The 3 pics mentioned are at the bottom of the column
Power Stroke Article
I wrote this article way back in the very early days of PS... Most of it still holds true for me even today although you never
know what changes will be made in the future... RD
1. Introduction
2. The 2 Click Mentality
3. PS and your PC
4. Swing Methods
5. Course Management
6. Club Selection
7. Mouse Sensitivity
8. The Proper Swing
9. Off the Tee
10. The Approach Shot
11. The Short Fairway Shot
12. Fairway Bunker Play
13. Green Side Bunker Play
14. Chipping
15. Putting
16. Closing
Introduction
The Power Stroke swing method has brought a new realism to the scoring and game play of Links LS. In fact it may have brought
the scoring closer to everyone's real life game and then some! Although this article is written by me, and the only thing
I can talk about concerning PS is the way that I play the game, it is not about me in any way. I love Link LS and always
have. The PS swing method has brought back a passion for the game that has been lost in all of the birdies and eagles that
are a regular occurrence while playing the "other" swing method. My only concern is that it is so tough to get "good" at
the PS method that many people will just give up on it before they have given it a chance. The sole purpose of this article
is to put my approach to the game on paper and let you read it. You may read this page and find absolutely nothing that helps
your game, but hopefully you will read something contained within that will hit a nerve and you will be able to say "yeah...
I need to try that!" or "yeah... I have been doing that ALL wrong!".
The 2 Click Mentality
The 2 Click Mentality goes something like this.... to eagle a hole is a victory... to bird a hole is expected... to par a
hole is a let down... to bogie a hole is a disaster...and to double bogie a hole is a complete disaster and will cause the
rest of your round to suffer greatly...
This is not meant to be a slam against the 2 click method in any way. I have played 2 click for years and loved every minute
of it. However if you continue to play with this way of thinking when you are playing PS you will be eaten alive by every
course that LS has to offer with the exception of maybe St. Andrews. Throughout the rest of this page I will refer to the
2 click mentality on different shots and what changes to your thought process must be made to keep you from having those "blowup
holes" that cost us all a nice round.
To sit back and enjoy playing PS every time you load the game your thought process will have to look something like this...
to eagle a hole is RARE and will cause you to smile from ear to ear... to bird a hole is a major victory... to par a hole
is a victory... to bogie a hole is expected... and to double bogie a hole is a let down.
PS and your PC
Regardless of what swing method you use, Links LS is a demanding game on PC's. There are many things that can help the performance
of the game that you can do as far as upgrading your PC, the biggest improvement that can be made would be to make sure that
you have at least 64 megs of RAM no matter what size processor you are running. RAM is very inexpensive these days and will
go a long way to making LS play smoother on your PC. The second biggest improvement that can be made would be a QUALITY video
card with at least 4 megs of ram. These are a couple of things that cost money but there are a few things that can be done
to enhance your systems performance each time you play LS that do not cost money and although you may think that you cannot
notice a difference when playing, they will help.
Reboot your machine each time you are going to start a round of LS. After rebooting hit Ctrl/Alt/Delete and close all programs
except explorer and systray. This is especially important if you are going to play a game through a launcher because after
you have loaded LS through a launcher and entered the game the launcher is still resident on your desktop using up precious
resources. Although it may seem like a very small amount of memory being used by those programs and the launcher it can mean
the difference between no mouse lock-ups in a round and one or two in a round, and that one or two could cost you dearly.
Clean your mouse regularly. You cannot believe the crud that will get built up on the rollers inside of your mouse in a
very short period of time. Someone in the questionnaire asked me what kind of a "special" mouse I was using to be able to
play PS so well. If anyone finds a "special" mouse that enhances their game play please buy one for me. :) My mouse is the
same old Logitech Mouseman that I have used for years. I like this mouse because it is rather large and is shaped to fit
very nicely in the palm of the hand. If you are in the market for a new mouse anyway you might like this one but I would
not suggest going out and buying one if the only reason is that you believe it will turn your PS game around because it probably
will not. The only other suggestion I have about certain types of mice is to stay away from using a trackball. I have heard
nothing but horror stories from those that are using them. Sorry trackball users.... that is the only advice I can give
you because I have never used one before. :(
One thing that is very deceptive about playing PS is that it is almost impossible to detect when you have had a mouse lockup
during the swing unless it is a very bad one, but it only takes a slight mouse lockup to send a shot sailing off into the
trees.
