The Basics of Approach and Putting
Here is a video tutorial I made to demonstrate the basics of making approach shots, as well as determining the speed for both uphill and downhill putts. If you have questions about the video, feel free to post them in the comments section below. Also, if you would like me to make up a video demontrating some other aspect of the game, I am open to suggestions! Enjoy!
Very nice video, it seems though that you didn’t mention green speed or green hardness at all during the putting and approach tutorials. What kind of adjustments do you make to compensate for faster or slower greens?
Honestly, I don’t have any specific formula for those yet, because I rarely play fast or slow greens, and when it’s raining, I just calculate the 60% power adjustment. I mainly do play anyone matches online, so I don’t run into varying green speeds very often. But when I do play custom matches, I simply just do the same calculations, then add or subtract some distance from that. In other words, I go more by feel. I really do need to get a formula going for the other green speeds, though. When I get that figured out, I’ll make sure and post something. Thanks for the comment!
I liked that does the same go for 09. I will have to try it on tw 10
Hi NoChin. The video cleared up a lot of questions. But I didn’t really understand how you added loft to, in this case, the sandwedge. I usually go to where the picture of the club is and hold the “B” button and add loft. But you did it with the left arrow. And the cursor wasn’t on the screen at all. And you were able to hit a full shot. Thanks for taking the time to do the video. It has really helped.
Hey Mike. You can add loft either way. The way you described works perfectly well, except that it’s much harder to dial in exact amounts by dragging the arrow. By pointing off screen and tapping left on the directional pad (while holding B) I can click in individual points of loft which will give me precise control over my distance manipulation. Since I’m working with exact power percentage points, this is really important that my loft amounts be exact as well.
Thanks. That is exactly what I was trying to find out. In your video I saw the pointer go off the screen. I thought I tried that and also holding the “B” button. Guess I didn’t. I will try again. As I said before. Your video helped me a lot.
Yo No Chin, it’s been a while since I’ve commented on your site, as I was really getting frustrated with TW10. I thought I would start off on advanced mode when I first purchased the game (hence the frustration) and started getting into the Wii Sports Resort golf instead as I couldn’t figure out putting, half power shots and many other aspects on TW10.
After a round online at Hazeltine during the PGA Championship and getting spanked after the first two rounds with a +5 & +11, I thought this game was going to sit in the box for sometime (that is until I visited your site again). After watching and listening to your suggestions on your informative ‘You tube’ video the fires are now sparked again. I had to switch my swing mode to standard as the advanced was beating the heck out of me. My first round at Peeble Beach with your suggestions carded me a -9 after the first nine holes, and ended up shooting a 57 (probably not a rare occassion for most play heads, but after shooting ‘+’ numbers a majority of the time it was a thrill)
Speaking for myself and I assume many others, this site is the greatest. Thanks to you, you have saved a copy of TW10 from collecting dust and going to waste.
Be cool my brother,
Myers
Hey Myers, it HAS been a while! Glad to hear from you. It’s funny you say you’ve been switching back to standard play, because I’ve been getting more into advanced play these days. I’ve found quite a few players who are willing to play things like advanced swing and no putt meter, and so a lot of my online activity has gone to matches with those types of players. We always have a fun match with some crazy shots. Glad the video helped. I’m trying desperately to get some more tutorial videos up, but things have been busy lately. But hopefully I can get some more stuff up soon. Thanks for stopping by…
Fantastic – that has cleared up so many questions for me. Huge thanks to you NoChin.
Mr. No-Chin,
I just got the Wii. I had no idea TW was this technical!
I’ve been unable to figure out what to do when the bullseye (approach) says 80% and the club selection says 85%. Just an example. Assuming I’ve followed you instructions for elevation and wind and your rule of “10% max loft”… actually say there is no elevation or wind, and I add 10 degrees of loft. The bullseye target is now 90%, since I couldn’t quite get to a full swing. Additionally, the selected club is still 85%.
I don’t know how to deal with this!
Oh … one more question… do you actually try to swing like a real club or just one handed? This thing doesn’t really understand swing path, does it? Like inside-out, right?
Thanks!
The way to look at it is the loft is just subtracting from whatever power percentage you achieve. Lie will further affect your achieved percentage. So if you swing at 90% with 10 clicks of loft, you are actually getting 80% power. If your lie is 85%, then you’ll get 15% less yardage than your normal 80% shot.
I’m not sure what you mean by your selected club is 85%. Are you talking about an 85% lie?
In TW 10 you only get 7 clicks of loft adjustments either way,how much percentage wise are they? 10% each?
You are referring to the audible clicks when you adjust the loft. When I use the term “clicks” I am referring to holding the B button down and applying one tap of the d-pad. When you use this method, there are about 35 available clicks for wedges and other irons, meaning you can adjust your shot down to 65% power through loft alone. The audible clicks you are referring to represent approximately 5% of that each.
