In some cases, passwords are accepted. I believe if it's ever finished, the DKC3 100% TAS uses a password for hard difficulty.
I believe the new Loderunner GBA TAS uses a password also.
It just depends on the game and what the password does.
I wonder, maybe I should drop the speed goal and make a pure playaround where all the shots are unexpected. But I always have a bad feeling about what people might consider as entertaining and what not. I will think about that. Doing a pure speed goal is tricky as well because of the fireworks. A possible goal would be "minimise number of shots and ignore in-game time wasted for fireworks" otherwise I'd use a shot to place the ball at 1 inch from the hole and then use a second mini shot to get into the hole.
Either way I found new motivation about this because level maps are now available on smspower, I just found them while browsing their recent changes: http://www.smspower.org/Maps/PuttAndPutter-GG
Any opinions / suggestions about the goal with the highest chance to get yes votes on the workbench? Pure speed, pure entertainment, 50/50?