Introduction

Welcome to Caddify, a website specifically tailored for the wonderful VR Golf+ game.

Caddify helps you negotiate a course just as a normal caddie would, they can provide information on:

Quick Start

The first step is to simply log on to the Caddify website and familiarize yourself with the options. In VR, you'll primarily use the "Let's Play" button — the rest of the website is for pre-game setup, such as setting your club carry distances.

Once you're familiar with the website, put on your VR headset and follow these steps:

(*) - Note there has been intermittent problems with the Login Page using the Golf+ browser. If you are having problems with the normal Logon Page then please follow the instructions below:

Playing a Round

We'll jump straight to playing a round although you will need to prepare your caddie with chats & club carries before doing so. These steps are explained later in this Help document.

Clicking on the "Let's Play" button initially takes you to the Choose Course page. Click on the course you're playing and you'll be presented with the main Play page.

The bottom 2 sections are for you to ask your caddie for advice on holes and general chats. Select the Chat you want and then the Speech Bubble.

The top Shot section is where you'll spend the majority of your time whilst playing a round. Here you have controls to set the lie, carry required, wind, wind direction, slope and slope direction.

Some tips for using this section:

With regards the last point - once you have selected the speech bubble, your caddie will tell you about the shot and his recommendation. We can't stress enough that you pay attention to the first line of the caddie chat. Confirm that you have selected the correct lie, the wind is correct (particularly the direction), and you have picked the correct uphill or downhill slope. It's very easy to make a mistake at this point, spend a couple of seconds ensuring everything is correct, and then concntrate on the caddie's recommendation for club selection.

At the bottom of the play page there is a button called "Quick Reference". This is a page with all of your carries for every lie type but with the course elevation and wind taken into account. So in comparison to the main Play Page the slope and wind direction are not used in these calculations. It was felt the main Play Page has its place in some rounds but it's obviously a bit time-consuming entering all of the information for each shot. So, for instance, if you're playing a fun, multi-player game it might be too slow to use the main Play Page. As the wind doesn't vary much in a round, the Quick Reference page provides some useful information that doesn't need any input bewteen shots, although it'll never be as accurate as the main Play Page.

There's really isn't much more to say about the Play page, except enjoy your round!

General Caddie Tips

Before we move on to the very specific task of calculating distances and club selection, let's quickly go over the general information your caddie can share with you. General information, as listed above, all work in a similar fashion. You simply enter what information you want your caddie to relay and when to relay it, for simplicity we have called this information chats. You ask the caddie to chat on a specific topic (such as the approach shot to the 5th green), and your caddie will chat to you about this hole. Unfortunately we're not quite into the realms of AI here, so any information you want the caddie to relay will have to be entered by yourself before playing the round.

If you don't want to go into so much detail, then don't worry - the Caddify shot calculation will work fine without this information. However, the option is there for you to fully involve yourself in course management and golf tips.

To enter chat information, click on the "Chats" button on the Home page. Here you will be presented with the chat grid. To enter a new chat, click on the "Add New" button. The resulting form allows you to enter any chat that you want the caddie to relay. This information falls into three categories:

  1. User Defined Chats (General Golf Tips, or Motivational Chat)
  2. Course Details - General, Back Tees, Middle Tees & Front Tees
  3. Hole Details - General, Tee, Approach & Green

So as you can see from that list, there's a mountain of information that your caddie can have access to but there's no denying that there's a lot of work involved in doing so - welcome to the world of professional golf!

Shot and Club Calculations

Without a doubt, this is the meat and bones of Caddify. Using this option will give you a real feel for the importance professional golfers place on calculating accurate distances, the length of roll, and how to avoid dangers on the golf course. It really is eye-opening how useful good distance calculation is when playing a round of golf. All of a sudden, you are looking at carry distances to clear a bunker, avoid the large slope at the back of the green, or decide whether to play a softer or harder shot. And all of this depends on an accurate distance calculation, which we know (through a lot of trial and error) is achievable in Caddify.

Caddify takes into account 5 main factors when calculating shot distances:

  1. The lie of the ball.
  2. The wind speed and its direction.
  3. The height difference and slope direction from the ball to the intended landing area.
  4. The elevation of the course.
  5. Your personal shot distance.

The first 3 factors are entered in the Play page and are fairly straightforward. There are however some points to note:

The final entry for the shot calculation is the carry required for your shot. Note that we are always referring to the CARRY of the shot, not the overall distance. You will need to decide whether your shot will have a long roll toward its target, spin back from its landing point, or stop dead. The next section will explain the process of using the carry required and matching it to the most suitable club.

Final Club Selection

The final club selection is based on 3 main factors.

  1. The carry required.
  2. The distance adjusted for course elevation, wind and slope.
  3. You shot distance.

The final factor, your shot distance, is the main subject of this section. For Caddify to pick the correct club, it needs to know how long you hit each club and from what kind of lie you hit it from.

