RTS Tips

[pmgolf]

RTS Tip:

On a practice round, click on the icon to begin your swing and display the red swing bar. Carefully put your mouse down and get a piece of scotch tape ( about 3 inches) and place it over the swing bar - right on your monitor. Get a felt tip pen and place a dot at the half-way mark of the swing bar. Then place a dot halfway between that dot and the end of the swing bar - and another dot halfway between the middle dot and the beginning of the swing bar. If you've got steady hands you can place another set of dots halfway between the ones you've already done. The dots should be more accurate than just free-handing a mark one quarter of the way on the swing bar.


Set up the test area:

Download "St. Andrews Backward" and put it in your /Links 2003/Courses/ folder:

https://linkscorner.org/courses/course.php?crz=1610

Download these saved games and put them in the /Saved Games/ folder (located where the /Recorded Players/ folder is at):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/da2joy3jghels ... e.zip?dl=0


Calibrate your dots (with Mulligans):

Click "Play Golf", then "Load Saved Game". Select the Game you want to play and click "Resume". When the game starts your player is in the rough at the edge of a green. From where you are standing to a point straight across the green (not going toward the pin!), the ground is perfectly flat if you're aiming correctly. You can chip from the rough to see how far the ball will carry and then roll at the selected green speed and firmness from most of the dots on your swing-power bar. You can use any clicks of elevation for further information. And you can use other clubs to see what they can do. Simply take a Mulligan after each shot. If you hit continue, you will have to start over!

From that spot in the rough, take a putter(!) and hit a putt hard enough to go about 3 feet into the Fringe in front of you (use Mulligans). Now you can perform the same distance tests from the Fringe (or fairway if it calls it that).

When you're finished with the Fringe/Fairway tests, take your putter again and hit the ball hard enough to reach the green surface. Calibrate your dots with your putts.

Now you should have a good feeling for how much power you need to get a certain distance when chipping from the rough or fringe/fairway, and when putting. You get extra credit if you also took note of how far back your animation took his club/putter when hitting the shot.

I hope RTS is even more fun for you after this!

Pete

[MrT]

I think that if it had not been for RTS, I would not be playing this game at all. I got tired of clicking or hold and release mechanisms that are absolutely nothing like real life. So many games are like that.

And all this despite I respect the Links 2003 game like no other game ever. I think that this game was head/ shoulders/hips and knees above the competition and still 20 years later keeps being a fantastic game.

Why do I love RTS? Because, while moving a mouse is not like swinging a golf club in real life, one has to relax. Every time i try to accelerate the mouse or I tense up in front of a 200-220 yards par 3 hole with a huge water hazard in front of it. it just works like in real life: I choke! So, over a 1 year period, I had to learn to go with the flow, let the mouse move naturally, try to accelerate on the way up gradually, etc..

How I mastered RTS?
For the first 2-3 months I was completely erratic: one day I was good, one day I was the worst player on planet Earth. I concocted every sort of device like putting heavy books on the sides of my arm and leaving my hand and arm inside so that I was moving the mouse following a specified trajectory even if that could be categorized as cheating. Then I stopped for 2 months as it was depressing to play that way. When I came back, I played for fun, did not go to forum, did not even go to the FB page of the game. In that period I lost most of the bad muscle memory and upon returning to the game I found the Wade Hampton 2021 beautiful course realized by Ian Wells. This course is so beautifully detailed that I was playing it to relax. i was even trying to get in the water to look at the beautiful landscaping. I was playing to have fun. The moment I started to stop forcing my shots, things began to click. I was hitting drivers at 120mph or 115mph regularly. I was chipping greatly. I started to get a hold of putting, etc... So, yes, when I realized that less is more is when RTS began to work for me. I am still not where I would like to be with irons. Some day I hit really hard, other days I play abominably and I am 20-30 yards shorter than I should be. But that is down to tensing up my body in anticipation of a difficult shot. Long par 3's protected by water hazards are my worst nightmare.

The funny thing is that, when I played real golf, I used to be excellent with irons and abominable with woods. And the driver was something that I thought could be a beautiful weapon to hurt someone I did not like. I was quite good at putting, but the putter for me was the sissies' club so I tried to spend as little time as possible on greens. Big water hazards have always been my crux. Real life or Links's RTS makes no difference: I tense up, even when I know that I have the power to overcome the distance. So much so that I ended my real golf career in front of a water hazard at my local course in Minneapolis. I was playing even up to hole 15 (it was a local course and not Hazeltine where, if i could play even, I could be PGA material). Hole 16 had a 180 yard or so water hazard to protect a short fairway and the green. I felt good and went for the green with a 3 wood. Went in the water 4 times in a row. Always that cursed tensing up thing... After the 4th time I grab the 3 wood and tossed it in the water, went home without finishing the game and 1 week later put the bag with the clubs in the garbage bin and never played it again until I came back to play on Links.