Swing Methods
There are two different PS swing methods.
1. Click... hold the mouse button down throughout the entire swing...let up on the mouse button at the snap point.
2. Click... let up on the mouse... make the swing.... hit the mouse button at the snap point on the way back.
I use the latter method... Click... let up on the mouse... make the swing.... hit the mouse button at the snap point on the
way back.
This seemed to me to be the closest thing to what I was accustomed to when playing 2 click because I am hitting the mouse
button at the snap point just like I was with the 2 click method. However I have had people tell me that the other way seemed
more natural to them because they hold the mouse button down in the 2 click method until it gets to the distance that they
wanted to hit and then let up. The only comment that I have as far as why I use the one I do is when I played 2 click I could
definitely notice that when letting go of the mouse at the top to set the distance, the drop point would never drop immediately
when I let go. It would always be a couple of marks past 12 o'clock for me. I do not know if this is just inherent to my
system or if the reaction time for letting up on a mouse button is slower than the reaction time for hitting down on the mouse
button.
You will just have to experiment with what works best for you and feels natural. If your game is very bad at this point in
time and you are looking for something that might help, try the swing method that you are currently not using for a while
and see what happens.
Course Management
Course Management.... Imagine those two words for a minute being used in the context of talking about a computer golf sim.
PS has brought a new factor into the game that must be thought out and applied with every shot.
Lets face it... while playing 2 click 99% of all holes played go something like this:
The 2 click mentality:
Off the Tee: Reach in the bag... grab the driver... set the marker at 275 yards regardless of the amount of fairway you have
to land on or the number of bunkers in the area... and rip it.
The Approach Shot: Reach in the bag... grab the appropriate club... set the marker dead at the pin compensating for the lie
and the wind direction... rip it at the hole... regardless of where the pin may be tucked away or what hazards (bunkers) may
be near.
Playing PS with this kind of an attitude will surely bring nothing but trouble.
The PS mentality:
Off the tee: Forget the fairway for the moment. Take a look around the landing area and search out the bunkers, trees, water,
and any other hazards that may be out there ready to grab your ball if you do not hit a perfect tee shot. After doing this,
choose the safest club that will get you the most distance with the least amount of risk involved if you hit an errant shot
off of the tee. If the 3 wood is your safest club then go ahead and use it instead of a smaller one. Did you notice that
I said 3 wood and not driver? You know why? Because I NEVER carry a driver. More on this later though.
Approach shot: Forget the green for the moment. Take a look around the green and search out the bunkers, trees, water, and
any other hazards that may be out there ready to grab your ball if you do not hit a perfect approach shot. After doing this,
choose the safest club that will get you closest to the hole with the least amount of risk involved if you hit an errant shot.
Sounds familiar doesn't it. :)
It would be nice if every green was huge and every pin was just stuck in the middle of the green and left there. It would
also get to be very boring after a while. For those pins that have been put out there very nicely in the middle of the green,
or in a spot where trouble is not near, fire away at them. However for those pins that are tucked back in a corner or set
off to the side of the green next to a bunker you MUST play to a safe portion of the green and rely on your putting to get
you a bird. It is much better to have a putt from 30 or 40 feet that you can lag to the hole, leaving a short putt for par,
than it is to have to shot from a bunker and leave the chip 10 to 15 feet away for a tough par putt.
You may look at this section and think "well that's all stupid" "I play that way anyway and nobody needed to tell me all that".
That may be true... you may play REAL golf like that but is that how you play LS? I have played LS and Links 386 (2 click)
for years and it may be true that on occasion I have not hit the driver off of the tee because of trouble in the fairway but
I don't believe I have EVER played away from a pin on purpose just because the pin was in a bad spot or there was a stinking
bunker close by! :)
Club Selection
Personally I could care less what clubs you decide to play with during a round with one exception... Leave the driver OUT
of your bag! The penalty for a bad shot with a driver is NOT worth the extra 15 to 20 yards that you will get hitting a driver
instead of a 3 wood. The penalty for a bad 2 wood shot is almost as bad as the driver so I do not play with it either.
