Top Golf - Practice Makes Perfect Fun
Why was the European Ryder Cup Team captain raving about a driving range in Watford last month?
DOMINIC PEDLER gives his verdict on a pioneering new golf game featured on this week's Tomorrow's World.
Sam Torrance has notched up a few course records in his time, but the one he set in late November in the unlikely setting of a high-tech driving range in modest Watford, was surely the most unusual of his career.
Next year's showdown at The Belfry was the last thing on his mind as the Ryder Cup captain needed all his wits about him when pitting himself against the very latest golfing challenge that is Top Golf.
"It's an amazing concept, you'll have to tear me way from it," said Torrance who, true to his word, wouldn't leave the 44-bay, two-tier complex until, at his 8th attempt, he bettered the distinctly ambitious'par' for the 'game' with an emphatic 271 points.
Pros like Torrance don't of course normally 'do' driving ranges - but then Top Golf is light years removed from the standard, sorry-looking bucket of moth-eaten, zero-compression balls that you reload half-heartedly at some distant tree or skyscraper. It's a truly 'interactive' experience developed by World Golf Systems in association with a dozen high-tech partners, including Maxfli who perfected the rather special golf balls that makes the whole thing work.
So just how does it work?
Far from promoting the mindless beating of balls, Top Golf forces you to pits you to practice in a structured format, firing at very specific targets, with each and every shot immediately quantified in terms of distance and accuracy. Aiming at a flag is hardly novel in golf, but charting your progress on a private monitor that compiles your individual aggregate, represents a giant leap in the way we conceive the whole driving range experience.
At a stroke (or 20, actually, that you get in each game) Top Golf restores three of the key elements that, until now, driving ranges have been distinctly lacking.
Challenge, focus and feedback.
Central to the entire concept is the golf ball itself. So often the weakest link at the range, the ammo dispensed with one swipe of your personalised Smart Card are genuine Maxfli XS Tour balls that each incorporate a tiny micro-chip that allows its movements to be tracked as it lands in any of the 11 'greens' on the ten-acre range. These targets appear as giant horizontal dartboards, spread out at distances ranging from 25 yards to 240 yards, though operating more logically like archery targets, with concentric circles as numerical 'zones'.
The closer your ball pitches to the flag the higher the score that clocks up on the screen in your own bay. A little graphic of the target even appears, indicating precisely which 'slice of the cake' you've just landed in, along with a system of bonus points to spice up the action.
So how does the target 'know' that it's you who's just scored a 'bullseye', stiffing it 175 yards away, rather than the tiger golfer in the next bay? Good question. Remarkably, the same microchip operates in conjunction with the patented I.D Ball system which (as the same name suggests) automatically recognises that each of those 20 seemingly interchangeable Maxflis has been allocated to you. Place the ball on the Astroturf mat (or tee-peg if you're going for the furthest greens) and the ball is 'registered' like a bar-code at your local supermarket check-out. A game typically takes 10 minutes but if you're still there two hours later (and it is floodlit), agonising over which flag to pepper with your final throw of the dice, golf's answer to Big Brother still knows it's you.
But forget the techie specs, here is golf as an irresistible blend of Ten-Pin Bowling, electronic darts and snooker - with just a dash of Who Wants To be A Millionaire?
For as with all these, so the success of Top Golf (standing for 'Target Oriented Play') hinges on tension whether you're intent on topping the electronic leaderboard in the clubhouse or just struggling to save face on golf' version of a lad's night out. As with all those games, the scoring system here is designed to make you think. Just how are you going to do play those last two balls when you're 10 points from glory? A drive into the 'outer' of the 250-yard green will see you home and dry with a ball to spare. But miss the target altogether, and it's a stableford-style 'blob'. Perhaps two 5-irons to the middle target would be the best strategy?
And if all this sounds very Tomorrow's World, sure enough the programme's crew were down recently for an item to be broadcast on BBC on Wednesday December 6th. Tune in at 7 pm to find Steve Redgrave, Olympic hero turned keen amateur golfer, notching up a creditable 125 points at his first attempt.
Still, it wasn't anywhere near the 250 points that the techies suggest represents the 'par' against which the system automatically calculates your Top Golf handicap. Our guess is that a fair Standard Scratch Score will emerge at around the 222 mark that Torrance clocked at his third attempt. Sam had three blobs on his 'card' (see printout) on that occasion - but that's golf - while his crucial 11th ball (that always counts double) netted him an outrageously useful 26 points.
Sam's course record of 271 already looks like taking some beating, while the 'Maximum 400' is destined to become a cult, golfing Holy Grail. Top Golf's equivalent of the Nine-Dart Finish and snooker's 147 requires 20, flawless 20-point 'Bulls Eyes' at the furthest targets, making the elusive European Tour '59' (or even the Grand Slam) look like mere bagatelle (so prove me wrong, Tiger!).
Ultimately the game should be welcomed for encouraging golf practice by retaining the human element while using technology in a way that is practical, informative and just plain fun. Purists will no doubt claim that it betrays the traditions of the game - just as they did with one-day cricket, penalty shoot-outs and sudden-death playoffs.
Others will point to various quirks, with the system of bonus points in particular hardly logical though surely equivalent to the element of luck that exists in every form of golf.
Still others will point to the Americanised culture of 'target golf' that the concept inherently encourages, (while, at the other extreme, this writer can report that drastically mis-hit shots can be rewarded by landing on greens other than the one intended).
Finally, the cost structure that varies between £1.80 and £3.60 (according to the system of credits and peak/off-peak times) - for just 20 balls - is obviously far removed from your standard golf range.
But, then the 'whole new ball game' cliché is appropriate, as this is a very different form of entertainment.
We can't halt the march of technology and it doesn't take too much imagination to see how the principle will evolve, especially when the Japanese get their hands on it as the system goes global.
Greens will no doubt improve to register exact distances rather than broad 'bands', while the spin-factor of the golf ball - currently irrelevant - must surely also be brought into the equation.
And don't let's ignore the Internet potential: standardisation should mean that worldwide leagues could be set up with players in different locations competing against each other, with action relayed over the in-bay monitors.
The sky's the limit.
And if challenge and motivation don't deliver the necessary improvement in your game, the Watford centre also happens to be home to a branch of the David Leadbetter Academy. Take your pick from a variety of top instruction packages (individuals and groups) with some appetising 'seasonal specials' currently on offer.
Also on-site is a well-stocked American Golf Discount outlet; the Bayview café and bar, an indoor putting green; with plans afoot to pipe Sky Sports to the giant leaderboard screen - all in a space-age clubhouse that looks, from a distance, like a miniature version of the Millennium Dome.
But don't let that put you off. Beam yourself up to Watford and enter the golf zone…..
FACT FILE
TopGolf Game
Centre
Bushey
Mill Lane
Watford
Hertfordshire
WD24 7AB
Tel: 01923 222045
Directions: From the M1 junction 5, take the A4008 South towards Watford, Go right at the first roundabout into Colonial Way.
At the next roundabout go right into Radlett Road and first right into Bushey Mill Lane.
Website: www.topgolf.co.uk (check for complete details of prices and membership)
