Birdie Golf Guide

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Main Menu
  3. Starting a Game
  4. Gameplay
  5. Career
  6. Pro Shop
  7. Achievements/Scores
  8. Preferences
  9. Additional Resources
  10. Tips
  11. System Requirements
  12. Credits

Introduction

Welcome to Birdie Golf, the finest golfing game on the iPhone, iPad, iPod, and Mac! While most of Birdie Golf can be picked up through the in-game tutorial and by exploring the application, this guide is meant to explain some of the finer details.

Main Menu

  • Career – Create and customize profiles, level them up, and play in tournaments. More Info
  • Practice – Play 18 holes on any course or practice a specific hole or driving range with unlimited mulligansMore Info
  • Pro Shop – Upgrade equipment and purchase courses with coins bought through In-App Purchase. More Info
  • Stats – Various statistics for each profile and GameCenter achievements. Local top scores on each course/difficulty and GameCenter internet leader boards.More Info
  • Controls – Lists all hotkeys for controlling the game
  • Settings – Adjust gameplay and graphics settings. More Info

Starting a Game

  • Course – Choose between all available courses. Each course has unique terrain types and characteristics to make it unique
  • Profile – Pick any character created in the Career menu. Experience earned while practicing is applied directly to the selected profile
  • Mode – Full 18 is a standard round of golf, while Practice allows each hole to be played as many times, in any order, and gives unlimited mulligans
  • Difficulty – Choose the perfect challenge for you
    • Beginner – Slow and soft greens, firm fairways, low cut rough, less difficult bunker/desert/heather. White/blue/green/black tees available
    • Amateur – Medium green speed and firmness, semi-firm fairways, medium cut rough, more difficult bunker/desert/heather. Blue/green/black tees available
    • Pro – Fast and firm greens, soft fairways, high cut rough, most difficult bunker/desert/heather. Green/black tees available
    • Insane – Tougher than Pro, this mode will frustrate even the best of the best. Black tees available
  • Tees – Adjusts the length of the course. Green tees typically play 5-10% longer than the blue tees, which already play 5-10% longer than the white tees. Don’t try the Black tees unless you find the greens too easy
  • Pins – Each hole has four possible pin locations. Typically D is the most challenging, followed by C, B, then A
  • Clubs – Choose 14 clubs using a driver/putter and any combination of woods, irons, wedges
    • The 52, 56, 60, and 64 options represent wedges with those degrees of loft. Often referred to as approach/gap/sand/lob wedges
  • Balls – Choose any available ball. Additional balls can be purchased from the Pro Shop with coins

Gameplay

The objective of Birdie Golf is to get the ball into the hole in as few strokes as possible. A shot can be broken down into four phase: Planning, Shot Select, Ball Flight, and Post Shot

  • Planning – Gather knowledge of the upcoming shot and plan accordingly
    • Center Screen – The estimated flight path is shown as a series of spheres, with a white landing zone at the end. This is a best case scenario that accounts for ball lie, wind, and any fade/draw/loft/punch modifiers
    • Bottom Left Screen – Distance to pin, and any vertical distance to compensate for. The club carry distance is listed directly beneath. This yardage is an ideal case, both a low accuracy stat and bad lie will cause random variation from this distance
    • Bottom Right Screen – Ball lie . Tees, fairway, and green always have perfect lies, any other surface will drop the lie percentage. Shot power is directly proportional to this percentage and accuracy/spin are both negatively affected by it. The recovery stat of the profile minimizes the impact of a poor lie
    • Bottom Right Screen- Wind speed/direction. This updates after each shot, no need to sit and wait for the wind to change
    • Bottom Right Screen – Hole minimap. The ball flight path is estimated along with the landing zone, similar to the flight path in the center of the screen
    • Top Right Screen
      • Fade – Spins the ball to the right, generally adds more backspin/loft and reduces distance.
      • Draw – Spins the ball to the left, generally reduces backspin/loft and increases distance.
    •  Top Left Screen
      • Loft – Increases the trajectory of the shot, decreasing carry and roll
      • Punch – Decreases the trajectory of the shot, decreasing carry but resulting in more roll
    • Bottom Left Screen
      • Club – Switch between all fourteen clubs. Not all clubs are available on every shot
    • Half-Power – While close to the green half power shots can be used for more precision.
    • The angle of which the ball lies on the ground effects the above modifiers
      • A slope going down towards the flight path increases punch while a slope going up towards the flight path increases loft
      • A slope going down towards the player increases draw while a slope going up towards the player increases fade
    • The View button gives several different views of the hole from various locations
  • Shot Select
    • Now you’re ready to hit the ball (Space Bar on OSX, Swing Button iOS). The first press will reveal the Power Meter. The teal area near the top represents 100% power, the red above represents an over swing and will reduce power. The number at the top of the power bar is the ideal carry of the selected club. For shots where the club has more than enough power to make it to the pin, a second number shows up below the maximum distance. This is the location on the power bar that should get the ball to land close to the pin
    • Next the accuracy bar appears. Always try to land in the middle, any variation will cause the ball to randomly push/pull and fade/draw. Poor accuracy selection also decreases shot power
    • Both the power and accuracy bar speeds can be slowed by increasing the profile accuracy stat. The bar speeds are increased by poor ball lies coupled with a poor recovery stat
  • Ball Flight
    • Once the ball is in the air sit back and enjoy the shot
    • Going in the water results in a one stroke penalty and the ball is placed at the last flat non-water location
    • Going out of bounds is a one stroke penalty and the ball is placed where it was last struck. There are no stakes marking OB, it is generally a few hundred yards away from any point of interest
  • Post Shot
    • The top right hand of the screen shots actual shot distance, broken down into the carry and roll portions
    • The shot flight may be viewed over again using the Replay button
    • One free redo per round is permitted with the Mulligan button, use it wisely!
    • In rare instances the ball may become impossible to hit. Use the Unplayable Lie button to move the ball back to an acceptable spot to drop, taking a one stroke penalty
    • Both the game scorecard and tournament results are visible with the Score button

