Close to the highest of the Coolest Issues I Noticed on the PGA Present record was the Toptracer demo vary. I believed all Toptracer did was provide you with very primary launch knowledge and a cool tracer for every shot.
As my spouse likes to say, “Incorrect once more, honey.”
Toptracer, the driving vary expertise owned by Topgolf Callaway, truly has some fairly cool capabilities past simply tracing your pictures. It has an aggressive recreation mode, so your youngsters can play Indignant Birds whilst you’re attempting to straighten out your slice.
However what’s actually cool is its traditional 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Or, extra pertinent to in the present day’s dialogue, the Outdated Course in St. Andrews.
Backwards.
Significantly, backwards.
Toptracer and the Backwards Outdated Course
For the remainder of April, you and your buddies can go to a Toptracer vary and play the Outdated Course backwards; clockwise as a substitute of the traditional counterclockwise.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 apparent query you have to be asking your self is why the hell would anybody wish to do this?
The reply is easy. April sixth via the eighth, the actual Outdated Course, the one in Scotland, will likely be set as much as play identical to that.
Okay, this wants some rationalization.
The short reply is that since 2023, the St Andrews Hyperlinks Belief has opened a poll for golfers to play the Outdated Course backwards over three days in early April. The Belief calls it “The Outdated Course Reversed.” Toptracer, because the official driving vary tech associate for the Hyperlinks Belief, is providing you with the prospect to do the identical factor, solely nearly. To have a good time and (hopefully) drive some enterprise to the roughly 1,250 Toptracer-equipped ranges worldwide, Toptracer is establishing a simulated Outdated Course Reversed. You may play it beginning in the present day via the tip of April.
Toptracer can be including just a little motion to your digital spherical. When enjoying the Outdated Course Reversed, you’re additionally competing for the prospect to attain tee occasions for 2 on the Outdated Course Reversed in 2026.
The actual Outdated Course Reversed. The one in Scotland.
That’s a part of the explanation why the hell anybody would wish to do this. The remainder of the reason being historical past.
The way in which the Outdated Course was once
Taking part in the Outdated Course backwards isn’t only a novelty. It’s the way it was performed up till Outdated 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 diminished 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, among the oddly positioned Outdated Course bunkers instantly make sense.
After Outdated Tom up to date the Outdated Course, it will nonetheless be performed within the reversed setup from time to time effectively into the Nineteen Seventies. In 2024, the St Andrews Hyperlinks Belief made the Outdated Course Reversed an annual occasion and established a world poll for golfers to use for tee occasions.
Toptracer formally partnered with St Andrews Hyperlinks in 2022, establishing Toptracer bays on the observe facility and the St. Andrews Hyperlinks Golf Academy. As a part of that partnership, Toptracer is the one platform the place you possibly can nearly play the Outdated Course at a driving vary. In 2024, greater than 700,000 simulated Outdated Course rounds have been performed at Toptracer websites world wide.
About that contest…
You higher deliver your A-game if you wish to win these tee occasions. The Outdated 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 identical 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 will likely be whoever posted the bottom rating first. The prize contains tee occasions solely. When you win, you’ll should 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 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 will discover out extra in regards to the contest right here.
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