get a handful of representative players and have a night of pinball. That is the best way to both decide what goals/scores to use for each game and how difficult. I suggest just leaving them on 3 ball and most goals should be reachable by a good to avg player in 3. This brings the penalty stroke of starting a second game into play more often. Try and make goals that will carry over.

For example: Collect all 4 letters in CFTBL works good. Someone could get F I L in the first game and then only need to get M in the second game.

As opposed to start a multiball in CFTBL, which means if they do not get it by ball 3 then they start over from scratch at the beinging of the 2nd game.

Good players should shoot par but rarely get to the goal/score on 1 ball. Bad players will likely be stroking out on many games. Make stroke out be the end of the second game = 8 (3 for first game, penalty stroke, 3 for second game, another penalty stroke for still not getting to goal)

also I have more info on general rules at www.madrollinpinball.com

Par score suggestions:
TZ 200M
TSPP 8M
CFTBL 80M

Yeah, I would stick to three ball as well. If you set it on six and someone nails it in the first couple balls, you'll be waiting around while they plunge their remaining 4 balls throughout the night, and they'll be stuck at one game doing so. Multiply that by several players and the night will drag on.

Suggestions

JD - 200-300M
RFM - 100M

Most newer games set to free play can be reset by pressing and holding the start button, so that shouldn't be a reason to stick to 3 ball vs. 5. I prefer 5, max score of 6.

I also prefer no target score, and only trying to get a certain objective.

goals (picking things that you normally don't go for in regular play can be fun)

EATPM - certain # of letters (3 maybe) in ELVIRA
TZ - collect certain number of hitchhikers, or spiral awards maybe
IJ 93 - advance multiplier to a certain level perhaps by getting lanes, or maybe get in that hole on the mini playfield
TSPP - get 2 itchy scratchy, or maybe 3 hurry up shots complete
CFtBL - start move your car, or start video mode
RFM - martian multiball start maybe
JY - dont know the game well enough, maybe certain number of junk items needed, or certain level of video mode complete
JD - advance that captive ball multiplier by hitting it 3 times, or whatever it is

What i like about pin golf with objectives, is that it really forces a new player to learn at least one part of the rules. Since the objective is only one or two things that are possible, it is not too overwhelming.

A neat advantage of pin golf in general is that if a couple really good players show up, they will not play forever!

Sounds like a fun time...I had never heard of this before.

scores alone are boring... objective based games are more fun because you can forced people to play in ways they don't normally play!

The Pin-Golf events run out here utilize a score AND objective format. Each table has an actual objective (earn X amount of mansion rooms in TAF) and a score objective. Earn either one to move on. The key to making this work is to make the score objective higher than what the player will earn going for the normal objective. So the player has to be realistic about their skill set and what he/she can or can not do...and decide which objective is worth the risk/reward.

Straight score objective is kind of "blah" and there are vastly superior formats if score is how you're gauging who wins and loses. The magic of the Pin-golf format is that if you truly are the better player, on paper, you should have the control and shooting chops to start a specific mode or activate some rule in as few balls as possible.

Been perusing pin-golf threads and this one looks the most relevant to post in. Does anyone have any other goals for games they like? Would love to see what people think might be good on any games. I'll be hosting a tourney at a place that has about 100+ machines of all eras so getting ideas.

Thanks in advance! (FYI I may make a Google doc that can be shared with the goals from all the games - or post it here to collate them in one place).

Where would this tournament be? Also, have you reached out to Johnny? He used to run a lot of pingolf tourneys. It might be easier if you had a core list of games.

Yeah, what are the games!

Here's a list of ideas I came up with for machines that were at the Pyramid Scheme. Haven't run a pingolf there yet though. I like goals that you can build up to over balls. For example, not a big fan of starting gravemarker mb on MET because they reset if you fail. When you're golfing, you don't start at the tee every time you don't get a hole in one. I also dislike goals that are already part of the normal high scoring strategy for the game, make people shoot those weird shots they otherwise wouldn't. That said, sometimes I couldn't think of anything original...