Career

The career menu allows for custom profiles to be created and progressed through a series of tournaments, earning experience and pro shop credits along the way.

  • The Active profile can be changed by clicking the Profile text
  • Profiles can be managed using the Add/Delete Profile buttons. A maximum of eight unique profiles are available.
  • Name changes are made by pressing the Name text
  • Appearance can be customized by pressing the Height/Weight/Shoes/Shirt/Pants/Shirt/Sex text
  • Experience is used to improve each profile
    • Power – How far the ball is struck with all clubs
    • Accuracy – How much random variation is added to each non-putt shot. Slows down the power/accuracy bar speeds
    • Putting – How much random variation is added to each putt. Increases the distance in which the green can be read with the grid and dots
    • Recovery – Bad lies have a reduced effect on accuracy, power, and bar speeds
    • Spin – Increases ball bite and higher flight trajectory, makes stopping on greens easier
    • As stats rise they cost more experience to increases. Enhance the Stats that best suit your play style. Be sure to create new profiles and experiment with different player types. Power, finess, etc
    • Experience is earned by completing rounds, finishing holes at or under par, or through the pro shop
  • Tournaments are used to gain experience and to gain status as an elite professional golfer
    • The Start button advances to the upcoming tournament round. A pre game menu will appear with round specific information and options
    • The Tournament Progress button lists all events, their status, pay, and results
    • The top half of the field advances to the next event and earns credits. The bottom half has to repeat the same event
    • Pay is calculated by the formula Payout = 1stPlacePay * ((players-rank+1)/players)^2. This format pays deep into the field, for example placing 24th out of 80 still results in 50% of the 1st place compensation!
    • Tournaments can be ended using the Concede Tournament button

Pro Shop

In addition to leveling up profile stats, the pro shop provides another method to improve shots. Everything in the pro shop can be purchased with coins bought through In-App Purchase.

  • Courses – Additional 18 hole courses, originally from Nova Golf
  • Clubs
    • Drivers, woods, irons, wedges, and putters can each be upgraded three times. Each upgrade increases distance, accuracy, and spin
  • Balls
    • Purchase a sleeve (3) of each type of ball, each having distance/accuracy/spin trade offs
    • Balls are lost when hit into the water or out of bounds, so always try to have a variety of backup balls in case high quality ones are lost mid-round. The generic balls perform much worse compared to even mid-level balls
  • Extras
    • 1000 Experience – Added to the current profile
    • 3 Helpers – Use an extra mulligan, power boost, and recovery shot each round
    • Level Bonus – Level your character five levels past max
    • Music Pack – Adds three songs from Nova Golf to the soundtrack
    • Texture Pack – Adds new skins for the golfer models

Achievements/Scores

The Achievements screen is profile specific, to change active profile click the Profile text. On the iOS platform and Mac OS 10.8 Gamecenter is available, which provides a list of app-wide achievements to shoot for and social networking features

  • Achievement Notes
    • Driving Accuracy – Tee shot lands on fairway/green on par 4 and par 5s
    • Green In Regulation (GIR) – Hitting the green with two available putts left to make par.
    • Green Under Regulation (GUR) – Hitting the green with three or more putts available to make par.
    • Scrambling – Saving par after missing a green in regulation. Usually happens by going “up and down” with a chip and a putt, though a missed chip followed by a chip in would count
    • Sand Save – Scrambling for par out of a green-side bunker
    • Double Eagle – Also known as an Albatross, shooting three under par on a hole. The ultimate shot in golf, more rare than a hole in one

The Scores screen is course specific, to change the active course click the Course text. On the iOS platform and Mac OS 10.8 Gamecenter leader boards are available, which provide online best round lists and social networking

Preferences

Customize Birdie Golf in the preference screen. iOS users have access to less options than Mac Users due to the narrow hardware selection. Since Macs vary so much in hardware all of the graphics settings are customizable to allow for the best image quality/speed settings. To get the game to run smoother turn down the graphics settings and reduce the size of the game window

