Physics
What the ball feels
Flight vs putting
Most clubs fly with loft, attack angle, backspin, and sidespin (air drag plus lift and curve). The putter never leaves the ground. Speed maps to roll distance, and face or path will not curve a putt. A hard smash (force above a finished recreational swing) can exceed the club’s band.
How shot shaping works
The strike has two sideways ingredients. Face sets the ball’s starting line; swing path relative to the face adds sidespin and bends the flight. A draw or hook starts to the right and works left. A fade or slice starts to the left and works right. A larger difference between face and path makes a stronger curve.
- Touch: flick mostly straight up for a straight shot. Angle the flick left for a draw or hook, or right for a fade or slice. A mild diagonal starts away from the target and works back; an extreme sideways flick produces a much larger “banana” curve.
- Motion Detection: the camera reads where your hands return at impact for the starting line, then compares how their across-stance speed develops during the downswing. Delivering more of that speed late through impact adds draw; spending it earlier in an over-the-top move adds fade.
- Camera angle matters: Motion Detection can read shape best when it can see across your stance. The recommended 45° placement gives it useful depth; a view straight down the target line hides sideways path, so the game reduces the shape it claims to see.
Casual vs Simulator shaping
| Input | Casual | Simulator |
|---|---|---|
| Touch | The same left/right flicks work, but face and path errors are softened. Deliberate shapes still bend with more room for a straight result. | Preserves more of the flick’s starting direction and face-to-path difference, so the same diagonal curves more. |
| Motion Detection | Softens the measured starting line and swing path, improves imperfect contact, and ignores wrist-delivery detail. | Keeps more of the measured line and path. A bowed or released lead wrist adds draw bias; a cupped or held-off lead wrist adds fade bias when the camera can read the hand. |
Club choice controls how strongly shape shows up: driver curves the most, then fairway woods, irons, and wedges. Sidespin bends the airborne ball and can kick it sideways on the first bounce; once the ball is rolling, slope, not leftover sidespin, controls its break.
Surfaces
Difficulty blends Normal, Medium, and Hard course behavior. Higher difficulty means faster greens, more break, and grabbier rough and sand.
| Surface | Feel |
|---|---|
| Green | Longest roll, most spin grab and check |
| Fringe | Slightly slower than the green |
| Fairway / Tee | Balanced bounce and roll |
| Rough | Kills roll, soft bounce, less spin; auto-club upgrades |
| Hardpan | Kickier bounce, scrubbed roll, little spin bite |
| Bunker | Shorter carry, steeper launch, less spin; wedges beat long clubs |
| Dune | The Sahara beyond the rough collar. Same feel as a bunker, with no edge to play out from |
| Regolith | Moonbase dirt off the green ribbons. A shallow bunker: it grabs, but less than a shaped basin |
| Ice | Playable, unlike water. The ball skids a long way and will not hold |
| Water / Void | Dead. Penalty and drop |
Slope, spin, and the short game
- The ball rolls with the slope. Greens respond more at higher Difficulty.
- The HUD shows percent uphill or downhill along the shot, and left or right break.
- Read Green warps a grid over the contours. It appears when you are within about 30 yards of the pin at rest.
- Irons and wedges: backspin floats and checks. Woods and driver often carry forward spin and run.
- A short finish on irons or wedges plays as a bump-and-run: less spin, more release.
- Inside about 30 yards of the pin (not bunker, not putter), a full gesture remaps to the remaining distance so you do not fly the green.
Wind. The flag flutters for atmosphere. It does not push the ball.
Difficulty knobs
- Swing Forgiveness: Casual or Simulator. Controls only how much the measured swing is corrected.
- Difficulty: Normal, Medium, or Hard. Controls venue selection, green speed and break, cup challenge, and how hard hills, water, rough, and sand play.
- Scoring: Simplified shows a running points total; Classic presents traditional strokes and score relative to par.
- Magnetic hole: On, the cup pulls dying putts. Off, you must roll over the mouth.