Yes, this is where you will need to enter your shot data. Thankfully, when you first log on to Caddify much of the data you need will already be entered. The caveat is that this is based on an average player and you will almost certainly have to edit at least some of these distances to match your golf game.

To edit or add new club carries, go to the "Club Carries" option on the Home page. Here you'll see a Club Carry grid, listing all of your carry distances for each club and for each lie (fairway, rough, deep rough sand etc.) At this point we should be quite blunt about your use of Caddify - and that is, this application is a classic case of "rubbish in, rubbish out". If the data entered for your golf game is inaccurate then there is no way Caddify can accurately predict distances and club selection.

So, what is the best way to find your carry distance for each club and lie? Well, the most obvious answer is simply hitting the Range and noting down all of the carries for each club and lie. Unfortunately, we don't believe the Range is the best place to do this - it's just not flat enough, with too many obstacles. We recommend going to a SEA LEVEL course with the wind set to low and find a flat hole long enough for all of your shots from Driver to Lob Wedge.

You then need to find all of the lies that you're interested in and hit shots for each club. Note there are no limits to the number of lies you can have in the system. The most obvious lies are fairway/tee, rough, deep rough and sand, but as you know, there are other lies in Golf+ from Waste to Snow.

Again, we must repeat: the more accurate you are, the better for your golf game. We would even go as far as to say that your shots should be played in both directions to negate any slope and wind differences, and then use the average of your shots as the carry distance. Even in Golf+ low wind conditions, the wind can be as high as 5mph, and that's enough to affect shot distance.

Settings

Settings in Caddify are used to help calculate the distance that should be added or taken away from the normal Sea Level/no wind/no slope carry of your clubs. The default settings are our recommended settings but they are by no means settings that you have to accept for your golf game. Caddify allows you to tweak these settings to fine-tune the calculations - to access the Settings click on the "Settings" button on the Home Page.

On this page you'll see there are 3 factors that are taken into account:

  1. The elevation of the course
  2. The speed of the wind and its direction.
  3. The size of the slope and its direction (up or down).

The Elevation of the Course

Each course in Golf+ has an elevation, which can range from sea level to over 8000 feet or 2438m. Your shot will go longer in higher elevations. Caddify has a single factor based on a course elevation of 4000 feet or 1219.2m (call this 'divisor'). The formula used in this app is: Carry x (Course Elevation/divisor) x Elevation Factor

So, in imperial, if the course elevation is 4000 feet then it's a simple Carry x Factor calculation. But if the course elevation is 8000 feet then the formula would be Carry x 2 x Elevation Factor.

The Slope

The height difference from your shot to the intended target also affects your shot distance. Caddify has a simple Slope Factor to determine this distance. This factor is multiplied on the slope height difference (in feet or metres) - as an example if the slope height difference is 50 feet and the Slope Factor is 0.32 then the distance added or taken away (depending on uphill or downhill slope) will be 16 yards. In metric a 15m slope would be 14 x 0.32 x 3 = 14.4m

The Wind

Wind obviously has an affect on the distance of your shots. Caddify has a single factor based on a wind of 20mph or 32kph (lets call this 'speed'). The calcuation is: Carry x speed x Wind Factor

So, in imperial, if the actual wind was 10mph then the factor would only have half the affect of a 20mph wind. In addition to the wind speed, the direction of the wind is also taken into account. The full distance is added or taken away if the wind direction is directly in your face or directly behind. If the wind is at 90° to your shot then the wind will have no affect on the distance. Caddify will calculate the wind affect for any directions in between these angles (i.e. 45° will have half the affect on the shot).

Using the Settings/Test Page

Whilst you can simply update your settings via the top right icon drop-down list (under Settings), there's also a more comprehensive Settings page in the main menu. As well as changing settings, you can also test your settings under manually entered wind (speed and direction), slope and course elevation factors. Here you can change settings to view the effect the factors have on each lie you've entered.

If you change any settings and want to make the changes permanent then click on the "Save Current Settings" button. If you are just experimenting with new settings then you can change the settings as much as you like, however if you want to go back to your permanent settings then click on the "Reload Current Settings" button. The 3rd option is to load the site average for the settings - this option will take all users settings and average them (outliers will be excluded from the calculation). Note, if you want to save the settings permanently for your next play then you must click on the "Save Current Settings button."

The rest of the page is for you to test your settings with real world values. You can change the lie, the course elevation, wind and slope and then click on the "View Club Carries" button. The list you'll be shown are all of your clubs but with the new calculated carries for each club based on elevation, wind and slope. This is useful to check that the settings are accurately reflecting what you will experience on the course.

