Before you can start you need to register an account, unless you already have a VOIPlay account (which is e.g. used at www.playzeek.com) Please remember that the more accurate information you enter, the easier it will be for your friends to find you. To register an account, click here: http://www.ongolf.com/. The only information we need from you is your user name, a valid email address and a password. Please select a user name with care as it is not changeable at present. If you ever forget your password we will email it to you to the email address you have entered. It is crucial that the email address is valid, so onGOLF will be able to update you with latest news, features and competition scores. As mentioned before, it is not mandatory to fill in personal details but it does really help your friends finding you. The address information you are about to enter is used to pinpoint your location in the world. On the web site in the upper right corner you will see the heading World. If you click on this heading a world map will be displayed. Here you can see the location of players that are online at the moment. After you have registered your account, you will automatically be redirected to the download page and start downloading onGOLF. In case you would like to continue with the download step at a later time, you can reach the download page by the Download link in the upper right corner of the site.

After you registered the account, you will automatically be taken to the download page, where you just click the black "Download Now" button and wait until the transfer is completed. Now just open the file you downloaded and click next. Now select the directory where you want to install onGOLF, if you are not sure where, just leave the default setting and click "Install". In case that button is greyed out (such as demonstrated above), you probably don't have enough space available on your hard drive. Try uninstalling some no longer needed applications or delete old data. Click "Back" and "Next" again, then you should be able to install. Especially on slower computers, the installer can take a bit longer since the game is quite large. While the installation is ongoing, you can take a peak at the game basics in this help section to give you a head start later on. After the game is installed, the only thing left to do is to check whether you have the right version of DirectX (required by the game) installed. Just accept the agreement and click next, the installer will update your files in case there is a need to, after that just click finish. Now you are all set to jump right into the game.

Now that your account is set up and you have installed the game, you are finally ready to play your first hole. Remember that this is a quick guide and is not explaining all the game features in detail, instead it will teach you the basics you need to successfully play your first hole. First, make sure that you are actually signed in on the onGOLF site. Just check in the lower left corner of the site whether you see your user name there, if that is not the case, just enter your user name and password and click "Sign in". As shown in the video above, just click the Play button in the main menu and then select "Practice on a Course", as your first few strokes will most certainly be nothing you would like to have on your statistics. Don't worry, you just need a little bit of training before you are ready to face your friends. Then click "Next Step". Now you can select the course and hole you'd like to play on, we recommend that you stick with the default course and select hole 1. Then just click "Create Game" and onGOLF will automatically launch the game, depending on your computer performance, you will see the loading screen for a few seconds up to a minute, please remain patient until you see the hole fly over, then continue with "Playing your first hole" section further down. In case you can't see the loading screen, the game crashes or it is too slow to properly interact with game, try this step: Open your profile via the "My Profile" link in the main menu and then click "Edit Profile" under your profile picture. In the "Game settings" section set "Force game performance mode" 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". Now repeat the steps to start your first game, if you should still encounter problems, please consult the forums, send us a mail on support@ongolf.com, or use the Feedback button.

After the loading screen has disappeared, you will see a continuous looping hole fly over, together with details about the hole such as difficulty, length, par, etc. As you notice in the middle on the screen, there is a tutorial window with a compressed version of this guide in the game, where you can go step by step with the "Next" button. The window is movable during the entire time of the game, so you will be able to try each step and then go the next step. For now though, you can "Close" this window, it is easily recallable from the help menu. After you finished reading the hole information, please click the "Continue" button. Next, your avatar (your player in onGOLF) is introduced as he or she is preparing to make the first shot. You can skip this and other scenes with a left click. Now this is the first time you see the game interface of onGOLF. Don't worry if it seem overwhelming at first, we will guide you step by step through all the controls necessary for your first hole. First thing you will notice your avatar, ready to make a shot. Before we talk about aiming and shooting, let's have a closer look at the mini map and explain some basic onGOLF terms. The mini map shows the current hole you are playing on and is important for orientating yourself on the course. On the top you can see the flag, that is your goal, to reach it in a minimum number of strokes. Below that you can see the target circle, this indicates your aiming or mind set of where you would like to strike your ball to. A perfect shot will land right where you are aiming. At the bottom of the map you see the position of your avatar.

