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Simulator Software

GSPro is my personal choice of golf simulator software. I’ve played on e6, TGC2019, Jack Nicklaus Perfect Golf and GSPro. GSpro is my favorite. This review will cover the things you want to know, how it all works and some of the features you can expect. Plus a little history of how it came to be.

About GSPro

GSPro was built from the ground up as a golf simulator software by simulator players themselves.

The real story is that the previous golf sim software the online golf tour used (Jack Nicklaus Perfect Golf) was purchased by a particular launch monitor company (Trackman). And Trackman decided to turn off JNPG simulator passes to players who were using any launch monitor other than Trackman in August 2019 and gave them a 6 month or so deadline to get off the software. Most of the sim golfers used Skytrak or a GC2 from Foresight, not a Trackman.

The Original Home Page of GSPro (the old home page)
11/1/2022 - Version 2.0 is released with a refined user interface and a ton of new upgrades and improvements.

This lack of acceptable software for these sim golf players led to the birth of GSPro. It is a realistic golf simulator software built on the Unity framework.

One of the Online Golf Tour’s own is a Unity programmer and said he can build a better golf software. With the help of another player who also is a programmer, they did just that. These two guys, along with the community on discord and the Simulator Golf Tour, led to the birth and on-going development of GSPro.

The software launched first in a beta format for general tour users to test out in August of 2020. I jumped on board the beta bandwagon and have not looked back.

We as a group played on it, suggested improvements and helped the developers build the game. It was in beta for roughly a year and a half or so and back then it required a fair number of hoop-jumping to get everything to work properly (see my first GSpro download guide if you want to relive some of that history). Half of 2020 and until late fall of 2021 the software was not officially for sale but being built from the ground up by a dedicated base of individuals.

This “GSPro Backstory” really all just leads to the one main point I love about GSPro. It is constantly being updated, improved and made better by a dedicated team of actual users.

I mean let’s be honest. If you compare GSPro to arguably it’s main competitor, TGC2019, it is updated way more often. While I have not played TGC2019 since the day GSPro was launched, it was not updated in the entire first 6 months in which I played it before going to GSP. You can read more in my love/hate TGC2019 review.

Playing GSPro

Tara Iti

Driving Range

  • Movable target for short shots to full bombs
  • Tracers optional for seeing your visual results of a session
  • Change clubs for club tracking
  • Export your sessions to csv file if you wish
  • You can also find the driving ranges on many/all courses if you go into on-course practice mode and search around for it.

Skills Challenge

  • 60 shots of varying distances Grouped in 3’s. Score cumulative for the entire bag.
  • Eventually shorter versions of the skills challenge with smaller groupings of clubs/shots required.

Game Modes

  • Stroke Play
  • Scramble (choose as many on your team as you want, just select the same color for everyone)
  • Match Play
  • Stableford
  • Alternate Shot

Putting

Yes you putt and yes you putt just like you normally would. You also have the option of playing with auto-putt if you wish to just hit your other clubs on the green and let the system auto-putt you from there.

  • Full Putting
  • Putting HLA (horizontal launch angle) correction on or off (with this on, you can hit it 2 degrees left or right only, with it off you can hit it as far right or left as possible with no left or right correction. This is personal play style + launch monitor specific. I play both, usually ‘off’ when playing with friends so you don’t have to use the mouse on all but the craziest putts.)
  • Putting optional – you can turn on auto putt if you want
  • Gimme options – multiple gimme distances 5 feet to 20’+
  • Two Auto-putt options – Fixed is inside of 10′ is a 1 put, 10-40′ a 2 put and 40’+ a 3 putt. Random auto putt gives you a random put weighted towards being closer to the hole as more likely to go in.
  • Gimme circle optionally shown on the green. I always play with this on.
  • Different levels of putting difficulty – easy, normal and difficult. I notice very little difference between easy and normal. They are all hard lol.

Hitting Shots (Drivers and Irons)

Fire away with your full club swing. The ball flys nicely in a trajectory that matches your shot.

From the players perspective you see the initial ball flight from the players perspective. As the ball progresses farther away the camera ‘zooms’ towards the ball and angles to show you the landing zone and watch the ball land where you can see it.

Dynamic rough penalties – The amount of penalty (distance loss) a shot receives depends on a few factors that change based on how you hit it. The higher your shot the less penalty you will incur from being in rough. Just like real life, if you hit it high it will usually fly. If you hit it low the rough eats it up and kills distance.

