Undercover Pro: Cheaters at High-Stakes Sim Tourneys

I'm a pro who owns several driving ranges across the Midwest. Ten years ago, I started investing in simulators to keep my clients busy during the cold months. My ratio of outdoor mats to simulators is 15-to-1, yet simulator golf accounts for 40 percent of my business. Avid golfers can’t get enough of it, and it’s also great for beginners. But it’s not just a novelty. There are also real opportunities in the simulator golf world. Professional golfer Jordan Weber received a DP World Tour invitation into the Omega European Masters (plus three additional exemptions into the European feeder circuit, the Challenge Tour) for winning the Order of Merit on the NEXT Golf Tour, which is played on simulators. Some prizes rival tour events; the GOLFZON Tour winning team gets $150,000. But when the stakes climb, so does the temptation to cut corners.

The first month I opened the simulator bays, I got the same weird request from a customer twice in one week. He wanted me to turn down the lights in one of the rooms because he said it was messing with the data readouts. The way our lights are wired, it wasn’t something I could easily fix. I went online to learn if this was a common issue, and sure enough, discovered that very dim lights can make a simulator read increased spin numbers. This player knew what he was doing, and I had no idea of the underbelly I was about to discover.

Simulators are not as smart as you might think. Most have just two cameras working together: one watches your club, the other tracks the ball. Together, they calculate curve based on your clubface angle and swing path, which works really great … until it doesn’t. With many simulators, if you strike the ball outside a certain zone, the club camera basically gives up. The system can only see the ball at that point, which means no clubface data, which means no curve calculation. The simulator assumes your shot is flying dead straight, no matter how wild the swing. One owner learned this the hard way when complaints flooded in about a player who figured out how to always nudge the ball just so outside the tracking zone before he hit. This guy had finished second in a high-stakes event and walked away with $15,000.

The leagues I run out of my shops are just local games for small change and bragging rights. Most of the bad behavior isn’t so much cheating as not playing in the spirit of the game. The shady ones have realized that if there is water down the left side of a hole, just bomb it into the right trees because most software doesn’t recognize branches. As long as you avoid the trunk with your next shot, it’s not a true penalty. Same with hitting in the sand. Provided you take a club with enough loft, you can clear any high lip on a simulator with a normal pitch-shot motion and get a good result.

Sometimes there is also true cheating. Instead of hitting from the designated rough or sand spots on the mat (which are not rough or sand but longer bristles of turf) a lot of players just stay on the fairway spot. This might not seem like a big deal, but those cleaner strikes add up. The most common cheating I see is in manipulating gimme putts. To keep things moving (simulator golf can get deathly slow, too) a lot of systems have automatic gimmes for when your ball gets into a certain range, usually less than five feet. I’ve seen players slyly change that range to 10 feet or even 20 when their competitors in the next bay aren’t looking.

We once had a year-long contest for lowest score on the Old Course, handicap adjusted. One entrant was a 20-handicap who I know had a friend play the round for him. I have no idea who this other person was, but he wasn’t a damn 20. After the 20-handicap submitted and signed for a 53 (-19), I made him play a few holes on the Old under my supervision. After three holes and a six-over score I told him to hit the bricks. His response was, “Sorry, I get nervous under pressure.” Please.

Of course, I have it easy. We had an industry convention in San Diego this year, and I couldn’t believe the amount of cheating I heard about in larger, nationwide simulator tournaments. One proprietor told me he had to start counting clubs after someone brought 20 sticks to a tournament. Another said a player was using olive-oil cooking spray to win a long-drive competition (minimizes friction, less sidespin, longer and straighter shots). There was one assistant pro from Houston who said his club had to kick out a board member after he tried to hack into a simulator league and manipulate his scores.

To be fair, the big-time event organizers are starting to catch on. When five-figure paychecks are on the line, those tournaments now require rounds to be fully captured by a separate video recording, usually from a phone. Trackman has systems, too, similar to gambling watchdogs, that point out spin or score irregularities for review. Most rounds are required to be played in pairs whereas before you could submit solo.

The sim-tournaments I run are for pro shop credit or a piece of equipment. I’m not requiring video documentation or going through all those other hoops for a $50 gift card. That leads me to my favorite cheating story. Once, during Players week, I was awarding a free lesson to whoever hit closest to the pin on TPC Sawgrass’ island hole. I charge $70 an hour for lessons, and it’s $50 per hour to play on a simulator. I watched a college kid hit mulligan after mulligan for three hours, then finally quit happy when he put one to three inches. When he came to proudly write down his name, all I could say was, “I hope you’re not a math major.”

more from undercover pro

Golf Digest Logo My life as a PGA Tour fixer

Golf Digest Logo Undercover Caddie: Do tour pros cheat? Here's your answer

Golf Digest Logo Undercover Caddie: My player wouldn’t stop cheating, so I quit