If you’ve ever woken up and looked outside to see the weather before your planned day for golfing with your buddies, you’ll know that sinking feeling if the weather is not cooperating. There could be blue skies, but what good will hitting the links do if the temperature is north of 110 degrees? Conversely, what if it’s overcast and raining cats and dogs? What can you do in this situation to save the outing with your friends? Have you considered the use of a home golf simulator?
Technological Advances
The home golf simulator market back in the 1990s didn’t really exist as the machines were very expensive and mostly relegated to bars and entertainment centers. As time moved on through the 2000s and 2010s, technology evolved as well which brought better graphics, better gameplay, and lower component prices. This in turn, lowered the retail prices of these units to more manageable levels for the home consumer.
Home Golfing
The process of playing 18 on a home golf simulator is quite simple, and you don’t have to buy any special equipment either. The console comes with a backdrop screen that does double duty by displaying what hole you’re on, visually, and it’s equipped with hundreds of contact diodes within the screen itself. These diodes relay information back to the CPU of the console as to how hard the shot is and where the ball is going in flight in relation to the current hole on the course.
Some higher-priced consoles also relay this information via a golf launch monitor which can track the angle and telemetry of your golf ball after impact. You can play the virtual course with your regular set of golf clubs as a small rubber tee holds the ball for every shot. The CPU takes into effect where you are on the golf course in terms of lie, you may be buried in a sand bunker or chipping a ball onto the green from the fringe, it’s all accounted for within the console.
Online Play
With always-on connections either through Ethernet or wireless, you can play other real-life actual players from around the world on some of the most famous courses in the world! It takes the best from the gaming world in terms of connectivity with others and the best from the simulation world of using your actual golf clubs and accounting for such things as wind and lie. It really is the best of both worlds in terms of golf play online! So, the next time you have a golf outing planned with the guys from the office, consider playing at home, and you won’t need any sunscreen or an umbrella either!
