This Accessible Golf Game Transports You Into Another World
At first glance, comic book aficionados might see it as a fashionable headwear piece designed exclusively for the X-Men's Cyclops.
However, closer examination provides a more accurate assessment. It's a glimpse into another world, still the stuff of comic book lore but not quite. Want to play Pebble Beach Golf Links? How about Pinehurst No. 2, or the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island at a moment's notice? Sounds like a golfer's heaven, right? Meet GOLF+, a leading virtual reality (VR) application, tethering the future to the here and now via the Oculus Meta Quest 2 headset.
Through several ideations, GOLF+ was designed to make golf more accessible to everyone—inclusive of any type of player—and an ideal way to learn, practice and play. The impetus, naturally, would be to dominate the golf VR space. Supporters might say GOLF+ is well on its way, judging by deals with heavyweights TopGolf, the PGA Tour, equipment retailer PXG and PGA of America, not to mention its coterie of investors. Count Ben Crenshaw, Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Tom Brady, Steph Curry and Mike Trout as all in.
"With VR golf, you can play at night, first thing in the morning, and you can play faster," says GOLF+ creator and co-founder Ryan Engle.
It happens all in minutes once the headset fires up. And once it does, the visuals are fantastic. It's like morphing into another universe filled with vibrancy, dynamism and, most important, realism.
"It's almost like a meditative experience," says GOLF+ president James Wright.
He's right. The VR experience seems a bit eerie at first, similar to being dropped alone in the wilderness while simultaneously tapping into the senses and surroundings. Except picture doing this on a golf course amid other avatars and feeling like it's tangible, inexplicably resulting in a feeling that it has been innate all along.
It's common to clumsily navigate the game at first, first disciplining the mind that the faux world works the same as the real one whereby mannerism and movement both feel natural.
It's helpful the controllers are intuitive while filtering through menus. Better yet, they can also be used as clubs when swinging. There is the option of purchasing an adapter that resembles part of a club. It doesn't weigh the same as a golf club, so it takes time for the mind to calibrate, or simulate, a proper golf swing and putt.
"We wanted to create a game that evokes the feeling of playing golf, in a very approachable and fun way," says Wright. "If you play socially, it generally takes about an hour and 15 minutes for a threesome or foursome, and that depends on how much banter is going on. If you trash talk, it will slow things down."
That's part of the beauty of the game. Multiple players can play a round. Avatars can be built from a variety of characters, effects and golf garb. It's all there: long drives, slices, fades, chili-dips, putts that lip out, as well as the elation and frustration shots generate.
Even Wright recognizes the power and opportunity of the medium when talking to any potential partner.
"One of the first things I try to do is get them to do a virtual meeting out on the course," he says.
Of course, one of the perks of working for GOLF+ is actually playing the game. A lot. Wright sees improvement in his real-world performance, adding that teaching professionals have reached out telling him how much it's helped as an aid. Perhaps more impressive, new golfers on a community forum linked to GOLF+ professed how the VR experience turned them into real-life golfers.
"My VR handicap is about a 4.5 index in the real world," says Wright. "I've had it down to a 3.8 in the VR world. But Ryan is somewhere around Tiger Woods's level; he's like a +10."
For good reason. Engle continuously surveys the game for improvements and not so much as a convenient excuse to play, although it's still fun. He studies every nuance.
"In terms of Pebble Beach," says Engle, "you can really feel some of the elevation, how high some of those cliffs are and the crashing waves. Overall, the layout of the course feels extremely different in VR than what you get on video. And, of course, in our game you don't have to chase the ball when it goes off a cliff."
A partnership with the PGA Tour led to courses such as TPC Sawgrass being available.
Courtesy GOLF+
Like anything else that runs, it must first crawl. Getting GOLF+ off the ground mirrors the classic tale of tinkering, reloading, tinkering some more and so on.
The story actually begins with Engle, who had been writing code since the age of 13. Buoyed by an interest in augmented and virtual reality, he attended Virginia Tech, earned a computer science degree, then went to work in the mobile phone sector. In 2017 he ventured out on his own.
