I've updated the rules to reflect start press as timing start. It is much easier for timing and also consistent, I believe that's how all the runs are already timed.
Yeah I've been using start press the last few weeks since I asked. Very obvious first frame. It's also how we don't have to go back and re-time everyone else if we chose differently.
Will clarify in the rules sometime soon.
I've been playing and then moderating using "Start press" as the timer beginning point, and that seems like its been the case from the beginning. But the rules actual say "take control" which isn't clear between take control by that "start" press or take control of the actual golfer on hole 1 (about 2.5 seconds later).
Should we change the rules to say explicitly "press start"?
Yeah the any% (championship%) is pretty long for a run. Laps are I think kind of easy to theoretically get perfect, since you just hold boost to max speed even through turns, as long as the other drivers don't wreck you.
I honestly never tried the other modes, even though I saw big20 did one of the time trials. I remember that most people's times were pretty clustered together.
It's not a glitch or manip, and OB (and sand) are always bad for the speedrun. Water is almost always bad, but a few strategic plays are pretty high-risk and still take good execution just to save a second or so. A category that requires resets for regular mistakes and only takes away a couple small strategy choices wouldn't add much.
My timer did a little hiccup at the end, you can see it took at least a half second to update from .90 to .91. I was assuming scoreboard fully appearing as end time, not knowing if first frame of fade In was too soon to stop. But for me the whole thing happened in 2:46.xx so I just went with that.