INTRODUCTION Welcome to Abrasco's GOLF. We are sure that you will have many hours of enjoyment out of this product. THE HISTORY OF GOLF For those of you who are unfamiliar with the origins of the game, here is a brief history of the game. It is considered that the game began in Scotland, although several landscapes painted by Dutch and Flemish artists suggest that golf was played in Holland before it was known in Scotland. The first mention of the game in official records was during the Scottish Parliaments of 1457-1491 when golf was prohibited die to its popularity interfering with the practice of archery to the consequent detriment of the national defence in the wars against England; by the reign of James II golf had become the national pastime in Scotland. The Honourable Compnay of Edinburgh Golfers at Muirfeld formed the first set of Rules of the game, and these were adopted by the Society of St.Andrews Golfers which was formed in 1754. in 1834, King William IV approved the change of name to the Society to the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St.Andrews, which is responsible for the government of the game, the interpretation of the Rules and the control of the Open Championship. With the spread of the game overseas, many organisations have been formed, the most significant being the United States Golf Association founded in 1894, which is now in close contact with the Ancient Golf Club to maintain uniformity in the administration of the game. In 1927, Mr.Samuel Ryder presented the Ryder Cup for competition between professionals from America and Britain, and the contese takes place in alternate years, each country being visited in turn. Teams from Ireland and Europe now also compete for the Ryder Cup. The Professional Golfers' Association was founded in 1901 to promote interest in the game of Golf and to protect and advance the mutual and trade interests of its members. The P.G.A. is the oldest such Association in the world and is responsible for promoting professional tournaments in the British Isles. THE CONCEPT OF GOLF The Game of Golf consists in playing a ball from the teeing ground into the hole by successive strokes of a club. The space between tee and green is called the 'fairway', and is occupied by any number of hazards such as trees and bunkers (hollows filled with sand). These hazardswill be explained later. THE PROCEDURE On first loading Golf, the program will load the necessary Graphics required and will then ask whether you wish to load a previously saved game. For the moment, we will skip that section since, the first time you load Golf, you wonīt want to do this. So, the very first time that you load Golf, answer [N] to the question. You will then be asked whether 1 or 2 players wish to play Golf. Answer appropriately. Enter the name of the players and the Handicaps. Note: A players's Handicap is the amount of shots that he/she will adjust the final score by, at the end of game, to compensate for lack of experience; the lower the Handicap, the greater the experience of the player. Once you have entered the names and Handicaps, you will be asked how many holes you wish to play. This can be between 1 and 18 holes. As you will find out later, you can save a game at any time before commencing a new hole, so you donīt necessarily have to play the whole course in one sitting. When you have entered everything, you can then commence with the game itself. COMMENCING PLAY The first thing that you will see will be the bird's-eye-view of the course. However, you will not see the course straight away. This is because it has to be made in the computer's memory. Once this is done, you will see it displayed on the left-hand side of the screen, along with trees, bunkers, green and tee. At the top of the screen, a key to all the symbols for the course will be displayed. At the left hand side of the screen, the information concerning the course and players will be displayed. At the bottom of the screen, there are two lines (in blue) that are used for displaying prompts and remarks. Once the course has been generated, use either RETURN key or the fire button on the joystick (if you have one, plug in into Control Port 2 on the right hand side of the computer) to see the 3-D view of the tee. The 3-D view allows you to see the player from the side, so that you can estimate the strength needed for each shot. CONTROLS As we said before, on the left hand side of the screen contains the information to do with the course. These are broken down into the following: WIND: Direction wind is COMING FROM SPD: Speed of wind in knots CLB: Which club for the shot DIR: Direction of shot PAR: Par for the hole being played YDS: Distance between Tee and Green HOLE: Which hole the player is on The player's names and the number of shots they have taken on the hole are displayed below this. We will now look further into the information displayed. MORE DETAILED LOOK AT CONTROLS WIND This