W O R L D T O U R G O L F DOCUMENTS KEYED BY 'BETA'. PICTURES AND GAME SUPPLIED BY RED CLOUD A VANILLA BYTE PRESENTATION CALL B E Y O N D T H E B A N K S (808) - 625-1734 I. Getting Started World Tour Golf comes with a full set of clubs and tees, so you don't need any of these. What you DO need is your trusty computer and its keyboard. (You can also use a joystick. See your Command Summary Card for instructions on booting World Tour Golf. Look there also for any keystroke commands unique to your computer. On all machines, the keyboard equivalent of the joystick button is the return or enter key - we refer to these controls throughout the manual as simply the button. When the title screen appears, press any key to go to the activity menu. II. Playing GOlf The activity menu is the nerve center of the program. Use it to get to the many selection screens that make World Tour Golf both realistic and challenging. But for now, how about a few holes at Pebble Beach? The Quick Way to play To get to the first tee, press the Button (joystick button or return key)five times. This moves you through various menus (described later), and sets up a one-player round. A message describing "playing conditions" appears, giving you a general idea of the prevailing wind and green speed. The next screen that appears is your scorecard. It lists each player's scores and player handicap(the number of strokes allotted to difficulty of equalize scores). In addition, for each hole the par(target score), yardage, and hole handicap (relative difficulty of each hole), are displayed. For now only one player, "J.S. nicklaus," is listed. You will be able to add more players later. Play Golf! Pressing any key puts you on the first tee. The left half of the screen shows a birds eye view of the hole. You will hit your first shot from the tee. Aim down the fairway to the green. The terrain which surrounds the fairway and green is the tough, where you'd rather not hit your ball, if you can possibly help it. The right half of the screen displays a golfer's eye-view of the hole and gives you important game information. Club Selection Before you hit the ball, be sure you are using the right club. You have fourteen to choose from: *Three Woods(A driver, a 3-wood, and a 4-wood) *Ten Irons(2 through 9-iron, wedge and sand wedge) *One Putter Golf clubs are numbered according to their length and the distance they can hit the ball( A 4-iron will knock the ball farther than a 5-iron). Woods hit farther than irons. The table below lists the maximum range for each type of club: Club Max Range Club Max Range Driver......................240 yds 6 Iron..........155 yds 3Wood.......................220 yds 7 Iron..........145 yds 4Wood.......................210 yds 8 Iron..........135 yds 2 Iron......................195 yds 9 Iron..........125 yds 3 Iron......................185 yds Wedge...........100 yds 4 Iron......................175 yds S.Wedge..........75 yds 5 Iron......................165 yds Putter...........45 yds Higher-numbered clubs have more loft-that is, they hit the ball higher in the air and therefore a shorter distance. if you want to hit a ball over a hill or tree, you will want to use a club with a high loft(a 9-iron or wedge, for example) At the beginning of each hole you are automatically assigned your driver. In most cases , this is the club you will want to use for the tee shot. On shorter holes(par3 for example) or holes with obstacles near the tee, you may want to use a shorter club. Select a club by pressing the up and down arrow keys, or by moving your joystick up or down. To determine a clubs range, press the spacebar and an arc appears. This shows the spot where a perfectly hit ball would come to rest on a windless day. Aiming Your shot --------------- On the left hand side of the screen , a crosshair indicates the direction your shot is currently aimed. World tour golf automatically positions the crosshair on a straight line between the ball and the hole. Sometimes however, you will not want to hit your ball straight towards the hole. To adjust your aim, press the left and right arrow keys(or move the joystick to the right or left). The crosshair will move and the point of view window adjusts accordingly. Always check the wind direction and speed shown in the point of view window, If the wind is blowing more than 2 or 3 miles per hour, you may need to aim into the wind to compensate. Hitting the ball --------------- And now its time to hammer that little white ball! Press the button once to bring up the Swing Meter, which appears in the lower right-hand corner of your screen. Press the button a second time to start your backswing. Press a third time to begin your downswing and strength of the shot. To hit the ball full strength, press the key when the meter reaches the 100% position. To hit the ball a shorter distance, press the key before the 100% point. YOu can also overswing , which may hit the ball farther than the clubs maximum range, but