Golf Plus is one of the best VR golf games you can play right now, but it’s challenging to master, and I certainly found the learning curve to be quite significant. I’ve put a lot of hours into this game, played with some really skilled players, and slowly developed my skills. This article shares my best Golf Plus VR tips to get you hitting great shots and shooting low scores.
If you’ve bought Golf+ VR to enjoy realistic and fun VR golf, you may be a little put off when you start playing and find yourself hitting wild slices and unpredictable shots that go in every direction. I think most people have a similar experience when they first start playing, but with a little practice and by following some of the advice in this article, you will soon be hitting consistent, predictable shots that help you shoot low rounds.
11 Essential Golf Plus VR Tips To Help You Master The Game
The biggest problem that most players experience when they start playing Golf Plus VR is that they will tend to slice the ball quite badly, even if they normally hit straight shots or even draw the ball off the tee in real life.
Much of this is due to the fact that you are holding a controller, rather than a golf club, so trying to swing as you would in real life does not always translate well into the game due to the reduced weight of the controller compared to a real golf club. In addition, holding a Quest 2 controller doesn’t feel like holding a golf club, making it hard to use a two-handed grip that feels natural.
Thankfully, this article is going to share some great Golf Plus VR tips to help you hit the ball straight, avoid wild slices, play more consistently, and shoot lower scores. Let’s get started.
Adjust Your Grip To Stop Slicing The Ball In Golf+ VR
One of the quickest and easiest ways to fix recurrent slicing in Golf Plus VR is to adjust your grip a little when you address the ball. If you hold the controller in a natural position where all the buttons and the thumbstick can be reached comfortably, you are much more likely to leave your clubface open when you strike the ball.
Address the ball first with the clubface square and then rotate your hands slightly in a clockwise motion around the grip of the club. You should still be holding the clubface square to the ball when you address it, but the change in your grip will cause the clubface to close slightly as you swing through the ball. Whilst this would normally produce a hook or certainly, a right-to-left shape of shot, if you are consistently hitting a slice in Golf Plus VR, you should end up with straighter shots.
Spend Plenty Of Time On The Range Before Playing Full Rounds
The best way to practice and perfect your swing is to spend time at the clubhouse or at the Topgolf range. This gives you the opportunity to hit far more shots than you would at even a real driving range, and you can practice making adjustments and trying different types of swings until you are hitting your shots consistently.
Although it’s really tempting to head straight out on one of the courses, I certainly found this caused me way more frustration than pleasure until I improved my swing consistency. Resist the urge to head out on the course, and put in a few hours on the range first.
Move The Ball Forward In Your Stance
Another good tip to hit straighter shots is to move the ball forward in your stance, which will move the impact point to slightly later in your swing, giving the clubface more time to square up to the ball, or even closing the clubface slightly, reducing the tendency to hit a fade or slice. This tip works both in real-life and in Golf Plus VR.
Moving the ball forward in your stance can take a little time to get used to, but really does make a big difference to how straight you hit the ball. It works well off the tee and for your iron shots. The only downside is that you will tend to gain more loft on your shots, which can reduce their distance unless you compensate for this.
Adjust The Rotation Of Your Clubs
If you’ve tried the first few tips to prevent yourself from slicing the ball in Golf Plus VR, the next thing you can do is go into the settings menu and adjust the clubface angle. Moving the clubface to a more closed position, even by a few degrees will mean that you are more likely to make contact with the ball when the clubface is square with the ball.
You will need to experiment with the clubface angle to see what works for you. Personally, I found a few degrees made a huge difference and allowed me to swing much more like in real life, and still hit straight shots, or mild draws. Your experience may differ, as I have spoken to other people that have tried this and not seen much improvement, even when they create a very closed clubface angle.
Keep Your Hands And Wrists More Passive
Golf Plus VR is very sensitive to the clubface angle and swing path, particularly just prior to impact. Whilst most real golfers are taught to use their wrists to swing through the ball, this can cause your swings to be more inconsistent, often resulting in a fade or slice, rather than the straight shot you were hoping for.
Concentrate on keeping your wrists much more rigid throughout your swing and take note of what happens to your shots. You will instantly notice that they are more predictable and your slice is significantly reduced. Practicing this for a while, and experimenting with the degree of wrist movement will greatly improve your shots. While this doesn’t feel particularly natural, it is a good workaround for the limitations of using a controller, rather than a real golf club to take your shots.
How Do I Stop My Golf Plus VR Slice?
As an enthusiastic amateur golfer in real life, one of the things I have enjoyed most about Golf Plus VR is the ability to practice adjusting my swing to produce different shot shapes. If you find that your shots are slicing to the right, you can make a few swing adjustments to fix this, and even practice producing a hook or slice on demand to really understand how to send the ball in any direction you want.
Here are some tips to help you correct a persistent slice in Golf Plus VR. This is basically the opposite of the advice that a good golf coach will give you to correct a persistent hook.
- With your club in the neutral position as your address the ball, shift your grip slightly in the clockwise position around the controller or club attachment. This will help you to close the clubface as you swing, and promote wrist rotation, helping to move the ball from right to left.
- Move your right foot back a little as you address the ball to close your stance. It will feel like you are going to hit the ball further to the right by doing this, but it will help to close the angle of the club on impact, promoting a more right-to-left shot.
- On the first part of your backswing, keep your club face in a more closed position, so it is pointing more towards the ground, which will also help to ensure you are hitting the ball with a slightly closed club face.
