Swingerz Golf
| Set Difficulty | 8/10 |
| Approximate time to master | 50+ hours |
| Minimum numbers of playthroughs needed | 1 |
| Number of missable achievements | 0 |
| Does difficulty affect achievements? | N/A |
| Hardest achievement of the set | Surviving One Hundred |
| Set Developer | Snow |
| Guide Author | JMC4789 |
Grab your clubs and hit the links in Swingerz Golf (Ace Golf in Europe and わいわいゴルフ Wai Wai Gorufu in Japan). You'll tee up on six courses featuring diverse terrains, from a cactus-filled desert to a classic English course. Play as or against 14 offbeat golfers, each with distinct personalities and golfing abilities. You can battle three of your friends in various gameplay modes, including Tournament, Stroke, Match, and Short Course. With challenging weather conditions, mini-games, and intense tournaments, Swingerz Golf gives you a realistic and fun golfing experience.
The crux of this game is it the swinging mechanics. Rather than using a traditional 3 button swing bar like contemporary golf game Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour, you instead pull down on the C-stick to initiate the swing bar and then push up when the swing bar hits your desired power. Power is then set by the swing bar, but accuracy is set by how straight you pushed up the stick. How stringent the requirements are on the stick depend on the club, ball, lie, accessories, and your selected character. There are times you will have to hit poor/bad/good shots on purpose if you're looking to truly master this game. You can add some risk to your shots by going for power shots with the B button. This adds some distance, but can consume a ton of stamina fast, leaving your golfer with no distance in the later holes!
The game is has tons of clubs, balls, and accessories that can be upgraded by performing certain actions on the courses. What actions? It isn't fully known for every item, even now! Extensive testing and pooling of information from Japanese communities and additional reverse engineering has uncovered 99% of the game's secrets.
The other interesting mechanic is that there are only six full courses and a Par 3 9-hole course, but in order to spice up variety, you can play at each course in any of the four seasons. These four seasons will be incredibly important if you're looking to master this game, so keep it in mind.
When you first boot up the game you're greeted with the main menu screen. Here will be several modes.
- Tour Mode: Play in tournaments against a leaderboard like in many other golf games. Placing first unlocks new items and accessories alongside extra start points that go toward unlocking later stages in the tour. Additionally, each stage has Match Play events that will let you face off head to head with an AI golfer with the chance to unlock them if you beat them. Tour Mode is split into 6 stages and a final SP stage that has the achievement set's precious win condition. You can literally ignore every other mode if you're just looking to beat the game.
- Stroke Play: Let's you pick any unlocked course, in any season, with a choice of back or front tees. Extremely useful when looking for a particular setting to level up items. The only time you'll absolutely need to use stroke mode is to get to the Wai Wai GC 9 hole course for the character achievements on it.
- Match Play: Play against a friend of CPU opponent on a single course. Not necessary for the achievement set.
- Mini-Games: Arguably the hardest part of the game - there's no cheese or scumming around the challenges in here. Later challenges will ask you to get Hole in Ones and complete full courses with special restrictions that force you to change the way you play.
- Training: Extremely useful mode normally, but you don't need it for this achievement set. Let's you practice any hole in any season with the ability to replay any shot! If you're having trouble on any hole, come here and iron out your issues.
- Data: Unfortunately, the game doesn't track a lot of the stats it uses for accessory upgrades, so data is mostly useless unless you're looking to relive your greatest shots.
- Options: Lets you change audio options, and measurement units. If you're relying on certain caddies, it might be worth setting putting units to Meters for easier conversion. But, be warned, once you're used to one or the other, it's extremely hard to swap.
Characters in Swingerz Golf are incredibly different and will greatly alter your experience and swapping characters isn't that simple because Club/Ball/Accessory levels do not carry between characters. Often times, "upgrading" to a stronger character will leave you a bit weaker until you get some leveled up clubs and accessories on them. It's worth it in the end to switch over to a mid-game character versus the starters, but don't be surprised if it's a bit rough. The game does promote swapping characters though, by having some characters be stronger in certain weather, seasons, and some are actually debuffed in certain conditions.
Characters have 5 stat points to keep in mind.
- Power - How far can you hit the ball? This can be really, really important for your game. Chipping with a Wedge vs a low iron is a lot easier, so having longer drives can greatly improve your score - even at the cost to other stats.
- Control - How random is your shot? How fast is your shot bar? Basically, in front of your ball will be a "cone" coming out of it. That cone is how far the ball can veer with an excellent/great shot. Lower end shots can veer even more! More control means less randomness on shots and makes it easier to hit the right power, which is important on some missions.
- Impact - How easy is it to push the c-stick on this character? Less impact means tighter windows for the c-stick.
- Spin - Higher spin means the ball will stick better when using backspin and roll further with topspin, curve more with left/right spin. High enough spin stats will allow for a "Mario Golf" style super spin when using backspin, but with less control over it because it's simply based on your ball spin. To apply spin to the ball, hold the d-pad in a direction during the shot.
- Points - How many points do you have for equipment and caddies. The least amount of points you can use for a caddie is 5, so in reality you have to subtract 5 from a character's point total to see how much stuff they can actually equip. More points means you can equip stronger items. No character has enough points to equip the absolute best items, so you'll always be compromising.
Additionally, characters have a built-in "Shot Type" that can be altered by items, but remember, you have limited points and slots to spend on items.
- Draw Shot: Characters with a "right arrow" above their name have a draw shot. This means their shot will curve right as it leaves the club before curving back around and landing roughly parallel with where it started on flat ground. Be warned, with elevation changes, a straight shot in no wind may land left or right of where you aimed it even with a perfect shot.
- Fade Shot: Characters with a "left arrow" above their name have a fade shot. This means their shot will curve left as it leaves the club before curving back around and landing roughly parallel with where it started on flat ground. Be warned, with elevation changes, a straight shot in no wind may land left or right of where you aimed it even with a perfect shot.
