So I'm gonna just mind dump here for a bit.
I was kicking around the idea of only using the 1w/Putter for the entire run. My thinking was, if you aim/shoot optimally, where can you save time? The answer to that was menuing and hangtime of the shots (and wind but I haven't looked into wind RNG yet.) The 1w has a much lower/faster trajectory than like, the high irons/wedges so it would potentially cut out a lot of seconds over the course of a run. Since this is not a score contest, it doesn't matter if you 1w-only par or "normally" birdie, whichever one is faster is the optimal choice.
I think it might be worth looking into but it probably requires a pretty high level of execution. It's unlikely that you'll chip many holes this way, but as long as you get close and leave yourself an easy putt, it may not be a terrible choice in some situations. I do think some holes are incompatible with this (like one has a river RIGHT before the green so a low ball trajectory may not clear it in a way that leaves a good putt) and it's probably more apt for TASing but you never know!
You should check out z_tox’s run That’s exactly what he does. I think that’s the most optimal strategy since you don’t switch clubs. Would love to see what else you can find and maybe throw down a run!
I'll be starting my speedrun career next week with different games, but I poked at this and have a small bit of info to report.
Wind does not appear to be truly randomized. Wind speed seems to be variable but I am somewhat confident that wind direction "seeds" exist.
I started a run with wind blowing straight west. Hole 2 each run had a full tailwind, hole 3 had northeast wind. This persisted through save states and full resets, leading me to believe that the wind seeds are finite. Not sure if there's a way to trigger a certain seed or how it's generated. I didn't go past hole 3 due the repetition being enough for me. If this is the case, there can be only 8 different wind seeds (since there's only 8 directions for the wind to blow so naturally there may be an "optimal" seed for wind direction, but I guess that still depends on how you play the holes. Either way, if there's an optimal wind seed, it could be one of those "reset until you get the first hole wind for that seed" situations. It probably warrants a full 18 hole run on each seed to document them but I probably don't have the time or patience to do that myself. :P
I didn't go deep into the velocity hole but I feel like there are a few wind speed ranges that persist through the entire course. Independent of the direction, speed can be variable within a certain amount. If you start with low/no wind you should be able to keep it for the entire run. Same with the heavier winds. It can fluctuate slightly but I only ever saw very minor wind changes over the course of play from where it started. This explains that one run I watched you do when you had no wind for the majority of the course. It was a "low wind" situation. It can change during the hole but I don't think it would ever go from slow to fast, it would only go within the set range.
Tl;Dr if you start with a breeze/no wind that is probably even more important than the direction seed.