BoP
Metomorphosis
#loops
#multiplier

LOTR
DTR on easy settings?
Start ROTK
Get Ring Frenzy
Start FOTR on Hard
Get 1 Elf Gift

ToM
Spell Theatre
Collect Theatre Jackpot
Get clock to Midnight

FT
monster Fish
Get a Super
Video Mode

WCS'94
defeat # teams
score # goals

AC/DC
play # songs
get to 3x
collect 2 song jackpots

ST
Acheive warp #
3 in a row
start galactic mode

AFM
# saucers
martian MB
Total Annihilation

MET
Sparky
Start Fuel
# Blown Piston

ST:TNG
Picard Man
# modes
Warp factor 7

TZ
Get in bf hole
hit dead end
# hitchhikers
# door panels

TDK
2x a shot
Joker MB
Bat Signal MB
Light Lucius (lol)

WH2O
bigfoot bluff
5x playfield
bonus X

WOZ
spell rescue
activate ball saver mode
play crystal ball mode

MM
Launch # Catapult Items
Start Royal Madness
Castle MB on hard

SM
Spider Sense
Finish Unity Day
light 3x shot

CV
strike an arc
# ring masters

IJ
Get on POA
MB
# x bonus
Narrow Escape

MB
# monsters
collect # inst.

TOTAN
# jewels

max lamp spins
Harem

XM
fight # villains
# heros

SS
Monster's Lab
start scared stiff

I'm collecting info for all machines but specifically what's spurring this along is the New Years Eve tourney at PPM in Alameda. Thanks for these tips everyone!

I agree. Thus, you may want to re-think a few --- or spend more time thinking of goals that aren't part of a typical tourney strategy/exploit. ToM goal should never be about spelling THEATRE, for instance.

Here's a few more for you:

ToM
Play Tiger Saw MB
Complete Spirit Ring

FT
Start Feeding Frenzy
Achieve the higher Captive Ball levels (Video Mode only requires four shots)

WCS'94
Advance to X City

ST:TNG
X Neutral Zone modes played

WH2O
advance to X raft level

WOZ
Advance to Fireball Frenzy
Start a Munchkin Mode
Advance your Munchkin multiplier (by one successful "completion" of HOADC --- although this one likely too difficult to explain to novice players)
Advance YBR to X.

MM
Complete Trolls (lite Troll Madness)

CV
Complete X # (or all) of the non-important marvels: Menagerie, Spin, Balloon, Acrobats

MET
Start Lady Justice mode

I know for tourney players that it's the dominant strategy, and for the A players it would be an easy hole in one, but some of the lower players never shoot loops, don't even know it's a strategy on that game and honestly probably can't combo it... It's actually kind of fun shooting the loop, and yeah, watching someone do it 200+ times is boring as fuck, but trying to do it 7 times is fun!

Play Tiger Saw MB - Like it

Start Feeding Frenzy - Don't remember how to do this, actually

Complete Trolls (lite Troll Madness) - thought about it, but if you drain halfway through you have to hit a bajillion standups again, right?

Love these - thanks again for the input - can you also include how to do some of these? I don't know how to start Feeding Frenzy either

Feeding Frenzy is started by lighting the four fish across the center of the playfield. There is a set of standups on either side of the playfield with a 3 segment fish in front of them. Hit those standups when flashing until all three are lit - that lights the next of the four fish. (You can then hit the left orbit to spin the spinner and light "Tale Told" for that fish, and the spinner gives you a random multiplier for your catch. Lighting Tale Told isn't necessary for Feeding Frenzy - but it does give you 1m times your multiplier, plus 500k in each subsequent bonus).

get Troll bombs and then use them when you drain in the number of them covers the needed hits to get the trolls.

The thing most GOLF tourneys do wrong is after the qualifying is over they switch to best score format which totally defeats the purpose of qualifying in Golf Format.

Pin-golf is very fun. In one tournament, on Dracula you had to start rats which is odd shot but was a challenge.
That is what is great about pin-golf is you have to approach the game totally differently. As long as its objective based.