The Second Links Traveler

Hi golfers! I’m super excited about today’s post! I’m going to break down the announcement on the TrueGolf website with my own reactions. You really should check it out yourself, but if my own schoolgirl’ish squee’ing and amateur golfer’s reactions (people keep telling me I’m not an amateur, but I don’t know that I’ll ever feel that way) sound interesting, please read on!

CONTEST!!! Make sure you stick around to the end! I’m doing another drawing for a L$1,000 Steelhead Gift Card!

I remember when my father was trying to teach me golf back in (REDACTED). It sure seemed like there were an awful lot of clubs and figuring out what to use when was just beyond me. That and I was (and will always be) a footballer – I wanted to play soccer, and I just wasn’t going to be the golfer he might have liked me to be.

When I first got my TrueGolf Pro VGS, I was surprised that it was missing some of the clubs I remembered. The new Tour Pro set has them! Reading this section got me to thinking about the multitude of greens I had hit just too hard, and no amount of backspin was going to save me from having to make a very long putt. Those nerve-wracking 5 and 7-wood shots could perhaps be replaced by 3 and 4-irons that will give me the carry and distance I need without leaving me an eight meter putt. Yes, please.

Back when I interviewed Poppy Williams, she mentioned including the ability to apply fade and draw to a shot; I had to ask just what this meant. Since then I’ve done a little more research and played a round with Rainbow Valley’s own Lexy. Armed with a release candidate of the Tour Pro VGS HUD, she demonstrated just how very cool, useful, and potentially treacherous this feature could be, bending shots almost magically around doglegs and hazards while having a 7 meter-per-second wind put one shot really off course.

There’s a lot to unpack in the workings of fade and draw. I think anyone who picks up the Tour Pro set is going to need to spend a lot of time at the range. There might be some potentially frustrating practice rounds using fade and draw before they become a tool one can use without smashing their proverbial thumb. I’ll confess, the concept of fade and draw in TrueGolf has me feeling a bit the way one feels on a first date: physically and mentally excited, optimistic, eager…and maybe a little scared. It’s a good feeling. I just can’t wait until I get picked up for that night out.

While the addition of emotive animations isn’t going to affect my golf game, it’s absolutely going to improve my golf experience. You can bet I’ll be using that every time I need to squeal with delight at a great shot or a fantastic putt. By the same token, the magic of mocap will have me grousing enthusiastically every time I bury a shot in the sand, or a “perfect drive” finds its way into the water. This is a fantastic idea that I didn’t know I needed, but now I’m not quite sure how I’ve played without it.

This delay on being able to use our custom golf balls for the 1.6 system is the trade off between getting the clubs next Sunday, December 1, and getting them a fair bit later. While I love playing with my cute soccer golf ball, I’ll happily accept waiting until they are updated if I can start using the TourPro set earlier rather than later.

Edit: Poppy Williams from TrueGolf left this in comments and I think it really helps to clear up some potential confusion about how balls will work between the 1.6 TG Pro VGS and the Tour Pro VGS:

Poppy Williams: One thing about the balls. Creating the Tour Pro HUD required to alter the balls to specifically accommodate the new features. So the Tour Pro HUD requires V2.0 balls. However, apart from Tour Pro specific changes these balls are compatible with the current V1.5 balls in the Pro HUD. So when you play Pro, you can just keep on using V1.5. When you play Tour Pro (which comes with 4x V2.0 balls as a standard) balls will be updated. So when you own a V1.5 soccer ball you will get the update to V2.0. But, the V2.0 can only be used when you have a Tour Pro HUD. For Pro, the V1.5 balls will stay perfectly functional.

Thanks Poppy! ♥

Also, we will be offering a discount of 1,000L$ for 10 days only if you have already purchased a Pro VGS. It will only be at select vendors in the Steelhead Main Store.

This was actually an announcement from the TrueGolf group in world, and it’s one EVERYONE who has some interest in the Tour Pro set should keep in mind. The Tour Pro set has a sizable price tag at L$2,900. Money is a personal thing. There are things in SL that I might consider spendy that are just a pittance to others; there are purchases that I consider inexpensive that might be an extravagance to some. As a golf enthusiast in Second Life, I 100% think the Tour Pro set is worth the price of admission. With that said, if I can pay L$1,900 instead of the full retail price, you can bet I will. We all have ten days after the first to think that over, and I think it’s worth giving some real thought.

December 1 is the big day!!! I’m excited out of my brain for it and positively cannot wait. Hope you all will join me on the range this coming Sunday! Until then, fairways and greens, golfers!

-Keyli

CONTEST! Leave a comment on this post with your SL account name! On December 8 at noon SLT, I’ll pick a commenter at random and that person will win a Steelhead gift card for L$1,000! Good luck!