- Straight Shot: Characters with an "up arrow" above their name have a straight shot. This shot has neither draw or nor fade, which means you don't get the advantage of being able to curve around obstacles by default. In exchange, your shots are a lot easier to aim precisely.
Shot Trajectory is listed in game on the player's shot type arrow. There are three types.
- Low: Characters with a Low shot type hit the ball lower than other characters. These shots are affected less by wind, but may have trouble clearing obstacles like trees and mountains.
- Mid: Characters with a Mid shot type hit the ball at an average height. As expected, these shots are more affected by wind than low shots, but also are better at clearing obstacles.
- High: Characters with a High shot type hit the ball higher than other characters. These shots are great for avoiding obstacles and taking shortcuts over trees, but are greatly affected by the wind.
There is another stat that isn't directly mentioned but can be affected by accessories called Stamina. Basically, characters have a stamina meter, and doing shots use up stamina. However, doing excellent shots will also recover stamina, so if you get good at hitting excellent shots, you'll be able to play more aggressive with more power shots and a power oriented item loadout.
- Power - Average
- Control - Slightly Below Average
- Impact - Great
- Spin - Average
- Item Points - 46
- Shot Type - Straight
- Shot Height - Mid
Yoshiki is a good starter character with decent driving distance. He lacks the massive power of some unlockable characters, but has enough points to run good accessories. My recommended starter as long as you can consistently hit Great Shots.
- Power - Bad
- Control - Great
- Impact - Great
- Spin - Bad
- Item Points - 52
- Shot Type - Straight
- Shot Height - Mid
Miho is your answer if you're struggling to adapt to the shot controls in this game. She has little randomness to her shots and a huge range to hit workable shots. Unfortunately, it comes at the cost of distance. She's absolutely unusable on late game courses, and struggles to green-in-two on Par 5s unless you have maxed out power accessories. Use her at the start if you're struggling, but by the time you reach Stage 3 of Tour Mode, it is recommended that you swap to a mid-game character.
- Power - Above Average
- Control - Bad
- Impact - Average
- Spin - Awful
- Item Points - 40
- Shot Type - Straight
- Shot Height - Mid
Sonny is the early game "power" character. The only problem is that his power isn't that great and the stat sacrifices elsewhere are massive. The only saving grace is that his impact is pretty good, meaning your shots do have some leeway.
- Power - Slightly Below Average
- Control - Below Average
- Impact - Great
- Spin - Great
- Item Points - 46
- Shot Type - Draw
- Shot Height - Mid
Carlos is pretty good as an upgrade to Miho. Sacrifices her incredibly high control for a little bit of distance and great spin, but still possesses her massive impact to make shooting easier. Because he unlocks so early, you can definitely transition over to him before unlocking later characters that are more powerful. Be careful though, he's the first character you unlock with a draw shot type.
- Power - Below Average
- Control - Above Average
- Impact - Great
- Spin - Average
- Item Points - 48
- Shot Type - Fade
- Shot Height - Mid
Another potential Miho replacement. Same stat archtype as Miho, with a little bit more power in exchange for losing some item points. A potential downside on harder courses is that her in-game bio mentions that doing bad shots will lower her stats on recovery shots. However, in practice? I didn't really notice anything. Be careful, she's the first character you unlock with a fade shot type.
- Power - Average
- Control - Great
- Impact - Average
- Spin - Fantastic
- Item Points - 40
- Shot Type - Straight
- Shot Height - Mid
Lisa is by and large the character that I beat the game with. Her high control alongside every stat being at least average means that you're never completely wanting. She also hits her shots straight - meaning you don't have to worry about draw or fade unless you add the spin yourself. This makes her adaptable for any course type. Her low accessory points can make things difficult, but you're not having to waste points on a straight necklace to fix a draw/fade and her shot typing works pretty well on just about every course.
She's also one of the better women characters for this point in the game. This is important as there are some women only events that you need to clear and you won't have access to Sandy until the very end of Tour Mode after all of those have been cleared. I highly recommend swapping to Lisa once you unlock her.
- Power - Average
- Control - Below Average
- Impact - Fantastic
- Spin - Below Average
- Item Points - 44
- Shot Type - Straight
- Shot Height - Low
Kenneth is hard to play in this game not because of his stats (which are mediocre), but because there's an entire season of the game where he loses even more stats. He's nearly unplayable in winter. He's a high impact character with okay power, but at what cost?
- Power - Below Average
- Control - Great
- Impact - Great
- Spin - Above Average
- Item Points - 50
- Shot Type - Draw
- Shot Height - Mid
Rosetta is a tough one to gauge. By the time you unlock her, she is one of the better precision characters, but some of the late game courses absolutely need distance. If you level up power accessories with her, she can be an absolute power house and she has more points than Lisa to let you use some more exotic accessory combinations. Unfortunately, she does have a fade, which means you won't be able to just get straight shots on every course, and some courses will be harder with her.
- Power - Fantastic
- Control - Awful
- Impact - Awful
- Spin - Average
- Item Points - 38
- Shot Type - Straight
- Shot Height - Mid
Need an absolute power house? Kanunu is the answer. Much like Kenneth, he has a weakness season (summer in this case,) but this time the upsides do outweigh the downsides - when you need to use him. This guy will absolutely drive par 4s in one shot, making for some easy eagles. It's possible there's a Par 5 he could drive with the right accessory combination. He also hits straight drives. The problem? Control and Impact. His shots have quite a bit of randomness, and you need to have a precision with your inputs to make sure you always hit an excellent shot.
Definitely a useful character, but unlikely to be your daily driver in this game.
- Power - Average
- Control - Average
- Impact - Average
- Spin - Average
- Item Points - 42
- Shot Type - Straight
- Shot Height - Mid
Parmella has no weakness, but she also doesn't have anything that'd make her stand out over a character that you've already got some leveled up accessories. You can absolutely swap over to her and she'll be an excellent character with a straight shot and good overall stats. She does unlock late into tour mode, so she might be more useful for players going for mastery than those going for a beat.