may also result in an erratic shot. Press a fourth time to actually hit the ball! Exactly when you hit the ball determines the accuracy of your shot. To hit the ball straight ahead, press the key when the swing meter is pointing down. If you hit the ball before the meter reaches this position causes your shot to slice (curve to the right). The farther away from the straight-down position your hit occurs, the more extreme the curve. A hook or a slice shortens the distance of a shot. If you're not in the mood to play dexterity games, use the number keys on the top of the keyboard to hit perfectly straight shots of varying strength as shown in the command summary card. Hazards The following hazards are encountered in any game of golf: Trees: When your ball hits a tree, it may be slowed down by foliage of it may bounce off in any direction. To hit out from the trees., use a club with a high loft ( to hit over them ), or use a club with a very low loft in the hope of hitting under them. You can also aim around trees, hitting your ball with a hook or slice so that it will curve back into the fairway. Hills ----- If your ball hits a hill, it will bounce off. If there is a hill directly in front of you, you can try to hit over or around it(see trees). Water ----- A ball hit into a lake or stream is lost. A new ball is automatically placed immediately behind the hazard and you are penalized one stroke. Bad lies ------- The lie of a ball is the environment in which it rolls to a halt. A good lie means there are no obstacles to interfere with your swing. If the ball is hidden in weeds , or stuck in the mud , you face an undesirable lie. Your shots generally won't go as far when you hit from poorer lies. The type of lie you have is shown in the upper right hand area of the screen . Your lie has a definite impact on your club selection. The following table shows the longest club you can use for each type of ball without a high probability of flubbing your shot: Lie Maximum safe club Perfect 3 Wood Fair 2 Iron Poor 5 Iron Rotten 8 Iron Sand 9 Iron Plugged Sand Wedge Bunkers: Bunkers(also known as sand traps)typically surround the green, but may also appear on the fairway. A sand lie is the typical lie in a bunker. A plugged lie means your ball is buried deep in the sand. Out of Bounds: A ball is out of bounds if it leaves the edge of the play area. The ball is placed in its original position and you are charged a penalty stroke. Chipping When you get close to the green, hit the ball with less than full strength; this is called chipping. When chipping, you will generally use your Wedge. If you are very close to the green, you may want to use your Putter. Putting When you are on the green, the left half of the screen becomes a bird's-eye-view of the green, showing your balls position relative to the hole. Don't worry about club selection; the game automatically puts the putter in your hands. On a flat green, line up the crosshair to define a straight line between your ball and the hole. Watch out for a sloping green because the ball will curve in the direction of the slope. Thus, if the green slopes downward, compensate by positioning the crosshair above the hole. A symbol on the green indicates the severity of the slope. A brace (}) indicates a slight slope; arrows of increasing sharpness indicate moderate and severe slopes. The direction in which the arrows point of the green is also shown in the point of view window. The speed of the green also affects your putting. A wet green is slow , while a dry green is fast. On a slow green, expect your putts to go only 2/3 as far as they normally would. On a fast green, they normally would. On a fast green, they will go 30% farther. In a single session on one course , all greens have the same speed. Wind has no effect of putting. Putting is slightly different from other shots because you only press the button three times. The first press brings up the swing meter, the second starts your backswing, and the third determines the strength of the shot. The distance between the ball and the crosshair on the green is seven feet. You can also use the number keys to putt the ball the following distances: Key Distance 0 4ft. 1 15ft. 2 30ft. 3 45ft. 4 60ft. 5 75ft. If you have a very short putt(under 3 feet), and your partners agree that it's a gimme (a shot so easy, no one could miss), press G and the game automatically sinks your putt. You can also press T for Tap if you are within 4 feet of the hole. This controls the strength of the shot, but still requires you to aim. Scoring Once your ball is sunk, the result appears in the upper right-hand area of the screen. *Par means you have completed the hole in the allotted number of shots *Albatross is three under par. *Eagle is two under par. *Birdie is one under par *Bogie is one over par *Double Bogie is two over par *Other indicates that you failed to achieve a double bogie After you have completed a hole, you return to the scorecard screen. Press