Thanks for all the info,I just got my PGA Rookie card and won my first tournament.
Awesome! Congrats!
NoChinDeluxe,
Thanks so much for this tutorial. I got TW10 for Christmas, and I had done pretty well getting my player’s skill level up, and beating up on the PGA tour. But, when I got online…..man I thought I was gonna break something. My putting was awful on sidehill lies, and I compounded this by hitting such inconsistent approach shots that I was always facing difficult putts.
Just the little tip of moving the aiming arrow to your desired %age has greatly improved my putting. Now I don’t always 1 putt, but my second putt is almost always a tap in. I’ve also dialed in my approaches much better now, too.
Thanks again.
So glad to hear it helped, russellmania. Continue to improve your game so YOU can start offering advice!
Good stuff Brother!
Me and a buddy in another state have been playing each other every sunday. I sent him your link! great site.
So far so good, no questions at the moment. Keep it up.
thanks.
Great! Thanks for stopping by! Good luck out there…
Ncd,
Just wanted to say thanks for the info on this site and the EA forums. Good stuff!!!
Sjb
You’re welcome. I love to help in any way I can, so be sure to keep asking questions if you’ve got them!
Hey NoChin,
you can either point me to an already written explaination, or try to relate it here, but calculating approach shots while taking into consideration of elevation of green and lies in the rough?
I cannot seem to get a consistent read of all three factors together, Loft,lie and elevation.
thanks bro and keep it up.
Great video, thanks. Can wait to try it tonight
Nice video. I have only just picked up TWPGA10 on the Wii and was looking for some tutorial styled help on the net, as I’m not a golfer myself and this answered lots of questions I had and some I didn’t even think about. Good work!
How do we factor “rough” lies in our formula?
% lie within the given rough…etc…..
I’m actually working on a video for that as I’m writing this. It’ll be going up on Friday, so if you can wait until then, you’ll have everything explained!
Just a quick update on my above comment. My tutorial for hitting out of the rough will be posted on Monday, not Friday.
THANKS BROTHER!
hITTING OUT OF ROUGH AND PAR 3′S SEEM TO BE MY WEAK SPOT.
My “hitting from the rough” tutorial should be up by today. Check the front page later today to read the full article and watch the video tutorial!
Hi,
Great tut. Got a question. Got my spinning skill maxed out, and my wedges tuned to max loft, however, in most cases, no matter how much back spin I put on my wedge shots, I can never get the ball to travel much after it hits the ground. I play online and some of these guys are getting 20-30 feet of travel after impact. Is there something I am missing and can you give me some specific advice as to how I can acheive more spin?
Tuning your wedges to max loft is going to make them pretty much hit the ground dead, because the ball trajectory will be close to straight down at that point. I recommend you keep your wedge loft set to default. If you want to make them roll more, you can decrease the loft on your wedges. You spin stats won’t affect your shots at all, just how fast your can add manual spin after you take your shot.
NCD,
Watched both your approach vids and noticed for the wedge shot you started with the pin between the two lines at the top of the aiming circle and then adjusted for the wind, etc. For the long irons you started with the pin in the center of the circle. Does this have to do with the club you are using or is there another reason for this?
Appreciate the info on this site and your prompt responses very much.
sjbiss
Yes, I think I explained this a little bit in the long iron tutorial, but I don’t think I went into great detail about it. Basically, with wedges you are getting very minimal amounts of roll once the ball lands. So generally your shot is going to land in the center of the aiming circle and roll forward a little bit. Since you’re kind of “dropping in” in your shot from above, you can just aim where you want it to land and get it there.
Long irons are different. With long irons, your ball will actually carry to a spot further back in your aiming circle and then will have a lot more roll at the end. Because of this, where you put your aiming circle is not necessarily where the ball will land. This makes it tough for approaches, because you may put your aiming circle right on the flag, but then your ball will actually land 10 yards back which could put you in the rough or on some piece of up-sloped fairway, ruining your shot. So with long irons, I like to aim a little further back, i.e. the middle of the aiming circle, because this represents more accurately the spot where your ball will land, not where it will roll up to. Then you can plan your shots better by actually playing things like that up-sloped piece of fairway into your shot, knowing that it will slow down the roll, etc.
So in summary, the ball spends more time on the ground with long irons, and once it starts rolling, it’s out of your control. So aiming for the landing spot, and not the finishing spot, allows you to plan better for what your ball will do once it starts rolling and it’s out of your control. Does that make sense?
Makes perfect sense…thanks.
NCD, one more question…
What adjustments do you make when playing on hard greens? The ball, especially with a long iron, releases further. I struggle with distance control in these situations.
All I can suggest there is practice
You just have to plan for more bouncing and rolling, so you’ll basically be wanting to take distance of your shots to account for that. Otherwise, you just have to get the feel of it and know how much to adjust.