Simulator vs the real thing

[uitar9]

My wife and I are getting antsy to get outdoors so have tried a couple of simulator 18's the past few weeks. Pebble Beach and Troon North

A lot of fun. I realize with a 10 ft gimmie and the fact that you are always shooting from a good lie (the mat) scores have to be better than outdoors. Hit a few trees tho. lol

But how much better?

I've spent all winter working on target shooting for short game and putting indoors. Yesterday, On the sim, my short game was fairly good, managed to hole a few and shot an 88 from the men's blues.

Can't wait to see how winter practice translates outdoors.

[Lihu]

11 minutes ago, uitar9 said:

My wife and I are getting antsy to get outdoors so have tried a couple of simulator 18's the past few weeks. Pebble Beach and Troon North

A lot of fun. I realize with a 10 ft gimmie and the fact that you are always shooting from a good lie (the mat) scores have to be better than outdoors. Hit a few trees tho. lol

But how much better?

I've spent all winter working on target shooting for short game and putting indoors. Yesterday, On the sim, my short game was fairly good, managed to hole a few and shot an 88 from the men's blues.

Can't wait to see how winter practice translates outdoors.

I'm not sure how much "better" a flat lie is, but you often hear the phrase "I hit like a pro on the range, but like crap on the course."

Once you get used to instinctively choking up or down on where you grip the club, I think it gets easier. You still have clumps of grass or divot holes that the balls usually stop near or in and other terrible lies which lead many golfers to other types of lie improvements or just plain lies.

[uitar9]

Thanks Lihu. Haven't heard that phrase. Probably what I'll discover once I get outdoors.

[shanksalot]

Not to change the subject a little, but that reminded me of something that happened over twenty years ago. My wife and I were at our local club about to play a game on the simulator that was just installed and a Callaway rep came in with the new Big Bertha War Bird driver. Unfortunately he only had a right handed model. Our pro was there and said he would like to hit it. Well he was left handed and had to hit it right handed, but first he turned it around and hit it left handed over 300 yards that way. I was shocked. He then turned it around and hit it right handed again over 300 yards. Now I was impressed. Not sure how close to actual distances the simulator was but being able to hit a ball that well from both sides with the club turned over so he could hit it left handed was really impressive. Okay sorry for the thread jack I will return you to your normal programming.

[baller7345]

Overall I found that I played a little worse on simulators.  Though as I've played more on them it's beginning to even itself out.  For me it's the short game, I didn't have a good grasp of what 20 yards was from a numbers stand point.  You put me outside on a course with real depth perception and I can make a 20 yard pitch shot.  Put me in the simulator and tell me to hit it 20 yards and I would miss long most times.  It also doesn't help the simulator I play on has an awful time reading my putter and wedges off the fringe, but mostly I struggled with distance control near the greens.  Also, I can't putt at all on a simulator, I just have trouble putting it perfectly on line.

After getting used to the short distances I probably do score a little better, but it's not by much. 

Edited March 13, 2017 by baller7345

[uitar9]

Shanksalot- thanks for that. Interesting. I was also watching a young gun in the sim next to me. He was launching it over 300 . He ended up 13 under. I wasn't. Just seemed to be hitting my normal yardages. Just way more accurate on the short stuff in side 50-60 yards.

[shanksalot]

This is probably worthless because it was over 20 years ago and I am pretty sure the technology is much better today. When I was playing on them during the winter when the course was closed they were at times off by 10-20 yards. I wish I could hit the ball 160 with my 9 iron back then.

[Ernest Jones]

On 3/13/2017 at 0:39 PM, baller7345 said:

Overall I found that I played a little worse on simulators.  Though as I've played more on them it's beginning to even itself out.  For me it's the short game, I didn't have a good grasp of what 20 yards was from a numbers stand point.  You put me outside on a course with real depth perception and I can make a 20 yard pitch shot.  Put me in the simulator and tell me to hit it 20 yards and I would miss long most times.  It also doesn't help the simulator I play on has an awful time reading my putter and wedges off the fringe, but mostly I struggled with distance control near the greens.  Also, I can't putt at all on a simulator, I just have trouble putting it perfectly on line.

After getting used to the short distances I probably do score a little better, but it's not by much. 

 

The sims I have played on (mostly TrueGolf) have all been terrible at reading short game, finesse shots. It seems to do ok on chips, but doesn't read shots that use a lot of bounce very well. Not sure why. After hitting 4 beautiful, float-loady pitches in row - none of which the sim picked up - I had to change my short game technique to get the sim to register the shot at all. 

[paininthenuts]

In my experience it is quite good fun, but in reality is nothing much like golf.

[bm85]

 These things sound like fun alternatives if you could get used to them. Shooting an 88 sounds good to me. I've been on the one at Dicks, and I couldn't even hit it straight.

[uitar9]

2 hours ago, Ernest Jones said:

The sims I have played on (mostly TrueGolf) have all been terrible at reading short game, finesse shots. It seems to do ok on chips, but doesn't read shots that use a lot of bounce very well. Not sure why. After hitting 4 beautiful, float-loady pitches in row - none of which the sim picked up - I had to change my short game technique to get the sim to register the shot at all. 

This happened to my wife on a couple of holes. Didn't recognize three putts and 4 wedge shots. Two different holes. For some reason that didn't occur for me and I hit a couple of putts, very lightly. Strange. I wonder if the ball cover itself has an effect.

[Valleygolfer]

I play once a week on the simulators here. They are more like a game at ours. Old as hell from the 80's. I know the nuances to play it but it misreads a lot of my drives as duck hooks. Really not sure how that happens because of the way it reads shots. Duck hooks are the last shots I hit. They do help you know when your speed changes though.

[Ernest Jones]

5 minutes ago, uitar9 said:

This happened to my wife on a couple of holes. Didn't recognize three putts and 4 wedge shots. Two different holes. For some reason that didn't occur for me and I hit a couple of putts, very lightly. Strange. I wonder if the ball cover itself has an effect.

Never had an issue with putts (aside from sim putting sucks in general) Only have the issue with pitches and flops which, when you miss as many greens as I do, can be problematic...

[nevets88]

 

[Rip62]

I played on a simulator for the first time this year. It was a lot of fun on a cold winter day. It took me about 3 rounds to figure out the chipping and putting. I just had a hard time figuring out green speed. 

[uitar9]

Greens on these machines are very fast. Not sure if one can change green speed. It wasn't offered as an option. 

[golfintheworld]

sims are a fun substitute when you can't play outdoors. Don't take them too seriously. It's like Wii golf-imagine mishitting a shot on that and getting upset. It's just part of the course.

[uitar9]

and , never lost a ball, lol