Mouse Sensitivity
In the early stages of playing PS while trying to develop a good consistent swing you will find that the default setting for
mouse sensitivity in LS is much to slow. You cannot generate enough club head speed with any of the clubs to get them to
hit the distance that they were supposed to go. Play with the mouse sensitivity settings for a while and try to find a happy
medium between the swing you have developed and the distances the clubs are supposed to be hit. I finally decided on 4 marks
to the right of default. This setting along with my natural swing lets me hit all of my irons the proper distance without
a huge effect on badly hit shots and also sets up well for my putter. However... This setting also caused all of my woods
to be much longer than the suggested distance that LS gives me. The 7 wood travels about 210 to 220 yards... 5 wood from
230 to 240 yards... and the 3 wood from 260 to 280 yards if I really hit a perfect shot. Is this a bad thing? NO!! All
I had to do was just disregard the distances that LS told me these clubs would go and realize each time I used them they would
fly further. The nice thing about this is that it allowed me to leave the driver out of my bag and use the 3 wood off of
the tee and lose very little distance.
EVERY person that I have played PS with has told me that their mouse sensitivity is not set at default, but ALWAYS set to
the right of default. Everyone of them have it set even further to the right of default than I do. This is not a bad thing
in any way. You need to set the mouse up so it is comfortable for you no matter where that spot happens to be.
Now with all of that being said let me explain why I believe the penalty for the driver is unusually harsh...
Lets go back to 2 click for a second and think about what happens when you hit way past 12 o'clock and then miss the snap
by even just 1 mark. You get an unusually bad hook or slice which leads to a very bad tee shot. It is no different with
PS... If you have your mouse sensitivity set way to the right of default and you still use the same swing that you do with
the other clubs and miss the snap you will be severely punished. Leave the driver OUT of the bag!! The best thing that
can happen using the driver off of the tee is that you will have an approach shot that is one or two clubs shorter than hitting
the 3 wood. The worst thing that can happen is that you will find yourself missing 3 or 4 tee shots with the driver every
round and that will certainly lead to a bogie or worse each time you do.
All I can tell you about how to set up your mouse sensitivity is to play with it until you have found a happy medium between
being able make your normal motion, still get close to the snap, and also have your clubs traveling the distance that you
like. If that distance is NOT what LS tells you it should be who cares?? As long as you know each of your clubs potential
you will choose the right one for each shot. The real PGA pro's do not hit each and every club the same distance as each
other so why should PS be any different?
I have also seen a lot of people complaining because they think a few of the clubs hit way too long. This is not the games
fault at all! If you put the mouse sensitivity at default and hit a perfect shot you will fly these clubs the proper distance.
The problem is that the default setting for the mouse is not used by most of us because we cannot generate enough club head
speed at the default setting. Every PS player that I have ever talked to tells me that they have their mouse sensitivity
set WAY to the right of default so they can generate enough club head speed to hit their irons the proper distance. This causes
the woods to fly longer than they should but each player should know that this will happen and adjust their thought process.
The Proper Swing
I suppose the proper swing is whatever you get comfortable with that allows you to improve your game with practice. So all
I can do here is tell you what I do each time I hit a shot.
After opening the swing gauge I take a couple of "practice" swings. Just moving the mouse right and then back left while
watching the cursor to see that it is traveling in a straight line. My arm is positioned so that my wrist is resting on the
edge of my mouse pad... the mouse rests comfortably in the middle of my hand but the only fingers touching the mouse are my
thumb and little finger... I then put the end of the cursor directly over the center of the club head... click the left mouse
button and let up... then wait for a second before starting the swing to make sure that all activity coming from my processor
has stopped... now... and I think is very important... I apply a VERY VERY slight downward pressure on the mouse before starting
the swing to insure that all movement of the mouse is being recorded by the game... the entire swing is created using ONLY
the wrist movement... right and then back left... I start off slowly at first and then accelerate a tiny bit until I get to
the back of the swing and in one motion make the move forward bringing the index finger down on the left mouse button hopefully
at the snap point or very close each time.
Swing Test
Here is a little test to see if you are swinging on a straight plane.
Put your mouse at the left hand corner of the bar below and it will turn blue. Make your normal stroke back and the forth
a few times. If you are moving your mouse on a perfectly straight plane the line will never turn red.
