MAGAZINE 2025-26
This revelation enables Neo to unleash superpowers and enhanced skills - which prompted the question: would my golf improve if I played in a simulator for the first time and, more importantly, had a lesson in there?
Inevitably, the advent of TGL had piqued my curiosity. The six team, six city format is still in its infancy, can be kind of chaotic, but has the ring of innovation about it which most modern sports require to stay relevant, especially with youngsters. TGL was announced in 2022, which coincided with the debut of LIV Golf, another occasionally surreal parallel world.
There’s a great sequence in The Matrix where Morpheus uses fighting programmes to give brutal martial arts training to Neo. My Morpheus was Hoylake PGA pro, Joe Williamson - under strict instruction not to beat the crap out of me.
First, a simulator is just like playing golf. The graphics are decently realistic and getting better all the time, so it’s not as if you stand there thinking, ‘What the hell is this?’
I hit a few balls and Joe has two immediate observations: my stance is not wide enough and I’m too close to the ball. So, as instructed, I set my feet shoulder wide and retreat from the ball so I feel like I’m reaching for it.
Some more shots and I start to notice where simulators come into their own - the on-screen numbers. I think I know roughly how far I hit a 7 iron, but 145 yards is an average of clean and imperfect strikes. In the real world, because my hitting is inconsistent, I can be short or through, but rarely spot on. The simulator bears it all out as the odd clean strike makes 150 and the rest fall shorter.
Trouble is, I don’t know where the unevenness comes from, but Joe tells me the answer is in another number: the angle of attack. It should be -4 degrees, but I am often at zero or above. In other words, I’m not hitting down on the ball. I know this to be true - out on the course I often skim the ball off the turf or hit thin, rarely taking a proper divot. It’s as if my body wants to rise as I swing through to the ball.
How to fix it? First, Joe combines old technology with the new, by introducing a plastic ball bucket with a stick poking out of it. With the stick in front of me at 45 degrees he asks me to follow through beneath the stick. “Don’t make contact with it. Try some slow practice swings.”
So I do and get the idea and off I go. The results are immediate. The stick makes me stay down, and I can feel my weight transferring from back to front as I make contact. I can feel a proper strike in my hands and arms, and the sound made is that of a bona fide golf shot.
The numbers are my reward, heading in the right direction. Anyone who’s played video games knows that stats consciously and unconsciously influence behaviour and performance, and now, along with the stick, I have an incentive in my mind - getting the number right - which means I focus on the task and my swing begins to feel, unusually for me, more and more repeatable. But here’s the thing, more often than not now, my angle of attack is correct. The ball is travelling further and the little right to left trajectory that makes me more confident about my game is making a welcome appearance.
As a diversion, I play a par 3 at Kingsbarns at St Andrews and put the ball 15 feet from the pin, making a mental note to add the well regarded links to my long golf bucket list.
Now that my striking is looking up we spend a little time looking at yardages for other clubs. This is another advantage of life in a simulation. For example, I hit a wedge 100 yards, but have difficulty dialling down to hit, say, 75 yards. Instant feedback along with expert advice - “keep your left arm parallel with the ground and punch the ball” - means I got an accurate feel for what is possible, intelligence that would be less forthcoming out on the range no matter how hard I squint at the marker posts and the space in front.
The hour-long lesson passed quickly, but was fun and rewarding. I felt much better about my swing and left with refreshingly few thoughts to run through my head before hitting the ball - the principle one being: make sure the club passes beneath an imaginary stick and I clock up an imaginary -4 degrees. This is good. I’m sure that in the past I’ve practiced in such an unfocused or confused manner I’ve returned home having rehearsed nothing but errors - and become brilliant at making them.
In The Matrix, Morpheus encourages his pupil: “You have to let it all go, Neo. Fear, doubt and disbelief! Free your mind!”
That goes for golf as well as hyper Kung Fu, and the words are now my pre-shot mantra. Time in a simulator, alongside Joe’s excellent analysis and advice, means I'll either shave a couple of shots off my handicap - or take off vertically from outside a phone box.