- Bring your backswing inside your normal swing plane early on, as this will encourage you to hit an inside-out shot, encouraging you to hit a draw or hook.
Feel free to experiment with this, and don’t worry if you start producing monster hooks. If you do, you can dial things back a little until you are hitting the ball straight, and all the while, you are learning more about what attributes of your swing are important for shaping your shots.
Consider Shortening Your Backswing
Whilst the holy grail is to be able to play VR golf on Quest 2 in a way that simulates the real-life sport, sometimes you just want to use a swing that works to get the little white ball in the hole, or to hit a target on the range. A good strategy for this is to shorten your swing and try to limit rotation and wrist movement. This will produce more of a punch shot that results in reliably straight shots.
Another way to shorten your swing that some people use with great success is to only swing with your wrists, with very limited arm movement. Flicking your wrists back and then forward will produce a huge amount of clubhead speed, and you can easily hit full-length shots with a fraction of the physical exertion required to do a full swing.
Whilst this is a totally different skill, many players are able to perfect this technique, producing reliable shots, drawing, and fading the ball at will. This isn’t my preferred technique, but it is a bit of fun to try, and some players will find it to be a great option.
Swing One-Handed
Using two hands to hit shots in Golf Plus VR is sometimes harder than using one hand, particularly when it comes to hitting consistent draw shots. If you are getting frustrated with hitting repeated slices when using two hands, try using one hand and make a slow, leisurely swing, imagining that you are holding a real golf club.
You are likely to see an immediate decrease in your tendency to slice the ball, and you will probably start drawing or even hooking the ball within a few swings. Whilst some players choose to continue to play one-handed, you can take what you have learned from practicing your one-handed swings as you start to use a two-handed grip.
Set The Floor Level And Club Length Correctly
When I first started playing Golf Plus VR, I noticed that the clubs seemed really short, and I was having to bend my knees excessively or increase their length in the settings menu to be able to play properly. Even though other VR sports games were working just fine, the issue turned out to be the floor level I had set on my Quest 2 when doing the Guardian boundary setup.
If this happens to you, exit Golf Plus VR and go to the Guardian settings menu in your Quest 2 settings, and reset the floor height. It’s normally best to stand in the middle of your play space when doing this, allowing your headset to have a clear view of the floor because it will normally automatically detect a floor height that is fairly accurate. Feel free to adjust this a little to get it just right, but if you are having to make massive adjustments, it is usually better to start again and let the headset detect the floor height again.
Use The Left Controller As A Right-Handed Player
Another tip that you may want to try out if you are having great difficulty with hitting slices is to try using the left controller. There is an option that you can toggle in the settings menu to use the left controller as a right-handed person. Some people have reported that this helped them to hit much straighter shots, although others reported no difference. Having tried this myself, there seems to be some substance to it, but I would leave this option until you have tried adjusting your swing in other ways.
Adjust Your Shot Power To Match Your Real-World Shot Distances
You may notice that the distance your shots are traveling is different from how far you would normally hit your shots in real life. Whilst you don’t have to adjust this, you can change your shot power in the settings menu to make things feel a little more realistic. You can do this on a club-by-club basis, or change the power for all your shots.
Alternatively, if you want to feel like a tour pro, you can turn up the power and start driving and chipping your way to eagles.
Practice Your Short Game
With minimal tactile feedback, it will take a little bit of practice to get your short game dialed in. The TopGolf range is a great place to practice hitting shorter shots at the targets. Swing speed at impact is the factor that really determines shot distance, so pay the closest attention to this.
Whilst hitting irons and drivers straight consistently is a matter of technique, the short game is very much about feel, so you’re going to get better the more you practice.
Is Golf Plus VR Realistic?
Golf Plus VR is one of the most realistic VR golf games, but it is still a long way from feeling like a real game of golf. The main limitation is that you are using a VR controller, and hitting a virtual golf ball, and this can never recreate the physical sensation of swinging a real club and hitting an actual ball. However, given these limitations, Golf Plus VR is really impressive, and you can add to the immersion considerably by using a custom golf club controller to better simulate the sensation of using a real golf club.
The only things that really matter when it comes to hitting good, consistent shots in Golf Plus VR are the swing speed, swing path, and clubface angle. Regardless of how you do it, if you can control these with consistency, you will hit good shots.
For me, VR golf is all about trying to recreate real golf as closely as possible, so it will always be my preference to try things that mimic a real golf swing. In my opinion, Golf Plus VR is the best VR golf game you can play at present, and it has shown continued improvements since it was first released. However, VR technology has a long way to go before this is a faithful simulation of the real thing.
Will A VR Golf Club Controller Such as Deadeye VR Help?
Using a golf club controller will make a significant difference to your experience of playing Golf Plus VR, but it won’t sort out all your swing problems. I’ve been using a golf club controller for quite a while now to play Golf Plus VR. This consists of a real golf club handle/grip, and a harness to secure your controller in place. It makes holding your club with a natural grip so much easier and adds weight which improves the physics of your swing.
It’s not as heavy as a real club and doesn’t fully recreate the experience of swinging a golf club, but it is a huge improvement and a great compromise, as it’s not remotely practical to swing a real golf club around inside your house, and Quest 2 doesn’t work too well outside.
I found that my shots were much more consistent when I switched to using a golf club accessory to play Golf Plus VR, but your swing is still being detected by the Oculus controller attached to the handle, so not all your problems will be instantly resolved. You’re still likely to have to make some adjustments to your real-world swing to hit consistently accurate shots in Golf+ VR.