Engle started by building an augmented reality (AR) app that could read greens and show breaks. In the spring of 2018, he and Rob Holzhauer were randomly paired on a golf course, where Engle had been testing the prototype AR app that could read the break of a green. Holzhauer, infatuated with what he saw, was hooked and the two eventually co-founded Golf Scope.
The Golf Scope app launched in 2018 with marketing love from Apple yet the experience fizzled. Back to the drawing board, Engle and Holzhauer decided to focus more on VR in 2019.
"The thought then was that we could make it have broader appeal to a broader audience using VR and staying true to the feeling of playing golf," Engle says. "We wanted to create all the enjoyment you get as a golfer when hitting a good shot or the pain of lipping out and all the emotions that come with the sport."
The genesis behind GOLF+ germinated from a prototype (Golf Scope) built on a putting physics engine that solved AR issues. Golf Scope was solid enough to be approved for the Oculus Quest store and eventually led to Simply Putting. From there, attention shifted to implementing full swings within the experience. Engle and his small staff also pored through user feedback.
"I felt like the short game and the 'feel' side of golf was going to be the bigger challenge," says Engle, who immersed himself in the coding and engineering.
In late 2019, TopGolf was impressed enough with the prototype to enter into a partnership. By mid-2020, Pro Putt by TopGolf launched and hit app stores. At the time, about 1 million headsets permeated the VR space; today that number is closer to 20 million.
That deal also bought time for Engle to develop the full swing physics. It was risky.
"TopGolf put the bet on us before we had shown any real traction other than a prototype and approval for the Oculus store," says Engle, laughing, as though the gravity of the situation just hit him. "I am thankful to TopGolf for believing."
Rebranded as TopGolf Pro Putt, the app debuted in the Oculus Quest store on May 27, 2020, and surpassed $1 million in sales by end of year. The VR version of TopGolf was a hit.
That also gave Engle and Holzhauer a bonafide, complete VR game. Holzhauer, VP of Player Experience, handles various operations of the business.
Not finished, Engle and team created another prototype, presented it to the PGA of America and that led to another partnership. In 2021, GOLF+ launched and it has remained a top-selling experience across the VR market.
Not only has it caught investors' eyes but it's opened doors to other monstrous deals. Last December, the PGA Tour announced a five-year agreement with GOLF+, making it the “Official Virtual Reality Golf Game of the PGA Tour.” The agreement brought with it new PGA Tour game experiences where GOLF+ players can experience exclusive, interactive content and features tied to real-world tournaments.
Part of the deal included TPC Scottsdale and TPC Sawgrass as additions to the game.
"It was absolutely amazing," Wright says. "To find yourself in the same positions as the players on holes, with all the granularity, it was like that full golf experience. Our players loved it."
Additionally, GOLF+ debuted a new game mode that week called "Beat The Pro" that incorporated live ShotLink and video footage. Players could compete live against PGA Tour professionals on the famous 16th hole at Scottsdale and the No. 17 island green at Sawgrass.
With the added exposure, the game has taken off. Last month, GOLF+ passed 1 million players and 1 billion shots—all in less than 18 months since launch. It's currently part of a Meta Bundle promotion in which GOLF+ will be free for all new Quest 2 purchases through June. The game also had a small cameo during the eighth episode of Netflix's Full Swing.
There was even a coordinated launch with PXG where its new GEN6 line went digital into the game the same time real-world clubs were available for sale.
Count on more. This week Yale Golf Course, ahead of Gil Hanse's restoration project, was released. Soon a "Battle Mode" experience will come out where players can play three-hole competitive matches against bots trained by real-game footage.
All in all, it's heady times for a product that gained traction through its innovation and a team that didn't rest on its laurels. Satisfied, yes. Done? No. Engle may be the CEO with shifting duties, but one thing is certain: there's no way to extract the coder from the code even if he has built a team.
It's his happy place.
"If I have free time," says Engle, "engineering is where you will find me."