any button or key to go to the next hole. Customizing your Game Now that you have a feel for golf, its time to get acquainted with some of the ways you can customize the game. Using the menus All the menus work the same. Use the arrow keys (or the joystick) to move the highlight up and down or right and left. Press the button (return key or joystick) to select the highlighted item. The box at the bottom of the screen describes each item as it is highlighted. Use esc. (or its equivalent;see your reference card)to move from any menu to the next higher menu. In some cases , you must type in a command from the keyboard. You are provided with a default selection in the box at e lower right of the screen. Accept the default by hitting the button, or type in an alternative. The backspace key removes the typing if you make an error. Press the button when you're finished. To back out gracefully, hit esc. The activity Menu From the activity menu, you can choose to play, practice, or construct a golf course. The play Options Menu Number of players allows you to play up to four people. Type of play includes stroke play, (any number may play) or match play (2 some or 4some only). In stroke play, the player with the lowest score after golfing 18 holes is the winner. In match play, you win or lose on every hole. Robot players allows you to assign a computer opponent to 1 or more of the player positions. Accept options tells the program that you have set the play options and are ready to select a player. The Show Players Menu On the left side of the screen, you see the players present statistics. Either accept the players as they are, by selecting accept players, or change any of their statistics by selecting change players which brings up the edit players menu. The Edit Players Menu From this menu you can change the players names, handicaps or attributes. A players handicap is subtracted from his total strokes to arrive at his net score.Use this feature to balance players of different abilities. Players atributes are what distinguishes one golfer from another. If you want to change the default values, select atributes. This takes you to the player atributes menu. The player Atribute Menu You can change a robot players atribute as well as those of a human one ( not all atributes are available on all machines). Adjust player atributes as follows: *Drive distance gauges a players strength. The average distance a player hits a driver can be adjusted from 100 to 300 yards. This in turn affects the maximum distance all the other clubs are capable of hitting. The games default distance is 240 yards. * Drive accuracy is the percentage (1% to 99%, with a default value of 90%). Accuracy affects your shot consistency as well as the likelihood of flubbing a shot. *Drive tendency reflects each players tendency to hook or slice. *recovery skill is a players ability to get out of bad lies . The better your recovery skill , the better your chance of getting out of a rotten lie without flubbing the shot. When you have finished press accept player. You can select a course to play on. Load a course and play -------------------- The left side of the screen lists the courses on the disk. To load a course from a different disk,use change disk or change drives and follow the on-screen prompts. Delete permanently erases a course from the disk. Once you've loaded a course , you know what to do-Play Golf! IV.PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE To hone your skills, you can practice without actually playing. Select Practice from any course. Putting Green lets you practice putting on greens of varying slopes. Driving Range lets you hit shots from the tee with any club, and measures the distance of each shot. V. GOLF COURSE CONSTRUCTION To build the course of your dreams, select Construct from the ACtivity menu. This takes you immediately to the course edit menu. The course edit menu The left half of the screen shows miniature diagrams of the first nine holes on the course. For now, all of these holes are blank, that is, totally rough with no fairway. The right half of the screen contains the course edit functions. *Load lets you load an existing course of hole from disk. You can then alter it. (Note:first-time users may want to load a pre-existing course to practice on before tackling a blank course). This menu also lets you erase the current course. *Save lets you save either an entire course or move holes around within an existing course. *Hole edit is where you actually create new holes or make existing ones more to your liking. When you press Hole Edit, a thick frame appears around the first hole on the left side of the screen (Press the spacebar to toggle back and forth from the right and left halves of the screen. This is also the case in most other construction screens.) Use the cursor keys or joystick to move the frame to the hole you want to create or modify . If you move the frame downward long enough, the back nine holes appear. When