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How my golf Outside Scores/Handicap compare to my Indoor Simulator Scores/Handicap

B

BigE

Tryin' to get better....
Joined
Jan 18, 2014
Messages
729
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Location
Rochester NY
Handicap
9
I'm a member of a golf "Digital Country Club". It's basically a golf simulator country club where the owner installed 3 state of the art simulators (AG Golf). Graphics are fantastic. Ball flight is super realistic. A great option for the winter months here in Upstate NY. Here's a quick view of what it looks like:


There are 80+ golf courses available plus a number of different golf "ranges" (regular range, green that is 40 yds away to practice pitches, green that is 15 yds away to practice chips, an online simulator green to practice putting AND they have a separate room with an indoor artificial green to practice even more realistic putting!) On that AG Golf add you see the guy practicing at one of the ranges.

The owner limits membership to 60 people to ensure plenty of available Sim time (I've never had a problem.....especially now being retired).
Plus, we can store our clubs and golf shoes there.
There's a pro on site who manages the place and gives lessons upon request.
They have leagues, a club championship, member-guest tournament etc etc.
And it's only 10 minutes down the road from me to boot!
A phenomenal setup for me that I'm super fortunate to have available (its the next best thing to owning my own simulator!)

Anyways, I thought this year it would be interesting to track how my outdoor average scores and handicap compare to my indoor.
Here's how it's tracking so far:
Outdoors:
Number of Rds-74, Avg length of course-6,067, Avg Rating-69.4, Avg Slope-123.5, Avg Score-83.2, Avg Handicap-9.6
Simulator:
Number of Rds-42, Avg length of course-6,212, Avg Rating-71.1, Avg Slope-126.3, Avg Score-81.9, Avg Handicap-5.9

Interesting for those of you who wonder how simulator golf tracks to actual golf......
 
My handicap has always been lower when I played in Sim leagues. I was a 4 for 9 holes when I last pfayed in a league. Outside it’s more like a 7 for 9. It’s nice having perfect conditions. Settings for wind tend to be negligible. No 30 mph gusts! Usually there is a gimme range which is really helpful because putting is not easy on a sim. It’s fun and l didn’t completely lose my swing I’ve the winter.
 
Sim golf should always be lower. Especially with perfect lies and egg that isn’t really rough.


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I've probably played more simulator golf than 99.8% of golfers LOL. Your simulator index should always be lower. Making putts is a lot easier and lies are always perfect.

Chipping can occasionally be more challenging just because it's so hard to visualize, but again making putts is easy. I probably make 70-80% of my 10-15 footers on the sim which of course is prepostrous, and 2X that of a PGA tour pro. I'm an average putter in real life for my index but on a sim i'm 2000 Tiger or Jordan Spieth on a bender.

I'm a scratch golfer--last year at one point i had 10 sim rounds in a row in the 60s
 
I think it is easier to score in the simulator. You get a perfect lie to hit off of on every shot, no wind or weather to deal with when swinging the club. I also find that once you figure the short game and putting out it is easier. I am not surprised your scores are better on the sim than outdoors.
 
I'm glad you guys in cold climates have simulators and the technology is getting better every year.

I lived up north for 4 years in the late 90. I tried it a few times, but never could get into it. And I really struggled with short game shots.
 
WSox fan said:
My handicap has always been lower when I played in Sim leagues. I was a 4 for 9 holes when I last pfayed in a league. Outside it’s more like a 7 for 9. It’s nice having perfect conditions. Settings for wind tend to be negligible. No 30 mph gusts! Usually there is a gimme range which is really helpful because putting is not easy on a sim. It’s fun and l didn’t completely lose my swing I’ve the winter.
Click to expand...

The sim we play on you can adjust the stimp and the "gimme" range. Most people play 6 foot gimme's since the putting IS hard and it speeds up the game. To be more realistic I always try to use the 3 foot gimme range.
 
MtlJeff said:
I've probably played more simulator golf than 99.8% of golfers LOL. Your simulator index should always be lower. Making putts is a lot easier and lies are always perfect.

Chipping can occasionally be more challenging just because it's so hard to visualize, but again making putts is easy. I probably make 70-80% of my 10-15 footers on the sim which of course is prepostrous, and 2X that of a PGA tour pro. I'm an average putter in real life for my index but on a sim i'm 2000 Tiger or Jordan Spieth on a bender.

I'm a scratch golfer--last year at one point i had 10 sim rounds in a row in the 60s
Click to expand...

I, and most of the people at our Sim find the putting to be much more difficult. It's visually harder to get the "feel" with a 2D screen. As you mentioned, the same holds true for chips and putts. Interesting that you find the putting to be easier.
 
Chef23 said:
I think it is easier to score in the simulator. You get a perfect lie to hit off of on every shot, no wind or weather to deal with when swinging the club. I also find that once you figure the short game and putting out it is easier. I am not surprised your scores are better on the sim than outdoors.
Click to expand...

I'm not suprised that my Sim scores/handicap is lower. I expected that too. I just wondered how much lower?
 
mantan said:
I'm glad you guys in cold climates have simulators and the technology is getting better every year.