As I said before you will have to develop your own swing but there are a couple of things that you can do to help in this
process. The most important thing to remember is that moving the mouse faster does NOT mean getting more club head speed.
A consistent smooth motion will generate a MUCH higher club head speed and help you keep the mouse on a straight line throughout
the swing. One other very important thing to remember is illustrated in the graphic below...
Somewhere around point A in the back swing the club head will start to decelerate slowly and eventually come to a complete
stop. I call this the bungee cord effect. I am sure this was added to the swing so that you would not draw the club back
and just hit a "brick wall" each time you pull the club back too far. The problem with pulling your back swing past point
A is that when you start your forward motion the club will "stick" in the "bungee cord" area for a second and then just like
a rubber band it will throw the club forward when it comes out of the area. This causes you to lose your rhythm when trying
to hit the snap and also causes overspeeding. Somewhere around point B is the perfect spot for ending your back swing and
starting the forward motion. Depending on where you have your mouse sensitivity set, the motion in your back swing to reach
point B can vary from 1 inch to about 2 1/2 inches. Find a mouse sensitivity setting that will allow you to make your normal
swing, get the club head speed that you need, and not have your back swing venture into the "bungee cord area".
Off the Tee
Once you have developed a consistent swing the only thing that you need to do when stepping up to the tee is use common sense.
NEVER flirt with a fairway bunker or water and always choose the safest club that will get you the most distance with the
least amount of risk involved if you hit an errant shot off of the tee. There are certain times however when the risk is
justified to play a longer club that may not be the safest club to hit. That would be on some par 5's that are not reachable
unless you get enough distance off of the tee. The reason it might be justifiable on a par 5 is because you can still recover
and shoot a par if you get into trouble, however it is very tough to shoot par on a par 4 if you hit your drive poorly.
The Approach Shot
The exact same philosophy should be applied for the approach shot as for the tee shot. NEVER flirt with a fairway bunker
or water and always choose the safest club that will get you closest to the hole with the least amount of risk involved if
you hit an errant shot. Firing dead at every pin throughout a round might get you a couple of extra birdies but one errant
shot at a pin tucked in a corner with water nearby will ALWAYS cost you a bogie or worse.
Course Management... Course Management... Course Management...
The Short Fairway Shot
What I consider the short fairway shot, or for that matter a short rough shot, is a shot that is 35 to 55 yards away from
the pin. I only use the LW to chip with and can get about 30 yards out of it if I go to the setup shot screen and pull the
club head down a couple of spots and hit it from the far right hand side of the meter. Hitting a normal LW shot with the
club set all the way to the top of the setup screen will net me around 60 yards. This leaves a critical area from 35 to 55
yards that a normal LW shot and a chipped LW do not cover. I find it very tough to slow the speed of my normal swing way
down and still be able to move the mouse along a straight line and hit the snap. So, I use a little different approach to
hitting those nasty short in between distances...
Considering that point B on the graphic above will net me around 60 yards with the club set all the way up in the setup screen
I use that as a starting point to the various other distances that I need. Then while making this shot I do not make the
swing one continuous motion. I take the club back to a point that will net me the yardage that I want and completely stop
the swing. After this complete stop I will then move the mouse very quickly toward the snap point. This makes it a bit tougher
to keep the club on a straight plane but much easier to control the distance. Missing this shot in-out or out-in a few degrees
has very little effect on the hook or slice and missing the snap also does very little to send the ball off in the wrong direction.
As with all other shots that you develop you will have to play around with the distances that you will achieve with how you
have your mouse sensitivity set.
Fairway Bunkers
I hate to admit it but I am a terrible fairway bunker player. I would like to say this is because I play so safely off of
the tee that I rarely hit into fairway bunkers and that may be true but it is still no excuse for not going to the practice
range and hitting a couple of hundred shots out of a fairway bunker to get better at it. That being said I have played many
online rounds with Joel Bockelman who is an awesome fairway bunker player and I asked him to write this section of the page
for me.
The first thing to do when your ball finds its way into a fairway bunker is to not panic! Getting out is easy and getting
on the green isn't too difficult. Remember to play it safe. Aim at the fat part of the green away from the rough and hazards.