- Power - Above Average
- Control - Average
- Impact - Below Average
- Spin - Fantastic
- Item Points - 36
- Shot Type - Straight
- Shot Height - Low
Cody is rather interesting. Good power paired with nothing else being awful means he can do a lot. His low trajectory shots also mean his shots are affected less by wind - albeit with the caveat that you might struggle shooting over trees. He's a good character and instead of a weakness season, he has a bonus season. During summer events, his power goes from above average to great.
- Power - Great
- Control - Average
- Impact - Below Average
- Spin - Average
- Item Points - 38
- Shot Type - Straight
- Shot Height - High
Charles is a strong character with good stats, but requires steady inputs to master. He hits high shots, which are bad for the wind, but can be incredibly useful for taking shortcuts over trees and mountains. It might be worth investing 3 of his item points on the sun charm in order to prevent his debuff (plays bad in rain) from coming into play.
- Power - Above Average
- Control - Great
- Impact - Non-existent
- Spin - Fantastic
- Item Points - 34
- Shot Type - Fade
- Shot Height - Mid
Sandy has the highest ceiling in terms of raw stats. Her downside depends on if you can hit the c-stick up straight or not. Her lack of accessory points is a bit annoying, and the fact she's unlocked near the very end of the game means that you won't get much out of her just beating the game.
- Power - Average
- Control - Below Average
- Impact - Average
- Spin - Average
- Item Points - 63
- Shot Type - Straight
- Shot Height - High
Essentially a blank slate. Unlocked for clearing 40 characters in one survival run, Mack's stats don't impress. His straight and high shot type is useful, but he needs leveled up accessories to get enough distance to use them. If you like aliens and want to play as the alien? Go for it, he's got enough accessory points to fix his stat deficiencies!
Caddies are incredibly important in this game. Putting is hard, some holes are hard to play. Good caddies will give you tips on how to play holes, and will give you exactly where you need to aim when putting. You can pause on the first shot of a hole and ask a caddie for advice with the Z button. Depending on the quality of caddie, they'll give you general advice on how to tackle the hole. If you pause and ask a caddie for advice on a putt, they'll actually break down how the ball will move on the putt. Don't be afraid to ask your caddie for help on putts - putting in this game is intentionally hard in order to give better caddies value.
- Yuka - Usually tells you between 0 and 2.5 ball widths what the correct aim is on putting. Not reliable, and sometimes won't give you an answer even on a straight putt.
- Hanako - Same as Yuka.
- Shane - Slightly more accurate, but still bad.
- Kaede - The first "good" caddie. Gives up to 10 ball widths (half a putting square?) and two levels of power information.
- Frank - Gives up to 10 ball widths (half a putting square?) and two levels of power information. Also has really good info on how to play any hole.
- Robo - If you suck at putting. Even after mastering the game, putting is just really hard, so having Robo give you the exact answer is nice. The big thing is that you want to get used to translating its measurements into the game. This is where choosing meters vs feet at the beginning of the game matters. Once you get used to Robo, you'll be a deadly sniper on the putting greens. He malfunctions in summer, but there's a little advanced technique to fix that. You can quit out (saving) and reload, and he'll be fixed. Just don't do this on the Character Unlock Match Play events in Tour Mode. The achievements for those matches currently need to be completed without returning to the main menu.
To obtain the beat, we're going to have to go through Tour Mode. Tour Mode is comprised of 6 stages and a "final boss" stage with one course and two extra character battles for unlockables. Each stage is comprised of 4 tournaments and 2 Match games. If you're struggling on a particular course, note that you can save by returning to the main menu. When you return to the mode, it'll let you continue where you left off, warning you that loading it will delete the savefile. However, that's not true! You can save before a particular shot by pausing and returning to the main menu, and then try the shot. If you fail, you can reset the game and the save will still be there (except on survival, but we will get to that later for those attempting mastery.)
If you're struggling on any of the courses, I've provided a Course Guide that goes through some of the most problematic holes of every course.
Warning - Currently, saving in Matches against characters will break the achievement. Do not return to menu when doing the character matches.
Getting through the first stage should be pretty easy. Just make sure you equip items as you unlock them and try to try to level them up and get them going. Beating Lorraine unlocks the Flight Clubs, which are a great low cost club with good distance. They'll be showing up a lot in recommended loadouts in later stages.
The Designer Clubs are very strong clubs for how early you get them into the game. If you give them to a character early, you can ride them until you get a specialty club down the line. Stage 2 also has Lisa, which is the character I recommend the most for beating this game. There shouldn't be anything too hard here yet.
Stage 3 is home to the first "Women's" event. This means you can't use any of the male characters for it. Panorama Memorial is also home to the Wilson Power Clubs, which are a really fun set of clubs that can give even weaker characters some power. Water Clubs can be tricky to upgrade (we'll get to that later) but are extremely good. If you're struggling to putt, switch to Robo once you unlock him.
Recommended Loadout
- Character: Lisa (once unlocked)
- Club set: Flight Clubs
- Ball: Fireball
- Accessory 1: Power Glove
- Accessory 2: Wilson Relax Shoes
- Caddie: Frank or Robo (if unlocked)
Note that because the Water Clubs are a fairly good club set and have a horrific upgrade condition, it might be worthwhile to use them as your main club throughout Tour Mode if you're planning on mastering this game. You need to get 400 birdies with this club in order to fully upgrade it, so it is highly recommended to get it done while you still have game to play and aren't just grinding holes away.
This is where the game starts to get difficult. If you're planning on mastering the game, the Wilson Recovery Glove can be obtained in the Queen's Masters, which will be very useful during Mission Mode.
This is where putting can get really hard on some of the later courses. Learning how to use Robo is a must for getting super low scores. If you're struggling on the Royal Classic stages, it might be worth getting the Windproof Ball and then coming back to them once it's leveled up.
