In the beginning it is crucial to really understand how the swing works. In case you skipped the getting started section, please read through it first, before you continue with this page: Start playing - Your first stroke Below you find a video demonstration on how to swing and what makes the difference between a bad and a good result. This shot was made with a driver, where the curve has a higher angle and you typically need to make a full swing in order to get the ball as far as possible. But you will also be using different clubs, such as other woods, irons and wedges, which you will most handle with different power and which have a different swing angle. In order to change to another club, open the club menu at the bottom of the screen and select another club than your current one. The game will always choose an appropriate club for you, but in some cases you may want to take control yourself. Note: Try all the different clubs at the driving range to get a different feel of how each club is behaving.

In the beginning it is crucial to get a basic understanding how putting works. In case you skipped the getting started section, please read through it first, before you continue with this page: Start playing - The secret of putting As you can see in the video demo and in the getting started section putting is all about reading the green. The rest is easy, just matching the power of your putt with. The power indicated after you are finished with your aiming. Note: If you are putting from a long distance, try an approach putt first. That means that you aim at the cup but put in a bit less power, that way you will almost definitely only need two strokes on the green.

Whenever you have the misfortune of ending up in a sand bunker, you greatly risk your score, therefore try to avoid them and don't aim to close to a bunker. However, sooner or later, your ball will land in a bunker, which will present a new challenge to you. If the ball is buried you will have to use the sand wedge to "dig" the ball out. As you can see in the example above, the bunker swing is upside down compared to a regular swing and you should hit the ball between the sand and the ball. If you are in a fairway bunker and want to hit a longer shot, switch the swing from bunker to full. Remember though that the ball cannot be buried in the sand to do a full swing shot.

To start off with practicing on the driving range, just simply go to the play link on the menu on the website and choose "Practice on the Driving Range". Now you're ready to go to the next step & start practicing on the Driving Range! Here you can practise with any club of your choice. You will learn how far a particular club will go and you can practise what will happen depending on how you change all various parameters in the game. In particular it is very good to try and change your stance to see the different resulting ball flights.

To play in the Practice mode, just do as you did in the previous chapter. Just visit the play link on the menu on the website and choose "Practice on a course". Now you're ready to go to the next step! Before starting in practice mode just choose which course you want to play and which holes and hit create game to launch your practicing! In Practice on a course the Game is slightly different from the normal game play. The game behaves as a normal game but no statistics are collected. So you can try different types of shots, drop the ball to do a shot again with a different club if you want to see how that works. But since no statistics are collected you will not make your stats look worse. This mode is recommended for beginners.

Private & Public games are where the real action at onGOLF happens, you can play them both as single- or multiplayer. Whether you choose to play alone or challenge your friends, in this mode all statistics will be recorded and published in your profile, the outcome of the game will also influence your skill level. In Create a Private Game With Friends you can play a game with any of your friends. You can invite your friends to the game or you can choose to play alone. All statistics are collected such as length of drives, greens in regulations, average number of putts per green etc. You can choose to play different types of game modes along with your friends on the setup page. Play up to 4 players. The winner is the player who gets the lowest score. This is the most common format of play in real life golf. 2-4 players compete head to head. You play to win each hole. The player with the lowest score on a hole wins that hole. The goal is to win more holes than the opponent. If e.g. there are two holes left to play and one player is leading with three holes then the match is over and the player in the lead wins the match by a score of 3/2. Similar to Match Play. This is also called Foursome. Foursomes is a competition format in which teams are comprised of two players each, and the players alternate hitting the same ball (which is why Foursomes is also very commonly called "alternate shot"). The first player tees off, the second player hits the second shot, the first player hits the third shot, and so on until the ball is holed. Players alternate hitting tee shots so that the same player doesn't hit every drive. A Public Game is similar to a private game, but you can play a game with anyone. You can wait for anyone to join the game. All statistics are collected such as average length of drives, greens in regulations, average number of putts per green etc. The game works exactly like the previous one with different types of modes.

Chatting and talking to friends is very easy in onGOLF. On the website just click on FRIENDS down on your right side. Your friends will be visible and when you want to chat just click in Chat next to your friends name. You can add new friends by using the search box in the top right corner of the site. Also, wherever you see another player on the site, just click on his name, that will open the mini profile and there you can click "Add Friend". In the same profile, you immediately start chatting by clicking on the "Start chat" button, and you are ready to talk! You can chat with all players that are currently logged in by clicking in the lower right corner of the screen while you are in the "Play" section.

On the leader board, you can find the top onGOLF players, to get in there and to advance to the top is one of the ultimate goals of onGOLF. Make sure to come back often to check your ranking amongst the onGOLF leaders. In onGOLF the skill indicator is a measurement on how many strokes you are from par. Every new player will start at with a skill of 100 which he will very quick decrease (improve). Players will have the ability to improve their skill as they are playing the game, however there are some conditions for a game to be eligible for skill adjustment:

• Play a public or private game. Practise and driving range are not affecting your skill.
• The match must be setup for atleast five holes, if it's just one or two it will not affect your skill either. Remember to play the whole match though, if you drop out early your score on the remaining holes will be counted as 6 over par for each hole.

Warning: If you set up a public or private game with more than five holes and quit prematurely, your skill will be affected negatively! Good luck in improving your skill!

onGOLF provides you with the possibility of customizing of your character. Just simply go to the Character button down in the middle and choose an outfit and avatar gender to your liking. In here you can choose different clothes, choosing different colors or just switch between male or female. All your changes will be updated in real time.

Your profile is the representation of your avatar on the site and in the game, it also contains a few in game settings. Additionally, you can check out statistics of your game play such as longest drive, longest putt and other achievements. All of your friends and what they are doing will also be visible on the my profile site through the friends feed. To get there, simply just left click on My profile in the top menu on the website. To modify your profile just click Edit profile. If you would like to upload a picture which will be your visual representation on the site and in game, click Upload profile picture. Remember to click Save after you made changes in edit mode. In case onGOLF does not start, or runs too slow, try to set Force game performance mode in the game settings section to Enabled, this will force the game to start the game in a lower graphics mode which is faster and less demanding on slower computers. Then click Save.