tells us what direction the wind is coming from. It is displayed in compass form, i.e. NW is northwest, E is east, SE is southeast etc. SPD This tells is the wind strength. It will be in the range of 5 to 20 knots. The wind will affect long shots more than it will affect short shots (although in this game, you can't always tell!). CLB This is the Club setting. You have 11 clubs to choose from. 2 'Woods' (No.1 Wood and No.3 Wood) and 9 'Irons' (No.1 Iron to No.9 Iron). In general, a Wood hits further than an Iron and a lower numbered club hits further than a higher numbered club (as long as the numbers refer to clubs of the same type i.e. Wood or Iron). To select the club that you wish to use on a particular shot, use the keys or joystick. ('A' and 'D' keys move the club setting around, as does moving the joystick left or right). Press RETURN or the fire button when finished. The clubs are displayed as 2 characters, a letter for the club type and a number for the number of the club e.g. W3 is a No.3 Wood, I5 is a No.5 Iron etc. DIR This is the direction setting. You can choose any direction on the compass. As a rough guide, 0 (or 360 as we use) is north, 180 is south, 90 is east and 270 is west. Note: the angles are in multiples of 5 i.e. 5,10,15,20,25 etc, but since a random factor has been introduced so as not to make things too easy for you, this will not hinder you very much. The direction is set in a similar way to the method for setting the club. Use the keys 'A' and 'D' or the joystick to 'clock' the direction around. You can move the direction ahead by 90 degrees by pushing the joystick forwards and there is the additional facility that, when you get to 360, continuing movement, gets the direction back to 5. Similarly, if the direction is set at 5 and you attempt to get a smaller direction, you will get back to 360. When you have finished selecting the direction, press RETURN or the fire button. PAR This tells you the expected number of shots that it will take to hole the ball for a good player. YDS This is the distance between the tee and the green. It is not necessarily exact but is a very good approximation. The par for the hole is based on this distance so you can get a good idea of the number of shots it will take to hole the ball by the distance as well as the par of the hole. HOLE This tells you what hole you are on. PLAYER DETAILS This displays the player's names and the number of shots that they have taken on that particular hole. CONTROLING STRENGTH Once you have selected the club and direction that you have require, you will get the 3-D view (if you havenīt already got it). The strength of the shot is determined by the amount of swing you give it. The more swing, the further it will go! The player's swing is controlled with the keyboard or joystick, as before. When you are happy with the swing, press the button, and your player will swing the ball. Note: In case you havenīt gathered by now, pulling the joystick towards you flips between the two views of the course. Pressing [F1] on the keyboard has a similar effect. HAZARDS TREES If a ball bounces near a tree it may sometimes bounce off in another direction. Try to avoid trees if you can. BUNKERS If the ball lands in OR AROUND a bunker you may have problems getting out! It is suggested that you use a slow Iron e.g. No.7 or No.8 Iron to get out. ROUGH If your ball bounces in the rough, it will slow down considerably. Try to stick to the fairway. THE GREEN Once the player is on the green (if two players are playing, both have to be on the green before either can attempt to hole the ball) then you will see a close-up view of the green. There are slight differences between playing on the green and playing on the fairway: Firstly, instead of choosing a club, you select a distance which is roughly determined by a scale displayed on the screen. Secondly, having selected the distance and direction, you do NOT have to select a club. (a putter is assumed). When a player holes the ball, he/she get an appropriate comment, and once all players have finished, a score sheet will be displayed. Having viewed the score sheet, press RETURN or the fire button to move onto the next hole. END OF GAME There are 3 methods of leaving the game: 1...Switch the computer off! 2...Complete all the holes that you specified at the start of the game. 3...Save the game by pressing 's' at the stage where you choose the club. Follow the prompts and you can load game at a later date. NOTE1: If you do save the game, remember what you called it. You will need the name when you reload it. NOTE2: When you have completed all the holes, the final score will be given, with an estimate of your new Handicap. This will be adjusted to take account of the number of holes you played. MISCELLANEOUS NOTES If you choose a two player game and are not happy with the second player's colour, then, by pressing 'F7', you can select another colour that you are happy with.