The match play missions start getting more difficult here. The AI will have less "bad" holes where they purposefully make mistakes. Still, if you're consistent on your drives and making green-in-regulation consistently, you should be able to beat them.
By this point, you should have a character you're comfortable with and some fully leveled up accessories to help you get through the challenging courses. If at any point you're struggling too much, check out the accessory guide on how to level up accessories, or checkout mission mode for more unlocks.
Sandy can be quite difficult to beat - you'll probably want to bring Robo and hope the AI makes a lot of mistakes. Be aggressive and go for eagles when possible.
For just beating the game, you don't need to beat Yoshiki or Miho on this stage, and they're not as problematic as Sandy due to their limited stats. If you're just going for the beat, ignore them.
Final Grand Prix is on The National. Go back through the Course Guide to hear thoughts on the trickier holes. Your putting needs to be on point to steal birdies, and you might need to get a bit lucky. If you take care of this last tournament, then congratulations, you've beaten Swingerz Golf!
Whether you're just here to get a few points, beat the game, or achieve full mastery, there's a general process that you'll want to follow. This game has no missable achievements, so the first thing you want to do is go through Tour Mode and unlock characters, caddies, clubs, balls, and accessories. Don't worry about achievements involving leveling up items yet - that's a whole different can of worms and it's easier to do later in mission mode for many items
If you're just going for beating the game, technically you don't even need to touch mini-games. However, there are a bunch of useful items and unlocks throughout each mode, so they're worth going through.
Mission Mode is a set of 100 missions. I won't go through every single mission, but I will give tips on various mission types with examples.
In most cases, you want to remove variance. Get Control as high as possible, and make sure that your shot so that it can go in given the right RNG. If it barely rolls to the left or right - just keep your shot stable and go again. See if it can possibly go in.
These start off easy, but, then they throw in a twist. Sometimes they want you to do it multiple times in a row, and sometimes they want you to do it multiple times in a row from the rough or bunkers. Even how this adds a ton of RNG to shots, you need to mitigate that RNG. Items like the Wilson Recovery Gloves and Recovery Shoes and the Grass Ball can help. Remember, their affect increases as they level up. You can level them up by doing shots from the rough/bunker/etc. So you can level them up fast in these missions if they aren't leveled up yet and you'll see the effect increase as they reduce randomness of your shots.
Missions E10, F10, G10, H10, I10, and J10 are of this mission type. These are difficult missions and my only tip is similar to chip-ins. Find a spot where there's a chance it can go in with the right RNG, and just swing away. Given the RNG in this game, there's no perfect aim that you can use to instantly pass these. Just keep swinging, and eventually it'll go in.
Missions E9, F9, G9, H9, I9, and J9 are of this mission type. The first 3 give a lenient 330ft of putting, and the last 3 give only 165ft of putting. My strategy with these missions was to purposefully avoid long drives onto the green, and instead hit the nearby fairway and do an extremely safe approach shot. You'll get mostly pars, but that's fine, as you don't need birdies. Putting from fairways/fringe does not count against your limit, so feel free to use the putter in those situations.
Unlike normal 18 hole games, you cannot save and quit to the menu. That makes these rather difficult, but if you have a good build and can get yourself into short chip shot situations, it isn't impossible. Definitely make sure you're ready to do these if you're planning on a mastery attempt, as they are one of the walls.
Let's put it plainly, this is home to the most frustrating achievement in the set. It's so absurdly difficult, that without some clever tricks the developers didn't intend, I'd wager that this is nearly impossible.
Surviving One Hundred (25) Reach 100 consecutive wins in Survival Mode
Survival Mode has you going up against random golfers on random holes in a sudden death match play scenario. If you lose one hole, you have to start over from zero. The AI is incredibly random, sometimes getting birdies on the first matchup, but other times hitting off into the water for no reason. By the time you've beaten 30 opponents, the AI starts making less mistakes and you have to constantly get birdies and eagles in order to just stay alive. One mistake, one par and your attempt is over.
As a way to cope with the random holes, you can actually change your accessories, balls and club sets at the start of every hole by pausing and hitting the A button. This means you can grab powerful items like the Drive Killer for Par 5s, or grab your Windproof Ball when a 9m wind is about to ruin your day. I highly recommend having powerful items at their max level before even attempting survival mode.
Despite this making it easier, the difficulty still remains incredibly high. And, unlike other modes in this game, the developers actually made good on their threat to delete the progress save as soon as you load it. This means you can't savescum Survival Mode like you can Tour and Stroke mode. If you load in-progress save and reset, your in-progress save will be gone in Survival mode. So without being able to save and quit, how can you defeat 100 AI in a row that are liable to just destroy you with a chip-in eagle at any moment?
Well, players figured out an exploit that allows you to preserve your in progress saves in Survival Mode. One of the Japanese players on a fansite described their method for doing this and I've cleaned up a machine translation of what they said.
"When you get to the screen that says Interrupted game data exists. Do you wish to resume play? Before proceeding, remove your memory card. When you want to save again, simply put it back in. Doing this allows you to save and continue in Survival Mode. It will load despite the memory card not being in, but it can't delete it because the memory card has been removed."
In Dolphin, this is as simple as turning off the memory card once you're on that screen. Then, when you're ready to save (or have reset and need to reload), you can simply put the memory card back in and you are good to go. I normally wouldn't recommend blatant savescumming like this, but in this case what the developers are asking you to do is completely unreasonable. For the Mastery, you need to get to a full 100 and get the big achievement. If you think the ability to save will make this achievement a cakewalk, you're wrong. Even with savescumming, the AI are ruthless later on, and you'll have to be perfect for multiple holes in a row just to take out a single opponent. Play carefully, and make backups of your savedata if necessary.
I do not recommend attempting survival mode until you have powerful accessories maxed out.
In order to master Swingerz Golf, you're going to have to obtain and master a ton of items. If you know what you're doing, some of these aren't that bad. But if you don't know what the game wants, it can sometimes take days or grinding for a single item. Some items, even to this day, do not have the exact level up methods known. The main reason this guide was written was in order to address the fact that most of these items upgrade information was either lost or never unearthed in the first place. So, let's get started.