Allright, now that you know the basic terms, lets start aiming for your first shoot, to go to aim mode press and hold "A". While you are in this mode you can move your target circle left and right with moving your mouse side ways. To move it back and forth, you need to reduce or increase the power, which is accomplished with the mouse wheel. You can also aim by placing the cursor inside the target circle in the mini map or on the shoulders of the player. Then you left click once on the mouse to get into the aiming mode. Now you can move the mouse left and right and also change the power by using the mouse wheel. When you are happy with your aim and power you right click once on the mouse. Now you are ready to hit the shot. Note: the default is always full power, so you can only reduce power to begin with. As you can notice, there is a water hazard to your left, so we would recommend to reduce the power a bit for your first strike, and a less powerful shot is easier and also aim a bit more to the right, to get further away from the water, since most beginners tend to hook (hit too far to the left) their drives. Once you are comfortable with your aiming, release "A" or release the left mouse button to get back to your avatar and notice how your target circle on the mini map has changed position according to your change of aim.

Now that you are aiming in the right direction, you are ready to work on your swing. Left click the hands of the avatar (and release the left mouse button again) to enter the test shoot mode. Now it is getting serious, you are about to make your first stroke in onGOLF! Note: Just a word of caution. Though the swing model of onGOLF is very intuitive, it still requires a bit of training, so don't expect to make perfect shots from the very beginning. As in real life golf, your first couple of strokes will probably hit everything but the fairway, but that will improve quickly. Let us take a closer look at the swing interface now. As you see in the screen shot above, you see your avatar from above and two curves, which we have to explain in more detail: The upper curve is the swing curve or swing path, you will need to follow this curve as precise as possible with your mouse. The lower curve is the power curve, it represents the potential and actual power of your stroke. The amount of power is depending on the speed and length of your swing. Note: Watch the power curve while you move the mouse wheel, it increases and decreases Now that you know what those curves represent, we can start to train a bit in the test swing mode. Note: As long as you don't keep the left mouse button pressed, you are in a test mode, meaning you won't actually touch the ball as you swing. You start your swing at the left end of the curve and swing back to the right, that way you build up power of your swing. Then you drag the mouse all the way back to the left (front swing), staying on the swing path all the time. The faster you do that, the more power you will have, but it also becomes more difficult to stay on the path. Repeat this a couple of times until you feel comfortable that you can more or less stay on the swing curve during back and front swing with a steady speed. Now you can take your first shot at this, by pressing and holding the left mouse button while swinging you will actually strike the ball. Just repeat what you have trained in test mode. Remember not to stop at the left end of the curve when you do your front swing, just swing all the way through. Just like in real life golf. Note: Try not to swing too fast, it's better to get your shot straight than far but ending up in the woods or the water. If you don't feel comfortable to do a real swing yet, release the left mouse button and do a couple of more test swings. In case you want to change your aim, just right click to exit the shoot mode. After your stroke, you can't do anything but lean back and watch your ball flying, hopefully towards the area you aimed at. If we take a second and analyze the stroke here in the example above, we can already tell that it was not perfect, but more or less on the swing curve and that we didn't strike with full power. The video above shows again how to make the swing and more importantly how to handle the mouse to swing properly. Don't give up when you miss a couple of shots, or hit the ball into the woods or the water, it's natural that it take a few minutes until you are able to hit straight. Here are a few tips to help you to get on track:

• Try to reduce your power to 50 % and only do half swings, those are easier, since you only need to follow half of the swing path.
• Don't try to drag the mouse too fast across the swing path, force yourself to slow down a bit.
• Get a comfortable test swing before each shot, swing back and forth at least 5 times and then continue with the same movement, just add the left mouse button.

