Approach shot tips?

[rolltide1017]

I've just recently bought this game and so far (on Tournament difficulty) I'm driving the ball pretty good and have gotten the hang of putting. My approach shots seem to never go the distance the club says it can go, and I mean it is constantly 20 to 50 yards short. I just can't figure out what I'm doing, this is the first time I've ever had so much trouble understanding a shot in a TW game.

Sometimes I do what my caddie suggest, other times I do my own thing. It has gotten to the point where I now take 1 or 2 clubs higher then the caddie suggest to have a chance of hitting the gir. Even doing that my shots still come up short, I very rarely over shoot the green. The thing that confuses me is that my shot meter says that I overswing 90% of the time and it always says slow tempo (never seen anything other then slow on any shot). I can't figure it out and it is very frustrating.

I could understand it if I was under swinging all the time but I'm not. I just can't figure out what I'm doing wrong so I don't know what to fix.

I'm starting to figure out the short game; chipping and pitches and sand shots are getting better. Its these 90 to 150 yard approach shots that are driving me crazy.

[kickingguru]

Re: Approach shot tips?

Lets start with this.... do you understand that you can have a bad lie in the fairway? The red dot on the right needs to be in the dead center of the ball to hit what your club tells you. If you address the ball, look at the red dot... then back out of the address... if you see the red dot move that means it is not in the center and you have to hold the opposite stick in the middle to hit the shot you are intending... Red dot below center means fat lie and you will hit it shorter... Red dot above center means flier lie and you will hit it further....

Then, make sure that the shot set up is at its max distance (Up on the d pad)...

Know that you will hit Over swing slow... so have the aiming marker set past the hole. Trial and error will tell you how much. Then swing with a full overswing every time... do not try to hit the perfect mark... This ensures consistency..... After a few rounds, you should start getting closer to the hole....

Hope that helps a bit...

The Guru

[kickingguru]

Re: Approach shot tips?

ohhh... also... on 150 - 90 yd shots...

Put the ball all the way forward in your stance... It will hit the ball higher with less bounce on the green... you may need to club up to get the distance you want, but you will not be disappointed with the results....

[rolltide1017]

Re: Approach shot tips?

Thanks for the reply. I'll take a look at the red dot this evening, honestly having been paying much attention to it because I assumed it was always in the center unless you moved it.

I have gotten better in the past week. I'm on tournament difficulty and I think this is the easiest TW game to date. Every shot I hit is almost dead straight, even on expert swing. Kind of sad that you have to bump up the wind to make the game challenging. I won the first 3 Nationwide events pretty easily and then jumped to the PGA, haven't played a PGA event yet. May be time to bump up the AI scoring difficulty.

I'm enjoying the game a lot, just surprised how easy even the most difficulty setting is, do remember it being this easy in years past. I definitely miss the club tuner, I used it to make the sweep spots small so it was more challenging to hit the ball straight. Wish they'd bring that back.

[mrsaito]

Re: Approach shot tips?

Tide - Don't worry about wind and AI difficulty just yet, now that you've made it to the PGA tour the game will take care of that for you.

You'll find it getting quite windy in the 3rd and 4th rounds of tournaments. This wind won't affect the AI scores however so that will make it realatively more difficult for you to compete.

Hopefully these factors will end up giving you a degree of difficulty that is well suited to your game skills.