In order to level up items you need to complete specific hidden tasks. A lot of these tasks are general enough that you'd complete them during normal gameplay. Others... not so much. An item has to be equipped in order for it to gain experience toward a level up. The game will save progress even if you do not "visibly" level up the item. It's keeping track of everything under the hood. For example, the Ice Clubs require 20 Great or Excellent shots with the irons or wedges to level up. It has five levels. If you do 19 Great or Excellent shots and then swap it out, the next time you use them and fulfill the requirement, it'll gain a level because you hit 20.
Most items are looking for specific shots, but a few do use hole-outs as their requirement, but the same continuation rules applies to the hole-out requirements.
One way to "power level" items is to find a "Mission" mode hole that fulfills the requirements. You need to do a lot of drives? J-8 gives you 20 drives for free. Desperate need a Par 5 or Hole 18? B-10 gives you free access to a Hole 18 and a Par 5 without needing to play through a whole course. There are so many items that shortcuts like this will be necessary if you want to master this game in any reasonable amount of time. If you're just looking for the beat and want to upgrade items, feel free to look through here and find some that appeal to you.
Currently, unlock requirements are only listed for hidden items, but I'll probably add the unlock requirements to every item at a later date.
As an extra note - on a few clubs, such as the Normal Clubs, Poor/Bad shots will provide some experience, but it's a fractional amount that I couldn't track down the exact memory address. Only the lowest possible shot that gives a full chunk of experience is listed.
Normal Clubs (2) Fully Upgrade the Normal Clubs with Any Golfer
Normal Clubs are pretty easy to upgrade. You have to use Woods, but only 20 Good, Great, or Excellent shots are needed for each level. These will usually be leveled up to max after just a round or two.
Beginner Clubs (2) Fully Upgrade the Beginner Clubs with Any Golfer
Much like Normal Clubs, beginner clubs only level up with wood shots. This time, you need 25 Great or Excellent shots needed for each level.
Flight Clubs (2) Fully Upgrade the Flight Clubs with Any Golfer
Another club with a wood focus. This time though, you need 20 Great or Excellent full power shots (anything high enough power to give you a nice shot message, so either completely full or just off) for each level. At five levels, these ones are the most difficult of the early game clubs, but mission J-8 can make them extremely fast given the fact it lets you do drive after drive.
Precision Clubs (2) Fully Upgrade the Precision Clubs with Any Golfer
Precision Clubs are the first club that won't allow you to use Woods to level them up. Instead, you need to use the irons and wedges to level them up. 25 Great or Excellent shots with the irons or wedges will obtain each level up.
Spin Clubs (2) Fully Upgrade the Spin Clubs with Any Golfer
Spin Clubs are more specific than the precision clubs, this time with two conditions. Firstly, you need to apply topspin or backspin to your shot. Secondly, you need to be using a wedge on the shot. This time, only 18 Great or Excellent shots fulfilling these requirements are needed.
Ice Clubs (2) Fully Upgrade the Ice Clubs with Any Golfer
These seasonal clubs have two conditions applied. Most obviously is that they will only gain experience when used during the winter season. Secondly, they do not gain experience from wood shots. 20 Great or Excellent Iron or Wedge shots will do the job for each level up.
Designer Clubs (2) Fully Upgrade the Designer Clubs with Any Golfer
Designer clubs are the first of the clubs with a different, much more annoying requirement. Instead of being based on shots, they're based on holeouts. In this case, you need to obtain 12 birdies or better for each level. At 7 levels, that's 84 birdies! If you're going for mastery, using these clubs during tour mode will save you a little bit of time. They're not bad clubs in general.
Fire Clubs (2) Fully Upgrade the Fire Clubs with Any Golfer
Use these during the summer to protect you from the heat (?!) and preserve stamina. These clubs make your stronger in the summer, and level up in the summer as well. This time, you need 30 Wood shots of any quality during the summer season for each level up.
Curve Clubs (2) Fully Upgrade the Curve Clubs with Any Golfer
Curve Clubs require left or right curve to be applied to the ball with the dpad when shooting Wood shots. Doing 20 shots of any quality fulfilling these conditions will cause a level up. Because these require wood shots, you can do this one really fast in Mission J-8.
Bend Clubs (2) Fully Upgrade the Bend Clubs with Any Golfer
Bend Clubs require left or right curve to be applied to the ball with the dpad when shooting Wood shots. 10 Great or Excellent shots fulfilling these conditions will cause a level up. Because these require wood shots, you can do this one really fast in Mission J-8.
You ever feel deja vu?
Expert Clubs (2) Fully Upgrade the Expert Clubs with Any Golfer
Expert clubs are the first club on this list to absolutely require Excellent Shots. This can be tough, but there's no other requirements. 35 Excellent Shots will take care of each level up.
Groovy Clubs (2) Fully Upgrade the Groovy Clubs with Any Golfer
These clubs don't appear to have any special conditions. 23 Great or Excellent shots are required for each level up.
Normal LVL10 Clubs (2) Fully Upgrade the Normal LVL10 Clubs with Any Golfer
Normal LVL10 Clubs can be leveled up with Good, Great, or Excellent iron or wedge shots unlike the normal clubs. This time it's 25 for each level. Mission E-6 can work for this.
Master Clubs (2) Fully Upgrade the Master Clubs with Any Golfer
Like the Expert Clubs, the Master Clubs can only be leveled up with Excellent shots. This time, it is 45 per level, but at least there are no other special requirements. Recommended to do this on J-8.
Silly Clubs (2) Fully Upgrade the Silly Clubs with Any Golfer
This is the first of the "secret" club sets in the game. In order to unlock these clubs, you must finish +5 or worse in a tour mode tournament. Then, if the game feels like it, you'll unlock the Silly Clubs. As far as I can tell, it is completely random. Worse yet, in my experience, you can only unlock one of the secret items per day through this method. I can't confirm this, because it seems random.