Don't go for sucker pins or front pin locations. Always take a full swing and always use more club than you normally would
from the same distance. I usually take 1-2 more clubs depending on the lie. In the sand, the snap is the most important
factor because it determines how far you will hit the ball and also the trajectory of the ball. I always try to snap on or
just past the intended snap line. Be aware that snapping before the snap line will result in a "fat" shot while snapping
late will result in a "skinny" or "thin" shot. So if you are going to snap late, remember to play for more roll like you
would from the rough. My advice is to open a practice session and hit your ball intentionally into a sand trap. Experiment
with different shots and go with what feels comfortable for you. If you're within 30 yards of the green, go with a blast
type shot by hitting the normal snap or just before. If you want advice on how to play the front lip of a St. Andrews pot
bunker then my advice is this: Take a drop or play it as it lies AT YOUR OWN RISK!
Joel
Green Side Bunker Play
Green side bunker play is a different story for me and VERY easy to master. I spent a LOT of time in practice mode hitting
every kind of shot imaginable trying to find the best results only to discover that hitting a normal shot is the easiest way
to control the distance! I believe you would call this the "blast" shot. Completely forget about the offset snap point that
is used for a "pick" shot. Just a normal shot trying to achieve a club head speed of around 80 for each club. Here is how
the distances work out for each club for me.
LW = 20 yards
SW = 25 yards
PW = 30 yards
9 Iron = 35 yards
8 Iron = 38 yards
7 Iron = 40 yards
These are normal medium green speed distances for me. Depending on the green speed I will use a shorter or longer club or
try to hit the ball easier or harder, and you must also take into account the slope of the lie and the slope of the green
after the ball lands. Since you rarely get into a green side bunker that is more than 40 yards away these clubs should be
sufficient. You will have to find out what your distance is for each of these clubs however because they will differ from
mine depending on your mouse sensitivity and your normal swing. One thing you need to remember about sand shots is that the
snap point that you hit does NOT effect whether the ball will hook or slice. The only effect that hitting the snap has is
to shorten or lengthen the distance of the shot. This is very useful when it comes to distances that are not exactly the
distance that you hit each club out of the bunker. By hitting the snap earlier than the regular snap point you can shorten
the distance each club will fly. This comes in very handy for those in between distances. One other thing that you must
NEVER do is to hit the snap past the normal snap point. If you get to close to the "flop" snap point you will send the ball
flying over the green every time. It is always much better to take a larger club, and come up way short of the snap point,
than it is to try and get too close to the "flop" snap point.
Chipping
The first thing you will notice about this section, and all of the other sections for that matter, is that there are no charts
being put up for people to use. The reason for that is because I don't have one! If I did have one I would not add it to
this page because it would be absolutely useless to you anyway. If you would like to have a chip chart to refer to while
playing, that is probably a very good idea, however the only chip chart that will ever be perfectly suited for your swing
and mouse sensitivity is the one that you create for yourself.
Chipping is a totally different ball game when it comes to the way you should swing the club. A normal swing from the tee
or an approach shot is one full motion without a stop or pause throughout. A chip shot however is much easier to control
the distance if you take the club back to the point in the meter that will get you the distance you want, then completely
STOP the club, making sure that you have dropped the distance marker at the right spot, and then make the move towards the
snap. The toughest thing about chipping like this is keeping the club on a straight line throughout the forward motion.
One thing that does help however is to take the time to line the club head up dead center with the line on the swing meter
before you start forward.
Putting
Something occurred to me while thinking about what I wanted to put in the putting section of this page. I was trying to think
of what I did that might have started me out on the right path for playing PS very well almost from the very beginning.
When I bought Links 386 the first thing I did before ever hitting a tee shot was go to the putting green for an hour or so
and learn how to putt with this new toy I had. When I bought Links LS (97) the first thing I did was go to the putting green
for an hour or so and RELEARN how to putt with this new toy I had, and found out that putting with LS97 was tremendously different
than Links 386. When I bought Links LS98 the first thing I did was go to the putting green and putt for just a few minutes
because I discovered that the putting was not that different from LS97.
