Joe Lagowski's GSPro beta 3.59.11 test finds a calmer first bounce than physics 2.0

Joe Lagowski has put GSPro's newest physics beta through a long range-and-green session, and he likes it enough to call it "Physics 3.0." His 47-minute video, posted Oct. 25 on Joe Lagowski Golf, tests beta 3.59.11, which carries the physics 2.1 turf model.

Lagowski says the new physics arrived in an earlier beta, but GSPro asked him to hold his video until it finished tweaking the settings. This is his first full look.

Why he thinks 2.1 fixes 2.0

His complaint about physics 2.0, which dropped a few weeks earlier, was that GSPro listened to players who said normal greens were too firm and wanted more spin, then went too far. In his view, 2.0 was too soft and too spinny, yet short chips still bounced hard. 2.1 is a better product, he says, because GSPro has defined what each setting is supposed to do.

The three turf types

Course setup now offers three turf types, each with soft, medium and firm options:

• Soft Parkland (bentgrass): soft, low bounce and high friction. The in-game note says to fly shots at the pin.
• Firm Sawgrass (Bermuda): a springy forward hop on landing and less grab. Play for rollout.
• Traditional Links (fine fescue, sand-based): hard impact, a fast forward bounce and long rollout with little bite. Land it short and use the ground.

Lagowski would drop the Parkland and Sawgrass labels and just name the grasses. Golfers already know how bent and Bermuda play, he argues, the same way a Stimpmeter number tells them how fast a green rolls.

What he saw

He tested on CC Sim Golf's The Wilds in on-course practice, with greens at 12 on the Stimpmeter and his Quad supplying the ball data.

• Short chips: The hard first bounce he disliked in 2.0 is much better. On bent and Bermuda, the firmness settings made small differences; firm bent added about a foot or two of rollout, which he considers the right size of change. Links was the first setting where he saw a clear difference.
• Pitches: Soft bentgrass still looked a little firm on the first bounce to him. He would dial the first bounce back "one or two ticks" on bent and Bermuda.
• Wedges: Full wedges on soft bent flew to the flag and held. One shot at about 10,500 rpm zipped back. He thought 2.0 had too much spin, and he says this build dials it back.
• Old feel: Medium-to-firm Bermuda plays like the GSPro physics players knew before 2.0, in his view.
• Links: The first bounce kills the spin and the ball runs out. One 7-iron on soft links rolled about 22 yards. He expects firm links to see little use, maybe for Open Championship setups.

He did not test fairway physics, and he notes that his test greens weren't flat.

What to do

If you're on the GSPro beta, choose the turf type that matches the course you're playing before you judge the bounce, then use firmness for fine tuning. It's still a beta. Lagowski thinks that if this had shipped instead of 2.0, players would have complained far less.