[w4HPpbSW]

Timely thread, as I just came home from playing on a simulator. Not all simulators are the same in terms of picking up spin, I think the one that I'm usually on doesn't do the greatest job of picking up sidespin, I normally just hit pulls or pushes when the ball is offline, not big hooks and slices. However, the place that I went to just upgraded their software last year, they use the Full Swing Golf simulators (http://www.fullswinggolf.com/). My yardages were pretty much like real life with the ball speeds matching up off of the driver as well, when I used my regular golf balls. The ballspeed was lower when using the older balls that the place had laying around, which are like range balls, which is to be expected.

In terms of scoring when playing a round, I tend to score higher because I don't have a real good feel for short game shots on the simulator. Full swings don't feel all that bad, it's just like hitting off of a mat, which is what I usually practice on up here. They even have a "rough" mat where the artificial grass is higher so that you can simulate the feel of the rough. However, it's still hard for me to gauge short distance when hitting into a screen, and on putting, you have to try to roll the ball over 2 sensors in the floor and hit an arrow that is displayed on the screen for the direction, it's not very natural at all. I usually put in for the computer to give me putts under 6 feet just to speed things up. One other thing, I usually put the settings on "medium" everything (green speeds, location of pins, wind, etc.) so that there's at least a little variety in the shots, makes you think a little when you are into the wind vs. downwind and also every pin isn't just in the middle of the greens.