Voice Recognition

Voice Recognition is available in Caddify to set up the conditions for the next shot. Unfortunately, the Golf+ browser doesn't support this functionality, so we've created a workaround to provide it.

To understand this workaround, it's helpful to provide an example setup before delving into the details of Voice Recognition:

Tiger Woods has Golf+ and a PC. He opens and signs into Caddify on both devices. On his VR setup, he enables the option to receive data from another device, and on the PC, he enables Voice Recognition. Tiger then puts on his VR headset and Bluetooth headphones to communicate with his PC. That’s it—he talks to the PC, which transmits the data to the VR headset.

Voice Recognition Commands

There's a help section that can be displayed on the Play Page. This summarizes the basic commands required to fill in the various settings. Caddify has a larger vocabulary than the examples provided, but these are the best options for clear communication. We'll go through each setting one at a time.

Introduction: Although saying "OK caddie" or "OK Johnny" is not strictly required, it helps Voice Recognition wake up and start listening. If a word is missed, it’s more likely to be the first word in the sentence.

Current Lie: Simply stating the lie is enough for recognition. However, one potential issue is the use of similar words, particularly "rough" and "deep rough." We recommend using "rough" and renaming "deep rough" to "long grass" to avoid confusion.

Carry Distance: Caddify listens for two parts: the word "carry" or "distance" and a number. From experience, Voice Recognition has more success with the word "distance." Another general tip—avoid using "to" in your phrases. For example, in "OK caddie, please set the distance to 175," there are actually two numbers: "175" and "to" - obviously this can cause confusion.

Breeze: Fortunately, the breeze in Golf+ doesn't change significantly throughout the round, so you should only need to set this value once. We’ve found that "breeze" is a more Voice Recognition-friendly term than "wind," but it will accept "wind" in a phrase.

Breeze Direction: The breeze direction is set using a compass bearing, where 0° represents a headwind (directly in your face), and 180° represents a tailwind (directly behind you). "Compass" is probably the most user-friendly term for Voice Recognition.

Slope and Slope Direction: "Slope" and "hill" are acceptable terms for describing the height difference between the ball and the target. To set the slope direction, say "uphill" or "downhill." For example, "OK caddie, slope is 45 downhill" is an ideal phrase for these settings. Please note that if you're using metric, the slope obviously has a decimal point - so to fill in the slope details please say for a slope of 12.3 - "slope is one two three" rather than "slope is twelve point three".

Multiple Phrases: Voice Recognition listens for a phrase and then waits for a pause in speech. Once it detects this pause, it processes the speech. With this in mind, it's possible to set multiple settings in one sentence, but keep in mind that Voice Recognition won’t wait if it thinks your sentence is finished.

Asking Your Caddie for Advice: Once you're happy with the settings, you can ask the caddie for advice. Simply say, "OK caddie, what club are you thinking of?" and the recommendations will pop up. This sentence contains two trigger words: "club" or "thinking", either word will trigger the caddies advice. If you want the caddie to read back the recommendation, ensure the "Enable Caddie Talk" option is set on the Play Option Page. Unfortunately, again the talk feature is unavailable on the Golf+ browser, so you'll only be able to hear the talk through your donor device (i.e. PC or mobile phone.)

Troubleshooting

Devices: Some devices perform better with Voice Recognition than others. Unfortunately, mobile phones don’t seem to be ideal candidate — they tend to turn off Voice Recognition quickly to save power. Additionally, they often beep every time Voice Recognition turns on or off. We’ve found that PCs work better since these issues are less prominent.

Communication Between Devices: After loading the page, it may take a few seconds for communication between devices to be established. At the bottom of the Play Page, there's a button that should say "CHECK EXTERNAL CONNECTION." If instead it says "CONNECTING...," then communication has not yet been established. Your devices may take up to to 15 seconds from page load to be connected. If it takes too long, refreshing the page may help. Once the connection is ready, you can click the button. If all goes well, your settings should be transmitted to your VR headset.

Invalid Speech: If the app doesn't understand what you've said, it will notify you by briefly changing the title bar to red. For the technically inclined, you can view the interpreted speech in the browser console to diagnose any issues.

And that’s Voice Recognition in Caddify. Hopefully, Golf+ will be updated in the future to allow for direct Voice Recognition support.

Other Features

The final 2 edit pages, Course and Clubs, are mostly self-explanatory, but here is a brief summary:

Courses

Courses can be added and edited. The elevation of the course can be found in Golf+ when you start a new round. As mentioned earlier the elevation affects the distance of your shots, higher elevations produce longer shots.

Clubs

Enter all of the clubs you'd like to use for your rounds. Any clubs not used in a particular round should be marked as not "In Bag". This will prevent your caddie from recommending this club.

The order of your clubs can be changed by dragging and dropping the club.

User Logo

The user logo (top right icon) contains the following options:

Quick Tips





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