In case you end up in a bad position, you can always drop the ball, meaning to place it somewhere else further away from the hole. Sometimes it also makes sense to go back to the last position and try to repeat the shot. But don't forget that dropping the ball will cost you one penalty stroke. Should you shoot in the water, or out of bounds, you need to either drop the ball or go back to last position. When you select to drop the ball, you will see a marker on the screen, just move back your mouse until you are satisfied with the position and click left to drop the ball there. Congratulations, after a few attempts you more or less managed to drive your ball where you wanted to, now you have to continue the same way until you reached the green. Presuming you manage to get a decent drive, you have the chance to reach the green with one more approach shot. If you check your aiming, you will most likely have to much power, so reduce the power until you aim at the green. Note: Your ball will continue to roll for a bit, even if it will land exactly where you aim, it will not stop there. So leave a few meters between target circle and flag. Note: Try to avoid shortcuts across water hazards, in the beginning you almost definitely shoot shorter than you aim, which would mean loosing a ball. Rather choose a safer approach and stay on the fairway the entire way from your position Now try your next stroke in order to reach the green.

As you reach the green there is a new challenge to be mastered which is the putting. Putting is all about reading the green and aiming correctly, so let's go to aim mode. As you will notice in addition to the target circle, you can see a grid on the green, with black dashes moving along the lines more or less fast. That represents the slope of the green. You can change this inside the game to arrows or lines. Just click on Options and then choose HUD. There you can choose between grid as shown above, lines or arrows. Play around with it until you find a mode that you like and use that one. This green is relatively flat, so the dashes are small and slow, which is very good for a beginner. Note: The target circle on the green does not mean at all that the ball will end up there, it does not account for slope, wind or surface. So only on a perfectly flat green, with no wind and a standard green, you will actually hit your target. It will be your job to account for all the factors, such as slope to adjust the target circle to get the ball in the cup. This requires some skill and as in real life, skill is something you acquire by practicing. Practice makes perfect. On the example above the green is not up or downhill from the players position, there is just a small slope to the left. In order to adjust for that, move the target circle a little bit right of the cup, no too much though. Once you feel comfortable, that your aiming is correct, left click the player as if you would make a stroke. In that sense, putting is easier, because you no longer have a swing movement, now it's a straight line, the only challenge is to hit the ball with the right amount of power. Do a couple of test putts first and watch the power curve, as you hit the ball, if the red actual power is the same as the highlighted area of the power curve, then you hit it correctly. Note: As with the swing, in the beginning it will take you a couple of times until you have it in the cup. Don't worry, this is perfectly normal. You first need to learn how much you need to counter a certain amount of slope and wind before you can make those 15+ meter putts. Congratulations, you just got your first ball in the cup! Even if it took a while in the beginning, but your skill will improve over time. Your score will probably not be good for the first time, but as mentioned before, this is normal, try to play more practice matches and work on your drive at the driving range. Once you improved your score, try to play public or private matches where the actual scores and statistics are recorded and you can lower your skill level. Eventually you will want to challenge some of your friends in a live match, since that is much more fun than playing alone. To see a video summary of the first game, click on the play button below Your score will probably not be good for the first time, but as mentioned before, this is normal, try to play more practice matches and work on your drive at the driving range. Your first task will be to get your skill down to 75, where you will be given the onGOLF green card, read more about that in our next section.

When you start at onGOLF your skill will be at 100 over par, which will go down fairly quick when you start playing onGOLF. Your first goal will be to work your skill down to 75 and get the onGOLF Green Card! Until you get there, your first rounds will be easier and spare you some the frustrations which are often associated with golf in the real world. The way you improve your skill is fairly simple, improve your score! Play more and you will get better over time. There is only one thing you need to be aware of, so that your skill is actually measured while playing:

• Play a real match. The driving range and practise mode are great to work on your swing or to safely try out a new course, but it will not affect your skill level at all. You can play both alone or with friends to improve you skill.

Note: As soon as you leave green card mode, you also have to play at least 5 consecutive holes to affect your skill. Since you will be getting a lot of help in the process of mastering the onGOLF Green Card, none of your statistics will be recorded and you will not show up on any top lists or leader boards. Once you hit 75, you will have enough training to play without further help from the game, but it might still take a few holes to get used to, don't worry, you will quickly get there. See you on the fairway and good luck with your game!