Hacking the System: How to beat your mates at topgolf

We welcome everyone at Topgolf – whether you’re an experienced golfer or a professional party animal who can barely find time to fit in golf swings between cocktail sips.

However, we’re well aware that no matter your skill level, everybody wants to win, regardless of how many Porn Star Martinis they might have drunk. That’s why we’ve compiled this handy guide to beating your mates at Topgolf for guests of all abilities.

We’ve broken this down into three basic groups; Absolute Beginner, Casual Swinger and Topgolf Don. Each has their own unique strengths and weaknesses that we can help you harness to beat your mates.

Absolute Beginners

You still don’t know how to hold your golf stick

You know who you are. And so do your mates, because you frequently declared in the car on the way here that nobody should expect you to even manage to hit the ball because you iterally have never held a golf club before.

Well, fear no longer. Not only do you not have to lie about the fact you have tried golf but were so embarrassed by the fact you got beaten by your Nan that you’ve attempted to erase the event from reality, you can hold your head up high and expect an underdog victory at Topgolf. The days of falling over while attempting to out-drive your mates are long gone, if you follow our simple strategy for novices.

The key here is not to be over ambitious and to know your limits. While the rest of your party are wasting shots by aiming for maximum points on the black target, you can slowly and quietly accumulate points by aiming for the nearby red ones. You might not get huge points but you can score consistently, as long as you aim for a “bump and run” technique. Just grab a pitching wedge and clip the ball at shin height so it lands and rolls into the Red. By the time your mates caught on to your game plan, it’ll be too late to steal it.

Sneaky Tips: If you arrive during an off-peak time and there’s a choice of bays, choose one with a red target directly in front of you. Grabbing easy points will infuriate your competitors enough on its own but with the target positioned so perfectly, there’s no way they’ll manage to keep their mind on their own game without stressing out and making excuses for your win. Also, keep reminding everyone that you’ve “never” played golf before and that they should be beating you easily. That’s bound to get to them.

Casual Swingers

A free and easy bunch

The Casual Swingers are the cool cats of Topgolf. They might not have their own clubs and they always have a drink to hand - but you can bet your life they can hit a golf ball cleanly, even after a few units.

The problem with the Casual Swingers is the fact they’re caught in no-mans land. It’s too boring for you guys to roll your shots into the red but you can’t quite land in the blue or pink regularly enough to shoot the score your talent deserves. Here’s where strategy comes into play.

Grab a driver or wood. With a textbook swing and a few lessons, you can hit these clubs miles - but that’s not what we’re here for. You need to beat your mates now – the lessons can wait until later.

Once you’ve lined up for the halfway targets (yellow and green) take a half-swing, like you might with a hockey stick. This will increase your accuracy, while the driver/hybrid’s power takes care of distance. You’ll be hitting those lemon and limes in no time, leaving your mates feeling sour.

Sneaky Tip: use psychology to gain advantages over the Topgolf Dons. While you concentrate on your half-swing technique alone, make sure they put pressure on themselves by celebrating wildly every time you score points, so they forget about their own technique and their superior skill is neutralised.

Topgolf Dons

Frustrated experts

You know your woods from your irons, your tigers from your eagles and possess more experience than all your mates. But for some reason, you’re not gleefully thrashing your mates every time you visit Topgolf. How come they keep fluking their way to points while you narrowly miss out on maximum scores?

You might think the answer is luck. But the real reason why you’re not smugly celebrating victory even as you howl with laughter at your friends’ bizarre “techniques” is as much down to your shot selection as it is to fortune.

Instead of stroking your ego and showing off with low, whipped irons and drawn drives towards the black, reel things in a bit; think Mourinho, not Guardiola. With the better shots at your disposal, you don’t need to showboat – you just have to reduce the risk of error.

The blue target scores double in most segments, so line up a seven or 8 iron and you’ll soon rattle your way into an unassailable lead. When victory is all but secured, then you can start pulling out the spectacular drives to put the icing on top of the cake. Your sweet, sweet, victory cake.

Sneaky Tip: Grab a bay that doesn’t sit directly in front of the Reds. Angled shots are much harder to hit than straight targets, so fluffed drives from Absolute Beginners won’t dribble into points zones.

The fastest way to get better at Topgolf is to book a lesson - find options to suit everyone.

You can also check out our YouTube channel for loads of straightforward tips on how to improve.