Hints & tips

Start off slowly

Make your player a Beginner - Lasergolf will be much more forgiving with your shots. As you move to Amateur and Professional ability, Lasergolf will be a lot harder on your sliced or misdirected or under-powered shots.

Hit the ball correctly
You get maximum distance and accuracy when you strike the ball with the centre of the D of the Laserclub's red light, and your swing continues through the middle of the front row of sensors.

To do this it is essential you keep your eyes on the ball all the way through your swing. A common error is to let the light beam swing wide and miss the Tee base completely - usually on the side furthest away from you. In bright light it can be difficult to see the light beam, so wherever possible play in low light conditions.

But it takes skill to swing a golf club well, so don't give up if you miss the first few times. Just reduce the speed of the swing and carefully watch for the beam passing over the ball on the Tee base. It's more important to hit the ball accurately than a long way.

Plan where to play the ball
Use the aids to aim your shot so that you stay on the fairway and avoid bunkers and water hazards. Check around for hazards, use fly-by to see where the ball will land if you hit it well and the top map to see the layout of the hole before you take your shot or at any time during play.

Get the optimum club head size
If you hold the Laserclub too close to the Tee base the red beam D may be too small to illuminate more than one or two of the sensors, leading Lasergolf to interpret your shot erratically. If you hold the Laserclub too high or stand too far away from the Tee base then the image becomes larger and fainter and Lasergolf may interpret this as a weak battery and ignore your shot. Aim to get a D a just little smaller than the length of the row of sensors on the Tee base - about 20cm (16") from the club head to the Tee base.

Make your tee shot good
Lasergolf computes the clubhead speed of your first drive off each tee and uses this to decide which club to give you for subsequent shots. So if your tee shot is short, or badly sliced, Lasergolf will tend to offer you a longer club for subsequent shots to help you achieve bigger distances - but at the risk that you'll find it more difficult to control your shot.

Of course, you can always override and make your own club selection. See Change Club

Typical Club Ranges
Your club will be automatically selected for you at the beginning of each shot. The program determines this by keeping track of your average swing speed when using your driver on the tee.

Adding a face to the faces list
You can add your own face or any other image you like to the list of faces you see representing the golfers you are playing with on the main shot screens . You need to create a digital photograph and then upload this to your PC. You will need to use a picture editor such as Microsoft Paint to resize the photograph to 52 x 64 pixels, and then save it as a Windows bitmap (.bmp) image to the Faces folder in the Laser Golf folder on your PC. It will show up in the faces list next time you run Lasergolf.

You cannot currently add new animations.

Using the Tee base for control
It can be irritating to have to use the keyboard and mouse during the game, so as far as possible we've tried to make the common actions accessible from the Tee base. For example
To change the aim of your shot - gently sweep the Laserclub beam up or down over the FRONT sensors. The faster you sweep, the further the yellow ball arc moves, left or right, to the new aim direction.
Change club - shine the Laserclub beam on the front top sensor (less loft) or front bottom sensor (more loft). Each time the beam shines on the sensor the club moves up (or down) one.
Fly-by - Shine the beam on the middle 2 sensors at the front and you'll be taken on a 'helicopter ride' around the hole