Once you've unlocked it the Silly Clubs have yet another trick up its sleeve. In order to level it up, you must do good shots. Not excellent, not great, not bad, not poor, only good. 27 Good shots will take care of each level up. This one can actually be very annoying to get, considering you have to be just inaccurate enough without being too inaccurate. If you're playing on keyboard, you may not be able to do this without having some kind of custom analog mapping. Be warned.
Gambling Clubs (2) Fully Upgrade the Gambling Clubs with Any Golfer
These clubs have an extremely fast swing bar. So what do they want? 25 shots Excellent, Great, or even Good shots with 100% power for each level up. Anything less than absolute max won't count. Luckily, you can use J-8 to just grind this one out.
Heavy Clubs (2) Fully Upgrade the Heavy Clubs with Any Golfer
Another of the secret clubs. This one also has an unlock method of finishing +5 or worse in a tour mode tournament. In my experience, you can only unlock one of the secret items per day through this method.
Thankfully, these ones are fairly easy to upgrade. A Great or Excellent power shot with any of the clubs will count toward it. And just 13 shots per level will get these up and running in no time. Note that your meter's actual power level doesn't matter, just make sure you're doing a power shot with the B button.
Dead Clubs (2) Fully Upgrade the Dead Clubs with Any Golfer
One of the most annoying clubs to unlock. Sometimes, you'll just unlock them through normal play, but other times they won't want to show up. On a fresh savefile, I unlocked them in a fresh savefile in my second full round by just hitting every single shot as poor on Nanohana Cup. It might be RNG, but you can do this.
Leveling them up is an exercise in frustration. Possibly the hardest level up in the whole game (now that most of the level up methods have been sussed out.) These are the worst clubs in the game, and they want you to get 29 birdies per level - or 290 birdies required to finish this achievement. This takes a while, and the clubs are bad enough that it's hard to use it while doing tour mode. Don't worry about going for Eagles/Albatross/HIOs either - they're only worth the same as one birdie! Yikes. Your reward? The blessed clubs! But... they're just kind of good. Their high cost locks them out of most late game equipment sets.
Wake-Up Clubs (2) Fully Upgrade the Wake-Up Clubs with Any Golfer
While the club's meaning was somewhat lost in translation, the in-game description at least says the important bit. These clubs level up in the spring time and also provide their bonuses during it. However there is a secondary condition - you must be using a Wood for the shots to count. 30 Wood shots during spring (no matter their quality! Poor shots work too, making it so you can level up these clubs while unlocking the dead clubs if you want!) will level these up. Because J-8 is in spring time, you can also just level it up there without having to play any courses.
Harvest Time Clubs (2) Fully Upgrade the Harvest Time Clubs with Any Golfer
These are the Autumn seasonal clubs. While they do not care about the quality of your shot, they do require that you put some kind of spin or curve on an iron or wedge shot or else they won't level up. 30 iron or wedge shots with spin on an autumn course will take care of each level up.
Wilson Power Clubs (2) Fully Upgrade the Wilson Power Clubs with Any Golfer
The Wilson Power clubs are great clubs that you can upgrade pretty easily if you put in the time. It has two conditions - that your shot be a Wood shot, and that a power shot be active. Otherwise, it doesn't care - you could hit a poor shot and it'll count towards leveling it up!
It wants 40 power shots per level and, unfortunately, it has 10 levels. 400 power shots might be simple, but it is time consuming. J-8 or going to a course and just slamming poor shots over and over again are your best bet.
Rain Clubs (2) Fully Upgrade the Rain Clubs with Any Golfer
These ones are thankfully pretty easy to level up. Just take the rain pendant to Mission J-8 and wait for it to rain. The secondary condition on upgrading them is that your shots need to be excellent. 25 Excellent shots in the rain will level them up, making J-8 the perfect fit.
Note that if it isn't raining on the mission, you can quickly fail it to reroll the rain chance. It will stay raining for every attempt until you fail.
Water Clubs (2) Fully Upgrade the Water Clubs with Any Golfer
With the Rain clubs having to do with the rain, surely the Water clubs have something to do with water, right? Nope. All Water clubs want you to do is get birdies. Lots and lots of birdies. Season doesn't matter, it doesn't matter if it's raining. Just play the game and get birdies. There's one saving grace - these are pretty good clubs that you'll want to use anyway, unlike the dead clubs.
To fully level these up, you need to get 400 total birdies, or 50 birdies per level. Do yourself a favor and make sure you do this while you're doing other achievements if you're mastering the game.
Toy Clubs (2) Fully Upgrade the Toy Clubs with Any Golfer
Back to normalcy with these clubs. 20 Great or Excellent shots will level this up. J-8 can get this done in a few minutes, or you can just go to a course and hit short ducks over and over again.
Lesson Clubs (2) Fully Upgrade the Lesson Clubs with Any Golfer
30 Great or Excellent shots are required for each level.
Thunder Clubs (2) Fully Upgrade the Thunder Clubs with Any Golfer
For Thunder Clubs, you have two major conditions to fulfill. Firstly, you must be playing during summer, and the shot you're taking must be with a Wood Club. Irons and Wedges will not count. 30 great or excellent wood shots during the summer will level this one up.
Normal Ball (2) Fully Upgrade the Normal Ball with Any Golfer
Normal Balls require 30 Excellent or Great shots per level.
Beginner Ball (2) Fully Upgrade the Beginner Ball with Any Golfer
Beginner Balls require 30 shots of any quality per level.
Sky-High Ball (2) Fully Upgrade the Sky-High Ball with Any Golfer
Sky-High Ball has two requirements. You must hit the ball with 90% power with an iron or wedge with Good, Great, or Excellent shots. Fulfill these requirements 25 times, and you'll level up the ball.