you have chosen a hole, press the button. On a blank hole, this takes you to the draw terrain menu . These are described below. The draw Terrain menu There are two steps to constructing a hole. Use the draw terrain (fairways, rough, and water). Later on, you will place the tee, green and various hazards. When drawing the terrain, you work on the left hand side of the screen with a block representation of the hole. Don't worry about the angular look of the drawing; the program smooths and details the image for you later. Selecting draw terrain places a thick cursor on the left half of the screen. Use the arrow keys to move the cursor, then press the button to drop a square "tile" of fairway on the hole. When you have placed as many tiles as you wish, press ESC or the spacebar to return to the menu. Press the button repeatedly on change terrain to change the drawing terrain from grass (fairway) to rough to water, and back to grass again. Clear hole fills the entire hole with the terrain with which you are working. Preview hole allows you to see the hole as it appears once it has been smoothed and detailed. You can enter the draw terrain while previewing, but the first time you drop a tile, the blocky image will return. Several keyboard shortcuts are available to make drawing the hole easier. See your Reference Card for details. The finish Hole menu After you have outlined the basic shape of the hole, complete it by placing objects and defining features such as green slope. Selecting Finish Hole from the Draw Terrain menu takes you to the finish hole menu. The left half of the screen shows the hole you have just designed. The right half contains the functions you use to transform this hole into one which will rank among golfdoms finest. Place Objects allows you to place objects (green, tee, bunkers, trees, etc.) on the hole. Clear objects removes all objects. Set features takes you to the menu you will use to finish the hole. Draw Terrain returns you to the draw terrain menu, in case you need to make adjustments. Course Edit takes you back to the course edit menu. Placing Objects Selecting place objects from the finish hole menu takes you to the object type menu. Toggle to the type of object you wish to place on the hole and press the button. Press the left and right arrow keys to reveal the variations for that object type. Press F to flip the object horizontally. Press the up arrow key, to return to the object type menu. When you have chosen an object to place on the hole, press the button and that object appears on the left side of the screen. Move the object around the hole with the cursor keys or joystick. Hit the button to drop the object . Once dropped, an arrow appears that you use to pick up and move any object on the hole. To pick up position the arrow over the object and hit the button. to remove an object, pick it up and press the spacebar. You can place up to 50 objects on a single hole, but you cannot overlap them or place more than one tee or green on a hole. Once you have positioned the tee and the green the program calculates the distance of the hole and its par. If you have created a dialog hole, place a par maker (in the other category) at the bend of the dialog to obtain a more accurate distance calculation. Remember that a hole is not playable unless both a tee and a green have been placed.(Note: You may notice that the length of the hole varies from time to time as you play. This is because the program periodically adjusts the placement of the pin on the green just to make the game a little more challenging). You can use several keyboard shortcuts when placing objects on a hole. Your command summary card has the details. Setting Features Choose set features from the finish hole menu to set the hole difficulty and green slope,and put in skyline features. When you select Hole Difficulty, you must rate difficulty on a scale of 1 to 99 ( with 99 being the most difficult). The program then automatically assigns handicaps to each hole based on the relative difficulty ratings you have designated. A holes handicap is a measure of its difficulty relative to other holes on the course. The most difficult hole on the course receives a handicap rating of 1. The second most difficult is assigned a rating of 2, etc.. Since you won't know how difficult a hole is until you've played it, you may want to come back and do this later. Green Slope lets you set the direction and severity of the greens slope. Skyline lets you drop hills, etc. into the background. Exit takes you back to the finish hole menu. Saving a hole or course First, you will need a formatted (initialized ) disk. To save a completed hole or course , return to the course Edit menu and select save. Course edit returns you to the course edit menu. Quick Save Save a course under its current name from any of the main construction menus (draw terrain, finish hole, course edit) by pressing S. Use the save menu to save a course under a different name. -END-