Teeing Off into the Digital Age and My Journey with Virtual Golf
Earlier this week, I embarked on a virtual golfing adventure with three friends. I’ve ventured into this virtual world five times in the past 10 years.
This experience is still quite exhilarating to me.
I hadn’t swung a club since September, and our courses in Central Canada won’t open until at least mid-April, so this was a nice break.
The Course
The course we decided to play was Harbour Town Golf Links in Hilton Head, South Carolina.
It’s the one with the iconic lighthouse on the 18th hole. It’s a rather tight course that demands precise tee shots. It’s set up this way as a way to defend itself since the greens are somewhat flat and pretty easy.
Past winners of this tournament have been good ball strikers.
For example, Matt Kuchar.
You won’t see Bryson winning anytime soon here, especially since he plays on the LIV tour now.
The course was rated a 3/5 for difficulty, and the greens a 1.5/5.
Rating the Setup
Pinseekers was the name of the place where we played virtual golf, and they had the best setup I’ve ever seen.
Their technology is top-notch, and the distances are close to real-life play. I found distances were a touch shorter than normal.
After mentioning this to the owner, he said the course we played was at sea level.
We play at around 250 feet. That explains the difference in distance.
When it’s your turn to play on a new hole, up pops a tee with your ball on it. You can adjust the tee length every 5 millimetres until you get what you like.
Most people use 40 mm, give or take 5 mm either way.
If you are playing from the fairway or a par 3, then the tee pops up with a ball on it, and you remove it and put it on the mat.
There is also a section of rough for when your ball lands there — more often than not — or a pad for a bunker. Now, the bunker section is a bit weird. The rough works fine, but the bunker is soft like sand yet doesn’t react like sand.
If you try to open the face and play a classic bunker shot, you’ll pretty much semi-skull it.
The best way to play a sand shot is like a regular chip.
The fairway bunker is the same deal, but I find if I put the ball back in my stance a little past midway, it works very well. If you play the ball forward, the cushion grabs your club and kills the momentum, so your ball goes nowhere.
The putting takes some getting used to, and you have to trust the graphic that tells you if it’s uphill or downhill.
I haven’t got the putting down yet, so hopefully, next time I will figure it out.
Oh, and the mat moves for lie angles, so be careful getting on and off the mat. It’s sometimes pretty extreme.
I did get to see the owner open up the platform beside us to repair it, and let me tell you, it’s pretty high-tech.
He mentioned one of these bays is around 60 grand all in!
Must be nice.
The Results and a Puzzle
Ironically enough, all four of us were pretty much around what we normally score in a game. The older guy was 94, our slow player was 89, the streaky player was 83, and I was 76.
They also had a bar, which is very important to our streaky player.
Maybe it’s the alcohol that makes him streaky?
I never thought of that before.
It takes four of us the same amount of time (four hours) to play virtual golf as to play real golf with carts. We aren’t slow in virtual or fast in real golf. It also doesn’t take long for the screen to load, so that isn’t it.
The puzzle is something that bugs me, so if anyone can explain this, please do— I beg you.
I’m completely stumped, and it’s driving me crazy.
Thank you for reading :)