Normal rough takes around 8-10% off of your distance. Deep rough takes 20% or more. I club up once for normal rough, twice for deep rough. Hit it high!

Lie adjustments – at the bottom of the screen there are a up/down number and a left/right number. These show you a numerical representation of your lie. If you are way 10 degrees L that means a shot that you hit straight yourself is going to fly off at roughly 10 degrees to the left on the game. So if you have a strong right or left lie, adjust for that to hit the target you want.

Up/ Down lie is super important. Especially a strong downward lie. This means you really have to hit the ball up to get it to fly a distance you want. Think about hitting a downhill lie in real life. It’s a tough shot. Upwards lie means the ball is going to fly that bit higher than what you actually hit. In general a few degrees up is great for me and makes it easier to hit out of the rough.

Mulligans – when you set up your round you can turn mulligans on or off. CTRL-M is the shortcode for taking a mulligan.

Aim – Change aim point/direction with the mouse or just hit it that way. You can adjust your aim by using the mouse and the mini-map in the bottom right or you can even click on the screen in front of you and change your aim point to where ever you click. If you hold the mouse down on the mini-map it shows you distances to the landing target and the distance to the pin from that spot. Hit ‘j’ and you can zoom in to see the landing zone.

Courses

The courses on GSPro are all community built. Great designers from within the game build courses and as a user you have free access to them all.

Yes, the famous courses are there (or are being built). Yes, you can play Augusta. Yes you can play Pebble Beach. Yes you can play dozens and dozens of other courses. Most re-creations of real life courses from around the country and world. (check this awesome user generated google map of all the GSPro golf courses real life location.

  • Par 3 Courses – YES. Par 3 tee-boxes are available on all courses
  • Multiple Tee Boxes – Yes. Choose different lengths for individual players and still play together
  • Junior tees – yes again you can choose the par 3 tee’s or slightly longer tee’s for whatever skill level or distance you want to play. Adults and kids can play together on the same hole from different tee boxes
  • 100+ courses and growing – see this page on the SGT site for a list of courses and some details.

Are there any ‘easy’ courses? I love recommending Farmlinks. It has big wide fairways (you can turn the firmness up on the fairways to get longer roll out if you want) and it has fun elevation changes with a huge downhill par 3 the course is known for. Blackberry Oaks is another good course that is not to tough on the players.

Course Design and Creation – OPCD Course Designer Tools

One of the cool things about GSpro is that all the courses are community driven, built and created. And we as players get to play them for free, included with our GSpro membership. Plus the courses are designed as simulator golf courses, not as ‘xbox’ games.

Course Creation – I personally know very little about creating a course, however everything is community driven and user built. Members have created tools and course building platforms that others use. There are a few players mentioned as ‘key behind the scenes vital pieces’ including DPRoberts, johnmeyer, RalphP, soupy, TEKBUD, inokuo and stingreye. (no offense to anyone left out, this is not my personal area of knowledge!!). You can interact and talk to these guys and more on the Discord channel.

Special shoutout to ‘DPRoberts’ – as he is the true magician behind OPCD. This guys has done more than the rest combined and most of us at GSPro have no idea (including yours truly!). I do know he is building his own version of Sawgrass and it’s expected to be quite the treat. Check for it in sometime in March, April or May of 2022!

OPCD Course Design Toolset – Learn more at Zeros and Ones Golf Course Design This toolset, community built ( DPRoberts and johnmeyer I believe!) has led to the development of every single course that you can play on GSpro. All courses use these tools and there is a very active Discord channel if you are interested in making your own courses.

Which Launch Monitors does GSPro Work With

Please note that other than the Uneekor systems, the integration of GSPro and the launch monitor can require a certain app and or interface. Some of the interfaces were community sourced and not ‘official’ licensed stuff. But the good news is that they work and work well.

  • See my current GSPro Compatible Launch Monitors guide.
  • Uneekor Launch Monitors
  • Foresight GC2, GC3, GCQuad and GSFalcon / Hawk.
  • Bushnell Launch Pro with at least Basic Yearly Subscription
  • Skytrak – need to get the community developed interface software but works and works well
  • Garmin R10 – no putting or short chips but there are auto-putt options now when playing GSP
  • Mevo+ Now officially supported (2/27/22 update). Flightscope users are going to be able to play on GSPro.