Now, thanks to RTS mode, I almost feel like giving golf another chance. Why am I saying all this? Because RTS is such a beautiful mode that actually reproduces my strengths and weaknesses as in real life. Sure, it is easier to hit the ball in RTS than in real life, but still . There is a sense of beauty in the perception of the movement even if we are just shifting a mouse. They key was "less is more" just like the golf pro used to tell me: "Big Moe, you are a big man, and you have a gift, you have the short game!" Try less hard and you will get the long game too and you will be really good at this game".. But I was young and stupid and ....

So my advice for RTS player is "LESS IS MORE!" Ease up, go mentally to a good place (for me it is Ian Wells' Wade Hampton 2021) and enjoy your time on a beautiful course. Measuring the power, if playing with a power-meter is only relevant for me using W3 for shortish shots where I do not trust my irons and for chipping or flop shots. I use the position of the clubs with respect to the player's rear leg. Drivers and certain other shots I can feel in hand and wrist.

Still, I am weak.. the most beautiful feeling is smacking the ball real good with a driver. Listening to that perfect metallic sound when the face of the driver hits the ball really in the right sweet spot is like .. Nirvana!

[FOOOOORE!]

I think that if it had not been for RTS, I would not be playing this game at all.

This just illustrates the genius that went into the making of Links, providing multiple ways of hitting the ball. I'm the complete opposite; if the only available swing had been RTS, I would never have played it. I think it's partly because I'm left-handed coupled with the fact I never switched the buttons over, IOW my forefinger tilts across the mouse to the left button; this causes my mouse to be never facing straight-on back to front. This is a carry-over from the days I had a one-button mouse for my Apple IIgs and Apples before that model. But more importantly, at no time did I ever have the feeling of swinging a real golf club using RTS; never for one second did it not feel like merely moving a mouse back & forth, so I kept thinking "What's the point?" It just felt awkward and clunky from the get-go. But each to his own, and it's great that we have so many options in this game. I keep wishing MS would come back and update this game, but after seeing what they've done with Windows over the years, we're probably better off leaving Links the way it is.

[MrT]

I think that if it had not been for RTS, I would not be playing this game at all.

This just illustrates the genius that went into the making of Links, providing multiple ways of hitting the ball. I'm the complete opposite; if the only available swing had been RTS, I would never have played it. I think it's partly because I'm left-handed coupled with the fact I never switched the buttons over, IOW my forefinger tilts across the mouse to the left button; this causes my mouse to be never facing straight-on back to front. This is a carry-over from the days I had a one-button mouse for my Apple IIgs and Apples before that model. But more importantly, at no time did I ever have the feeling of swinging a real golf club using RTS; never for one second did it not feel like merely moving a mouse back & forth, so I kept thinking "What's the point?" It just felt awkward and clunky from the get-go. But each to his own, and it's great that we have so many options in this game. I keep wishing MS would come back and update this game, but after seeing what they've done with Windows over the years, we're probably better off leaving Links the way it is.

I thought about that.. but I never gave it too much thought. It just so happened that I was playing Golf King on my phone, a game that graphically speaking is as beautiful and pleasing as Links, but in terms of Physics is the instead the most absurd game I have ever played in my life. Farmville was actually a better game! After a while I quit and went looking for Links which I found with immense satisfaction. Burned by the experience on Golf King (despite I was a top 600-650 player in the USA and 3600-3700 worldwide), I set out to avoid any clicking mechanism that reminded me of that disgrace of a game. I tried the Power Stroke too, but I just do not understand it. So, i set for RTS, it was not a planned thing, it just happened.

[FOOOOORE!]

I tried the Power Stroke too, but I just do not understand it. So, i set for RTS, it was not a planned thing, it just happened.

I should give PS a try, I don't think I've even looked at it all these years.

[FOOOOORE!]

I tried the Power Stroke too, but I just do not understand it. So, i set for RTS, it was not a planned thing, it just happened.

I should give PS a try, I don't think I've even looked at it all these years.

Well, I didn't like PS either, I think it's even less intuitive than RTS. Does anyone remember Access offering a short golf club you could plug into a serial/parallel port? It was weighted so it would feel like a full-length club, and you could swing it and not hit your 8-foot ceiling. I think it sold for about US600 so probably wasn't a big-seller