Close to the highest of the Coolest Issues I Noticed on the PGA Present listing was the Toptracer demo vary. I assumed all Toptracer did was provide you with very fundamental launch information and a cool tracer for every shot.
As my spouse likes to say, “Flawed once more, honey.”
Toptracer, the driving vary expertise owned by Topgolf Callaway, really has some fairly cool capabilities past simply tracing your pictures. It has an aggressive recreation mode, so your children can play Offended Birds when you’re attempting to straighten out your slice.
However what’s actually cool is its basic course simulation mode.
You may, for instance, get a foursome collectively at a close-by Toptracer-equipped driving vary and play Pebble Seashore.
Or, extra pertinent to right this moment’s dialogue, the Previous Course in St. Andrews.
Backwards.
Significantly, backwards.
Toptracer and the Backwards Previous Course
For the remainder of April, you and your buddies can go to a Toptracer vary and play the Previous Course backwards; clockwise as a substitute of the traditional counterclockwise. You’d begin on the primary tee, however you’d be enjoying to the seventeenth inexperienced as a substitute of the primary. Then, from the 18th tee field you’d play to the sixteenth inexperienced, and so forth.
The plain query you should be asking your self is why the hell would anybody need to try this?
The reply is straightforward. April sixth by way of the eighth, the actual Previous Course, the one in Scotland, shall be set as much as play similar to that.
Okay, this wants some clarification.
The short reply is that since 2023, the St Andrews Hyperlinks Belief has opened a poll for golfers to play the Previous Course backwards over three days in early April. The Belief calls it “The Previous Course Reversed.” Toptracer, because the official driving vary tech companion for the Hyperlinks Belief, is supplying you with the prospect to do the identical factor, solely nearly. To have fun and (hopefully) drive some enterprise to the roughly 1,250 Toptracer-equipped ranges worldwide, Toptracer is establishing a simulated Previous Course Reversed. You may play it beginning right this moment by way of the top of April.
Toptracer can also be including just a little motion to your digital spherical. When enjoying the Previous Course Reversed, you’re additionally competing for the prospect to attain tee occasions for 2 on the Previous Course Reversed in 2026.
The actual Previous Course Reversed. The one in Scotland.
That’s a part of the rationale why the hell anybody would need to try this. The remainder of the reason being historical past.
The best way the Previous Course was
Enjoying the Previous Course backwards isn’t only a novelty. It’s the way it was performed up till Previous Tom Morris up to date the course within the early 1870s. Again then, the primary tee was close to the place the 18th inexperienced is at present, and the present seventeenth inexperienced, the Highway Gap inexperienced, was half of a bigger shared inexperienced. From there, the course performed clockwise.
For a century, beginning in 1774 when the course was lowered from 22 to the now customary 18 holes, golfers performed the course on this configuration. Golfers ought to share fairways and hit into giant double greens. When performed backwards, a few of the oddly positioned Previous Course bunkers abruptly make sense.
After Previous Tom up to date the Previous Course, it could nonetheless be performed within the reversed setup every so often effectively into the Nineteen Seventies. In 2024, the St Andrews Hyperlinks Belief made the Previous Course Reversed an annual occasion and established a worldwide poll for golfers to use for tee occasions.
Toptracer formally partnered with St Andrews Hyperlinks in 2022, establishing Toptracer bays on the apply facility and the St. Andrews Hyperlinks Golf Academy. As a part of that partnership, Toptracer is the one platform the place you may nearly play the Previous Course at a driving vary. In 2024, greater than 700,000 simulated Previous Course rounds had been performed at Toptracer websites all over the world.
About that contest…
You higher convey your A-game if you wish to win these tee occasions. The Previous Course Reversed is a straight-up gross rating stroke play from the black tees. There aren’t any handicaps and, most significantly, no mulligans. It’s similar to actual life in a simulated world: whoever shoots the bottom gross rating wins.
There are some guardrails in place. The max rating on any gap is 5 strokes over no matter par is for a given gap. Within the occasion of a tie, the winner shall be whoever posted the bottom rating first. The prize consists of tee occasions solely. In case you win, you’ll must get your self to St Andrews, discover a place to remain and feed your self. The one freebie is the pair of tee occasions.
Toptracer can also be providing a closest to the pin competitors on the reversed eleventh gap. The winner will get some restricted version St Andrews swag.
To discover a Toptracer vary close to you, go to the Toptracer web site. You’ll find out extra in regards to the contest right here.
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