  • (Both) Sound – Sound effects
  • (Both) Music – In game and menu soundtrack
  • (Both) Tutorial – General instructions on how to play. Turns off after completing a round
  • (Both) Ambient – Noises from time to time, such as lawn mowers, planes, and various birds
  • (Mac) Grass – How many grass blades and how far back they are displayed
  • (Mac) Water – How detailed the water geometry is
  • (Mac) Shadows – How many objects cast shadows
  • (Mac) Reflections – How detailed water reflections are
  • (Mac) Anti-Aliasing – Eliminates jagged lines and pixelation
  • (Mac) Texture Filtering – Creates more detail on far away terrain textures and objects at oblique angles
  • (Mac) Terrain – How detailed the terrain geometry is
  • (Mac) Trees – High or low quality tree models
  • (Mac) Retina – Enable retina display support. Large performance hit with first generation models

Additional Resources

Check out the Birdie Golf Forum for more information and to discuss the game with other players and the developers!

Tips

User snvboy has some good suggestions for Nova Golf posted on the forum, check out his post. Deano also has some helpful tips. These tips are useful for both Birdie Golf and Nova Golf

System Requirements

  •  iOS
    • iPhone 4S+, iPad 3rd Gen+, or iPod Touch (5th Generation+)
    • iOS7.0+
  • Macintosh
    • Mac OS 10.7.0+, CPU Speed – 2.2 GHz, Memory – 2GB+, Video Ram –  256MB+
    • Recommended: Mac OS 10.7+, CPU Speed – 2.5 GHz, Memory – 4GB+, Video Ram –  512MB+
    • Notice: The following integrated video chipsets are not supported – Intel GMA 950, Intel GMA X3100, ATI X1600, Nvidia 7300-7600 series.

Credits

  • Jake Leveto – Programming , Course Design
  • Riley Hearn – 3D Modeling
  • Joseph Krzemienski – Creative Director
  • Graey Erb – 2D Artwork
  • Paul Corvaisier – Music

16 thoughts on “Birdie Golf Guide

  1. I can’t seem to start any tournaments any more. Profile 1 played a number of tournaments but now can’t get anything to highlight so the next one can be started. Profile 2 cannot even start the introductory tournament. The only option is to click on close. I’m talking about “Birdie golf”.

    1. Hi, The latest iOS and iPhone updates have been reeking havoc on our games, we’re trying to get updates out to all of them in December. Which model and iOS version do you have? Sorry about the issue/wait!

  2. Sorry no screenshot but I did create a new profile and somehow, it already had experience in each of the five skills up to about 15 or 16/50 (can’t remember exactly). It has allowed me to go into the introductory tournament. I’ll play that and then go back and try my previous two profiles to see if they can as well.

  3. I played the introductory tournament. The scoring looked a bit unusual. Didn’t tell me my score over or under par and didn’t seem to say which hole I was on. It may have but not in the usual manner. I’m still getting used to the differences of this game having been playing Nova golf for many years. The new player profile now has the option to go onto the next tournament but I went back to the second profile and I still can’t start anything.

    1. The new profiles have some random stats to start out with in Birdie Golf. I’m going to look into the issues here when I have a chance to work on the update, a screenshot would be helpful if you have a chance though (press command-shift-3).

      1. do you want a screenshot of a new profile or my profile 1? Also, what exactly do you want the screenshot of… What game screen?

  4. Now my new profile (profile 3) is unable to play any more tournaments, it is the same as the older two profiles as in I can’t highlight anything.

      1. Screen Shot 2017-12-07 at 8.11.02 pm copy

        I took three screenshots but had no idea how I can post them as a reply. There is no option here to download file and copy/paste doesn’t seem to work.
        I could easily email it directly, just don’t know how to do it via this box.

    1. Okay, you’ll see my email coming from Dossetor@gmail.com
      2 of the screenshots will be identical. They are the tournament select screen for profile 1 and profile 3. The third screenshot is the profile 1 experience screen.
      Best regards, Geoff Dossetor.
      PS: I played Nova golf last night and it doesn’t seem to have been affected by any iOS updates.

  5. I’ve had a lot going on since my last message. Just playing a little more of the golf game.
    I deleted the original two profiles and both profiles I now have seem to be progressing through the tournaments okay. Occasionally the directional indicators on the greens stop moving for some reason. Seems that if I close down the app and restart it, that can get it working properly again, but not always. Never seems to be any foliage on the trees any more either (invisible foliage that you still hit with the ball though). Is there a setting to restore leaves, etc?

  6. Please refund my money, I paid for this game from the App Store. I can not even play one swing unless I make an in app purchase. Very misleading, I never saw anything about this before buying.

    C3rs

    1. Hi, You’ll have to contact Apple for a refund. However you definitely do not need an in-app purchase to play after purchasing, can you elaborate on the problem you’re having?

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