always going to be close as GKs get rubbish ratings and tbh Donnarumma is well beyond 30 so wouldn't have made a difference either way.

Def - Dossena. Been with the team for approx 8 seasons and he's very consistent as any experienced defender. So it's time to leave.

Mid - Terranova. Sad to see this 26yo leave as he had lots to give but being a natural Winger he's always done superbly well for me down the middle.

For - Cutrone. Scoring 400 gls for Milan this legend is leaving with his head held up high. 32yo but still top class playing up front as a starter. Perhaps I could've found a way to bring his AvR down and get him to play an extra 1-2 seasons but this is a more honorable way to go. Top player!

 

Here's the replacements I'm allowed to choose from. What replacements??????? Large DB but only 3 Chinese. No Goalkeeper. No defender. But 3 players for the CM and ST positions. It was a relatively easy pick as the 33yo was too old to produce any sort of respectable performance in the coming season, turning 34 in weeks, so my vote went for the two 19 year olds, Gao and Ma.

 

CM - Lin Ma

Very decent for his price and frankly we have no choice. He'll be playing where the damage is the least, as a sandwiched CM, afterall, we don't care about his goals or assist but we need to make sure we lose NO games.

ST - Yan Gao

Same story. He must play but we aren't looking at his goal tally for points. We simply need to make sure he's helping the team even if just a little bit and most importantly we have to win all our games up until mid January for a Birdie. I'm not having anything less. At least not for now

 

August

Beautiful start. 5 wins and no losses. We're allowed 1 loss for a Birdie but let's try not to score any.

 

September

Another perfect month. The Chinese lds are struggling in the first two months of the season as they're much much weaker players than their teammates but they're slowly getting used to the Serie A.

 

October

Outstanding month with many goals. Even the Chinese boys are chipping in with assists and goals. Still no losses.

 

November

Even with the two weak links we're too strong for our opponents. But Ma and Gao have definitely surprised me. They're doing really well for such average players.

 

December

Twice close to recording a loss but we hung in there on both occasions. Only a couple of games away from our Birdie now.

 

January

There it is. No losses. Not one. A well-deserved Birdie and we're deducting another point from our total score. I'm delighted with the Chinese players as they did well despite everything.

 

Ma & Gao in action..

Spoiler

They performed wonderfully scoring braces on multiple ocassions. Quality stuff!

 

Lin Ma Stats

Yan Gao Stats

Proof both played their part up until January. A combined 16 goals and 8 assists for these two boys isn't anything near worldclass of course but we couldn't have expected anything bigger than this from the amateur lads, could we. I'm satisfied with their performance.

 

Game of the Season

The Birdie was won at this point but always thrilling to kick City butt in any competition. Who's going to forget this scoreline

 

Golfer BatiGoal - Manager Profile

Still a page on the mend. 1st. 500M profit. Almost 3000 pts. 70 trophies. Nuff said!

 

Challenge Progress - Golf Scorecard

Birdie noted!

So there it is. I'm very happy to finally bring the score down again by a point. It wasn't the most difficult challenge of this career but there's always this chance to run into a bad spell or make mistakes so it's a great feeling to bring this safely over the finishline. With only 6 holes left we're approaching the end but we need to keep focus until the very end. The next manager will need to bring his A game to beat me. Better be hehe!! The next challenge, Hole 13, is a 2-season journey so it may take a few days before the next update.. wish me luck

 

Thanks for reading and hope you stick around for the next update. Should be a cracking one.. with.. winning trophies? Lots of trophies? Oh, that's actually right up my alley.. two seasons long see you then.

 

What to expect in the next update

Spoiler

Update 13 - Hole 13

Hole 13 - Azalea (Par 5)

I already hear you all thinking "A nice pleasant two season challenge to repair the damage after season 14". Completely and utterly wrong (which you probably expect by now), in fact it's entirely the opposite.

Challenge - First season you have to win as many trophies you can, but they must be retained the second season to count at the end. Failure to win one in the first season means you can't go for it the second season.

• Eagle - 5+ trophies
• Birdie - 4 trophies
• Par - 3 trophies
• Bogey - 2 trophies
• Double Bogey - 0 or 1 trophy

[Titjes]

Another hole well played by @BatiGoal  6 more to go, keep it up mate. Always fun to read  

[BatiGoal]

Thanks @Titjes I could use a little break when this is over

[Titjes]

Just now, BatiGoal said:

Thanks @Titjes I could use a little break when this is over

That's understandable after such a big challenge  

[PriZe]

4 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

Thanks @Titjes I could use a little break when this is over

 

[BatiGoal]

4 hours ago, PriZe said:

 

Love to disappoint you and say I've already got the next career lined up. 

[Real_Random]

Impressive work, out of curiosity what happened to your defence and GK

[BatiGoal]

26 minutes ago, Real_Random said:

Impressive work, out of curiosity what happened to your defence and GK

Thanks mate. 

You mean in terms of a Chinese replacement? No, as none available. Had to find a solution (replacement) within my squad which worked out fine. I usually work with a 20-men squad + 6-8 loanees so never a problem. 

[samhardy]

Very nice. Expected that one to be harder. Surely the next one is a nailed on eagle for you

[BatiGoal]

4 hours ago, samhardy said:

Very nice. Expected that one to be harder. Surely the next one is a nailed on eagle for you

A classic jinx attempt. I'll show ya