With every version of Links that I have purchased it has always been a "ritual" with me to go to the practice green first
and get comfortable with putting before anything else. With LS99 it was no different, only this time it was the Power Stroke
swing method that I was trying to master and let me tell you it was and still is VERY tough. But what occurred to me was
that when I first started playing PS I played with the mouse sensitivity settings, trying to get it set at the proper distances
for the marks on the PUTTING swing meter before I ever hit a tee shot. Although the only reason that I set my mouse sensitivity
up for putting before anything else when I started playing PS was because it was just natural for me to go to the putting
green as a "ritual" that I had started a long time ago, and not some great great idea that I thought would make me play PS
better faster, I truly believe that because I did start by setting the mouse sensitivity to my preference while putting first,
then developed the rest of my game around that mouse sensitivity, that the rest of the game was MUCH easier to master. Even
when I struggled at first hitting bad shots trying to get to the greens in regulation I knew I still had a chance to save
par because I had my mouse settings set up perfectly for putting.
I will get to a couple of putting tips shortly but at this point I must say one thing. If you are new to Power Stroke, or
your game is so horribly bad at this time that you would just like to start over and try something different, I would suggest
that you start at the putting green and get comfortable with your mouse sensitivity there FIRST and then go out and develop
the rest of your game around that mouse sensitivity. Almost every person that put up a question on the form page I had on
the site asked about putting. Most of those people also made the comment that they are getting off of the tee and to the
greens just fine but they are truly just LOST when it comes to putting. Why... How can this be.. What is the reason? I will
tell you why... We all know that the mouse default setting in LS is too slow for us to get the proper club head speed to get
any distance out of our normal clubs. So most of us have set it up way to the right of default to achieve club head speed.
That is just fine for the rest of the game but it has a very bad effect when it comes to putting! You are accustomed to seeing
a putting meter that has 1 foot increments up to 10 feet and then 5 foot increments up to 50 feet and so on... However now
since your mouse sensitivity is set so high for the rest of your game the marks in the putting gauge are WAY off because you
are hitting the putt so much faster than the default setting. On top of this there is the fact that if you miss the straight
line of the putt even slightly the ball will move drastically in that direction! Think about these last few paragraphs very
hard. They may change your game around.
Hitting a putt is exactly like hitting the chip shot that I described earlier. Move your mouse back to the point that will
get you the proper distance and completely stop the swing. Line the club head up with the center of the line in the meter
and pull the mouse through the snap point. The only difference when hitting a putt is that you do not have to worry about
hitting the snap. Just pull the mouse past the snap point all the way to the end of the meter. This is actually a very nice
feature because it allows you to concentrate on keeping the mouse along a straight line while putting without the extra strain
of worrying about hitting the snap.
The different green conditions in LS99 seem to putt almost exactly like they did in LS98. Also the slope arrows seem to have
the same effect in LS99 too. The only difference that I have noticed is that short putts seem to break a bit when playing
PS. Now wait a minute here!! You just said that the greens putt the same in LS99 and then turned around and said that they
break more while playing PS?? Yep... that's what I said :)... and here is why... When playing 2 click for years we all
learned that we could take out a major part of the break in a short putt by hitting the putt extra hard. The problem I had
with putting at first with PS is that if I hit the putt harder than needed I might end up with another putt that was even
longer than the first one. So I started hitting all of my putts a little softer to make sure that if I missed I would have
an easy putt left. Many people asked about help making those shortish putts and the advice I would give is to either start
banging them in again, just like 2 click, or start playing for the extra break that you will surely get if you try to hit
them softer.
Closing
Well... that is pretty much it for now. I truly hope that you have found something on this page that will help you improve
your PS play and keep you playing PS along with the rest of us that love this swing method for a long time to come.
I would also like to apologize if you came here looking for PS charts and were disappointed when you did not find any, but
like I said before the only charts that will do you any good are the ones that you create yourself with your own swing and
mouse settings.
If you came to this page assuming that what you read would change your PS game around immediately you will probably be disappointed.
I truly believe that the only way to improve at PS is to find a consistent swing and build on it with a LOT of practice. You
also must be willing to suffer through all of those above par rounds until you can shoot under par consistently. One of the
real problems with people who love to play golf simulations is that they believe that they should master the game within a
few short days. This is not going to happen with PS and that is what makes it so fun to play.
RD
Is There Any Other Game Besides Power Stroke?
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