I lived up north for 4 years in the late 90. I tried it a few times, but never could get into it. And I really struggled with short game shots.
Click to expand...

Yes, the short game is tough. But it's a great way to keep swinging in the winter.

Last year I bought a new set of clubs and it also turned out to be a great way to figure out my yardages and gap my clubs. You get the kind of data you never could access on an outdoor range (without a lot of effort).

And I think the graphics and ball flight accuracy must have improved significantly from 20 years ago!
 
A perfect lie every time.........
 
BigE said:
I'm not suprised that my Sim scores/handicap is lower. I expected that too. I just wondered how much lower?
Click to expand...


guy who owns the sim I play at is scratch live, plus nine on the sim

when I care, I am an 11 trending down and was getting to where could shoot in the 70s at will, , when I don't care (read "now") I trended up to where when season ended I locked in at 14.7 with most scores ranging mid 80s.

On the sim, where I really don't care and am just getting in some swings... I am a plus .8...just two examples that sim scores can be wildly better than real life scores. anecdotal but could be of some sort of assistance.
 
darthweasel said:
guy who owns the sim I play at is scratch live, plus nine on the sim

when I care, I am an 11 trending down and was getting to where could shoot in the 70s at will, , when I don't care (read "now") I trended up to where when season ended I locked in at 14.7 with most scores ranging mid 80s.

On the sim, where I really don't care and am just getting in some swings... I am a plus .8...just two examples that sim scores can be wildly better than real life scores. anecdotal but could be of some sort of assistance.
Click to expand...

Just curious - do you putt everything out? Or do you typically play with some sort of a "gimme" range?
 
BigE said:
Just curious - do you putt everything out? Or do you typically play with some sort of a "gimme" range?
Click to expand...
That got me thinking. I played with auto-putt enabled to whatever the Trackman default was. But my main focus was just hit the green and let the auto-putt take over. If I remember right I'm a 5.x in sim golf when I was a 17.4 trending higher in real golf. I wonder if I would I lower my scores by playing the same way I play on the sim and just going for the green instead of playing for the safer misses.
 
I'm lower in my sim league with a 3.6 handicap compared to my real world 12. Lowest score in sim league was a -8. TGC 2019 has me at a +4.5 if I recall. So I definitely underperform out in the world.
 
I played earlier in the week at The Hideaway and shot an easy 74 with a bad bogey on 18. I use auto putt on it which seems fairly realistic. I am definitely better on the sim than the real world.
 
BigE said:
Just curious - do you putt everything out? Or do you typically play with some sort of a "gimme" range?
Click to expand...

Typically 5 foot gimmes here. But i rarely miss between 5-15 feet on the sim.
 
I can't play sim golf, well I could, but I just couldn't use my driver or 4-wood...they both hit the ceiling when I hit the ball.
 
We had a place about 25 minutes away that had AG sims. This was 7 years ago? What was really great about the place was the indoor range. Hitting balls into a net 25-30 feet away wasn't quite like a real range but you certainly got to stretch the swing muscles out hitting real balls off real tees.

Then they also had a 20' x 40' putting green that had some undulation to it. Was pretty good putting practice. We would show up a little early for our rounds and get a warm up plus a couple putting games in.

One buddy didn't really care for the simulator. He's a little older and just didn't "get" the short game & putting. Another guy was so-so with it but now plays at a closer place that opened in a league every winter.

I like it and definitely scored better than IRL.
 
We play quite a bit in my buddy's GCquad simulator and have found I score 8-10 shots lower in the simulator vs outside/real golf
 
That looks like a cool concept. Not sure what a membership costs, but it would be tempting if priced right.
 
BigE said:
Just curious - do you putt everything out? Or do you typically play with some sort of a "gimme" range?
Click to expand...


i set it for gimme under 5' I find under that it sometimes doesn't read it so you have to intentionally putt it past the hole. Same issue someone else mentioned above with chipping...if you are just off the green but in the rough, and have say...10' to the flag, there is no known way of making that shot on the sim. About 20' is shortest chip it will read so you just do the shortest readable chip and then make the putt...

which comes back to, it pretty much is impossible to miss a 10' or shorter putt and highly unlikely to miss even a 15' or so. putting is stupid easy.

Couple quirks...like I was playing Pacific Dunes the other night and on I think it is hole 5 punched it just a bit right, it hopped further right and was down the hill. That left a 70' height differential which is pretty much impossible to get out of on the sim. nor can you do it by changing angles...sometimes you just find a situation where the graphics make it hard to see what you are trying to do, the ball location is something you physically cannot get to on course (and in this case, is red staked on real course but for...reasons...not on the sim course) and you just run up a number on something you would not be stuck in for a real life round. Just part of the sim experience. Shrug, restart in the inescapable and move on.
 
Sean said:
I can't play sim golf, well I could, but I just couldn't use my driver or 4-wood...they both hit the ceiling when I hit the ball.
Click to expand...

The Sim I play at has bays that are both wide and tall. And, since it's camera operated Sim - the ball doesn't need to hit the screen in order for the ball flight to register.
 
For those of you saying putting is really easy, what type of sim are you playing on? Unekor playing TGC is not easy at all.
 
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