GSPro Strong Points- My Favorite Talking Points

Realistic ball physics. The golf ball flys, bounces and rolls the way it should. It’s very realistic physics and they are improving as they go. Low hard shots will run way farther than higher trajectory shots. A too hard putt will lip out and around the cup or bounce over it.

Crazy good graphics – 4k and stunning. Plus you can customize your look to suit your tastes and setup using the ‘L’ key on the keyboard and then tweaking stuff.

Rough is ‘dynamic’. Meaning the higher you hit the ball the less the rough affects the ball flight. Just like in real life. If you are in thick rough and try to smash a 3w it’s likely to get caught up and slowed way down. Where as if you hit an 8 iron up and out it will likely only affect the shot slightly and not nearly as severe. Just like real life.

Click a persons name and they can hit their shot . One of my favorite updates I nicknamed the ‘Davey’ update. Because Dave is always out the back door smoking. “Who’s up we ask… oh shocker, it’s Dave. It’s almost always Dave”. Now we just click on someone else and Dave can hit when he finds his way back inside.

Various Game Modes – Scramble 2v2 is a great way for new players to play and nice and fast. There is stroke, match, stableford and skins (I believe).

Putt and Auto-Putt Options – the weekly tour uses 5 feet gimmes, my local crew plays 10′ gimmies and there are many more up to i think 20′. Plus there are auto-putt options if you just want to hit balls and let the putting handle itself once you get on the green.

Online Games – play with friends online who have simulators at their house. I have not taken advantage of this as I don’t have online friends with simulators really.

Weekly Tourneys with Simulator Golf Tour – the tour is the driving force behind GSPro. Join the tour and compete with others in weekly tourneys and year long points races just like the pro’s. Usually they follow the pro’s around to which ever course they play, the SGT plays. It’s pretty fun and addictive. Multiple levels of players with different skill level tours to compete in. Plus it tracks a ton of stats and information about your game.

Hide ‘UI’ on shot – essentially it will just be you and the golf course as you hit your shot. No data showing up in boxes along the right and no mini-map. After the shot is over you can see all your data and info about the shot you just hit.

Notable Drawbacks

Keep in mind that some of these ‘drawbacks’ are just features or things that are wanted that are not quite yet available.

No wind – yet. This is one of the things they want to take the time to do it right. Golf is hard enough I say.

No elevation changes – yet. Elevation is now in-game! This is rumored to be coming with the same update as wind. This means that barometric pressure does not affect ball flight. All elevations are the same as at sea level currently.

No really good documentation on how everything works and works. Thanks to Mr. Ralph Perkins there is now a manual and his growing youtube channel where he shows you in detail how to do certain things within the software. There are a growing number of users who are putting out great guides. Recommend Brent Sloan on the GSPro sim software users group for a PDF of setting up your GSPro Software.

No shot replay. If you hit that amazing shot you’d love to have a replay of it if possible but without using an additional software there is no in-game replay options. Many users use something called ‘OBS’ to record their sessions and have the replay there.

Computer Requirements

According to gsprogolf.com FAQ, these are the following requirements to run GSPro.

GSPro requires a Windows PC with at least:

  1. 4GB free space
  2. GTX 1070 or RX 580 GPU, minimum.
  3. Stable internet Connection
  4. Ethernet port and/or BT depending on Launch Monitor

Awesome Community Built Resources

Map of GSPro Courses – see the real life location of the courses on GSP all on a google map.

Tekbud aka Brent Wells – this guy is the man when it comes to both building courses and creating youtube content focused around GSPro. You guys should subscribe to his youtube channel and join his patreon if you like his courses on GSP.

Brent Sloan – what is it with guys named Brent and GSP? This guy put together two great pdfs on GSpro that he uses to help run a simulator league he runs out of his simulator. He created a GSPro Userguide (PDF warning) and GSPro Instructions (PDF warning) that go over some of the settings and how-to’s of GSPro.

Discord Channel – you can jump on here and get help any time of the day (thanks soupy!)

Facebook Group – unofficial facebook group where you can ask questions, get answers and see info. Community driven.

GSPro Official Users Facebook Group – less active but good content from the creators of GSPro.

About this GSPro Review

I was not compensated in any way, shape or form for this review. Hell the guys at GSPro do not even know I’ve written it. They do not have an affiliate program (at least not yet) and no compensation was asked, requested or given. I wrote this because I use it and I think you should too if you want to play in the best simulator golf software on the market today. At least in my opinion.

Good luck out there, hit em straight.

Buy now – GSprogolf.com

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