Precision Ball (2) Fully Upgrade the Precision Ball with Any Golfer
Precision Ball has one requirement. You must hit the ball with a Wood with a Good, Great, or Excellent shot. Fulfill this requirement 35 times in order to level up the ball.
Rainproof Ball (2) Fully Upgrade the Rainproof Ball with Any Golfer
Rainproof Ball has one requirement - Holeout on a rainy hole. You could literally hit the ball out of bounds until your character gives up and it will count. Birdies or better does not give additional experience. Every 12 completed rainy holes it will level up.
Wilson Spin Ball (2) Fully Upgrade the Wilson Spin Ball with Any Golfer
Wilson Spin Ball has two requirements. Firstly, your shot must be in approach mode. To activate approach mode, simply be within 60 yards or meters from the hole. Secondly, your approach shot must be top or backspin applied. With these requirements fulfilled, do 22 shots of any quality to level up the ball.
Fire Ball (2) Fully Upgrade the Fire Ball with Any Golfer
The Fireball has a single requirement to fulfill. Simply take shots during the summer season. 30 shots of Good, Great, or Excellent quality will level up the ball.
Just-A-Little-More Ball (2) Fully Upgrade the Just-A-Little-More Ball with Any Golfer
The Just-A-Little-More ball has a single requirement - to putt on the putting green. Your putt does not have to go in, so you can zoom over to the putting green and just mash putts to level it up fast. Every 20 putts will level up the club.
Ice Ball (2) Fully Upgrade the Ice Ball with Any Golfer
The Iceball has three requirements to fulfill. Firstly, the season of the course must be winter. Secondly, you must be in approach mode (within 60y of cup). Lastly, you must apply top spin or back spin to the ball. With all of these requirements fulfilled, 20 shots of any quality will level up the ball.
Grass Ball (2) Fully Upgrade the Grass Ball with Any Golfer
The Grass Ball has a single requirement - a shot of any quality must be taken from the rough. Fulfill that requirement 12 times, and the ball will level up.
Rainbow Ball (2) Fully Upgrade the Rainbow Ball with Any Golfer
The Rainbow Ball has one rather interesting requirement - it wants shots that travel over 180y of distance. It does not care what club accomplishes this, so using this ball with a power build can have it level up faster. For every 30 hits that fulfill this requirement, the ball will level up.
Lost Ball (2) Fully Upgrade the Lost Ball with Any Golfer
The Lost Ball (or Famitsu Ball in the japanese version) is another of the hidden items that can only be gotten by scoring +5 or worse in Tour Mode tournaments. This one took a long time to show up for me, so you might have to be patient.
Figuring out how to level this one up was a nightmare, but eventually I figured it out. Essentially, it takes on a random balls level up properties for every shot. So there's no consistent way to do this one. Sometimes, the ball will "flash" what ball it is copying, but even that doesn't tell you what it wants to level up. I had it take the properties of the fire ball, but then it leveled up in autumn! Just be patient with this one and keep doing common ball level up actions and it'll get done.
If you don't level it up for a while, it'll eventually start flashing what ball it is copying in the pause menu.
Windproof Ball (2) Fully Upgrade the Windproof Ball with Any Golfer
The Windproof ball has one requirement. Simply holeout (any score) on a hole with 5+ MPH of wind. Do this 15 times and the ball will level up.
Wilson True Ball (2) Fully Upgrade the Wilson True Ball with Any Golfer
This one is a bit confusing, and I couldn't figure out exactly what it was looking for, but I did find ways to level it up pretty fast. Unlike every other ball, it requires 1 of whatever it's looking for when it goes to level up. You can literally get level ups 3 shots apart if you're lucky.
My method was to go to J-10 and just spam excellent iron shots. I just dumped them into the water below the hole, and every minute or two I'd get an upgrade. I tried doing memory watching to see if there was some address it was keeping track of countables, but I was unable to find anything. If anyone does figure out what this ball wants, let me know.
Wake-Up Ball (2) Fully Upgrade the Wake-Up Ball with Any Golfer
The Wake-Up Ball has 2 conditions. Firstly, the season must be spring. This is convenient because the season is spring in missions. Secondly, you must be an iron or wedge. Complete 40 shots of any quality with these conditions and the ball will gain a level.
Harvest Ball (2) Fully Upgrade the Harvest Ball with Any Golfer
The Harvest Ball has a little trick up its sleeve compared to the spring version. Its first condition is obvious - the season must be autumn. The second condition isn't a club condition though - you simply need to use power shots. 40 Power shots of any quality during autumn will level this club up.
Upper Ball (2) Fully Upgrade the Upper Ball with Any Golfer
The Upper Ball has a single condition - the shot must be hit with backspin. 35 shots of any quality fulfilling this condition will level up the ball.
Neutral Ball (2) Fully Upgrade the Neutral Ball with Any Golfer
The Neutral Ball has a single condition - the shot must be hit with no spin or curve. 35 shots of any quality fulfilling this condition will level up the ball.
Thunder Ball (2) Fully Upgrade the Thunder Ball with Any Golfer
The Thunder Ball has 4 separate conditions. The season must be summer. The shot itself must be coming from a fairway. The shot must have backspin. The shot must have come from an iron or a wedge. 20 shots fulfilling these condition will level up the clubs.
Low Ball (2) Fully Upgrade the Low Ball with Any Golfer
The Low Ball has a single condition - the shot must be hit with topspin. 35 shots of any quality fulfilling this condition will level up the ball.
Sand Charm (2) Fully Upgrade the Sand Charm with Any Golfer
The Sand Charm has a single condition to fulfill. The shot must come from a bunker. Fulfill this requirement 20 times in order to level up the accessory.
Power Glove (2) Fully Upgrade the Power Glove with Any Golfer
I love the Power Glove. It's so bad. But not in this game, it's a great low-cost item to throw on when you're limited on points. It has a single condition that is easy to fulfill - just hit power shots of any quality. Just 15 of those will level it up.
