Imagine my surprise when I went to hit balls at my regular range here in Singapore at Toa Payoh and found it completely remodeled. It's now an uber-range, fitted with advanced technology that made my head spin. Out in the range field at varying distances are elongated bins with thin rubber bands stretched across them. You try to hit your ball into the bins to score points. The further away the target is, the more points you get. How does it keep track of your score?
Well, it's a bit complicated. First, you get a plastic card with your name on it. When you buy balls, they get tagged to your card. The balls have some kind of GPS tagging or barcode on them so that when they enter the targets, a computer knows the balls belongs to you. You then see your score on a flat screen at your stall. They have a variety of games. I usually play something called "TopShot 80" where you hit 80 balls and it scores your top 10 balls.
Another nice feature is the leaderboard - you can see how you stack up against everyone else on the current day, the current week, the current month and all time. I was second on this day. At one point I was second for the whole month and then some ringers came in and bashed my score. This is a really good way to practice - it forces you to focus on hitting straight shots to specific distances. I am addicted.
2 comments:
There is something similar to this called Top Golf. It's in various locations in the US and UK. My friends in Dallas play all the time. It tracks your distance and accuracy as well as point for hitting targets out to 250 yds. I'm pretty sure it's more for the amateur than this venture, but it's still pretty cool.
@Mach - it's a really great way to practice. Unfortunately, I went to Malaysia this past weekend to play an actual round and ummmm, well, let's just say that it wasn't apparent that I'd been practicing a lot.
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