Sungold weird growing form

[sunloving]

This year practically all of my sungold plants have a weird form.

The normal growing point that drives them upward is split and where there should be leaves there are stems all the way up.

This makes for very bushy plants. I pinched out all the side shoots as they formed and my gardeners delight in the same beds are fine.

Anyone encountered this before , wondering what to do and how many of these stems to allow to fruit.
x sunloving

[sunloving]

[redcoat]

When I have had cordon tomatoes do this, I choose the stronger shoot to train upwards and sacrifice the other.  They seem to carry onwards and upwards then.