Rain Pendant (2) Fully Upgrade the Rain Pendant with Any Golfer
The Rain Pendant has a single condition. Hole out in the rain with any score. Every 5 rain holes will level it up.
Wilson Relax Shoes (2) Fully Upgrade the Wilson Relax Shoes with Any Golfer
As far as I can tell, the Wilson Relax Shoes have no special conditions. 30 shots of Great or Excellent quality will level them up.
Drive Killer (2) Fully Upgrade the Drive Killer with Any Golfer
Drive Killer is one of the best items in the game when leveled up, albeit they only affect the first shot of a Par 5 hole. They boost your distance massively, and their requirement makes sense. On a Par 5 drive, simply hit the ball more than 200 yards onto the fairway. If the ball goes onto the rough or out of bounds, it will not count. Do this 10 times to level up the club.
Going to Mission B-10 will give you a repeatable Par 5 hole to level this up quickly.
Sun Charm (2) Fully Upgrade the Sun Charm with Any Golfer
The Sun Charm has a rather interesting single condition. It wants you to hole out in the rain with any score. Every 5 rain holes will level it up. Since you have two inventory slots, I highly recommend leveling up the Rain Pendant first and then equip the Sun Charm into another slot alongside it to make leveling it up faster.
Light Shoes (2) Fully Upgrade the Light Shoes with Any Golfer
The Light Shoes have a single condition. They require you to holeout with Birdie or better. Do this 26 times in order to level them up.
Wilson Recovery Glove (2) Fully Upgrade the Wilson Recovery Glove with Any Golfer
Despite being a end-game item that costs a ton of points, the level condition is very simple. Just hit shots of any quality from rough and bunkers. Do this 20 times and you'll level it up. There are some missions where you can do around one level a minute and have this done in no time.
Power Glove Mk. II (2) Fully Upgrade the Power Glove Mk. II with Any Golfer
Power Glove Mk. II has two conditions. You have to be doing a power shot, and your power meter has to be over 90%. Reach those two conditions and make 22 shots of Good, Great, or Excellent quality and it will level up.
Recovery Shoes (2) Fully Upgrade the Recovery Shoes with Any Golfer
The Recovery Shoes have one condition - to be hitting from the rough or sand. Do this with 30 shots of any quality and you'll level up this item.
Heavy Shoes (2) Fully Upgrade the Heavy Shoes with Any Golfer
The Heavy Shoes have one condition to fulfill - you must be doing a power shot. 30 power shots of any quality will level up this item.
Fade Necklace (2) Fully Upgrade the Fade Necklace with Any Golfer
The Fade Necklace has one condition to fulfill - you must be applying fade (dpad left spin) to the ball when shooting. 40 fade shots of any quality will level up this item.
Straight Necklace (2) Fully Upgrade the Straight Necklace with Any Golfer
The Straight Necklace has no particular requirements outside of shot quality. In order to level up the Straight Necklace, you need to hit 75 Excellent shots.
Draw Necklace (2) Fully Upgrade the Draw Necklace with Any Golfer
The Draw Necklace has one condition to fulfill - you must be applying draw (dpad right spin) to the ball when shooting. 40 draw shots of any quality will level up this item.
Aurora Ring (2) Fully Upgrade the Aurora Ring with Any Golfer
This is one of the "Time of Day" boosters as I call them. The descriptions for these items are all over the place, but this one is essentially the "morning" item. It gives a massive boost to stats on holes 1 - 3. Any time you get a birdie on any course on the first three holes will count for this. After 20 birdies on holes 1 - 3, you'll gain one level on the item.
Daylight Necklace (2) Fully Upgrade the Daylight Necklace with Any Golfer
Another "Time of Day" item with another incorrect description. This one says it's for the early holes, but really the daylight is referring to high noon. It gives a massive boost to stats on holes 8 - 11. Any time you get a birdie on any of these holes, it counts toward leveling it up. After 20 birdies on holes 8 - 11, you'll gain one level on the item.
Twilight Pendant (2) Fully Upgrade the Twilight Pendant with Any Golfer
The last "Time of Day" item. For a change of pace, the actual item description is correct! It gives a massive boost to stats on holes 16 - 18 Any time you get a birdie on any of these holes, it counts toward leveling it up. After 20 birdies on holes 16 - 18, you'll gain one level on the item.
It can be really annoying to have to play 15 holes just to get a chance at 3 birdies, so there's a shortcut I saw from japanese players. Missions B-10 and C-10 will count toward the Twilight Pendant's level up. While playing the same hole 120 times may sound a bit annoying, it's way better than having to play 15 useless holes to get 3 chances at a birdie. Of course, this advice only applies if you've finished all other Tour/Survival content and just want to get this one done fast.
No-Shake (2) Fully Upgrade the No-Shake with Any Golfer
The No-Shake has one special condition you need to fulfill. Your shot has to land on the fairway or green. 43 Excellent shots that fulfill this condition will level it up.
Power Glove Mk. III (2) Fully Upgrade the Power Glove Mk. III with Any Golfer
Power Glove Mk. III has two conditions. You have to be doing a power shot, and your power meter has to be over 90%. Reach those two conditions and make 25 shots of Good, Great, or Excellent quality and it will level up.
If you've completed Mini-Games, Survival Mode, and Tour Mode, and are done with leveling up items, then you're at the finish line. Any remaining achievements now are going to be easy cleanup. If you are missing something, it's most likely just some of the Course Score achievements. If they scare you? Don't worry! With your upgraded items, they'll be a breeze. If you're struggling on the courses, feel free to go through the course guide for tips on some of the problematic holes.
While each course has various seasons that might slightly move some hazards, you can mostly treat each hole as each hole. I will only go into details on holes that might have a certain strategy and/or problem to avoid. In order to master this set, you will have to shoot -10 or better on all 6 of the main courses. If you know how to handle these courses and have leveled up items, you'll be shooting amazing scores in no-time.
Unlike some other golf games, the rough and bunkers can be absolutely brutal, adding difficulty to getting a good shot and tons of RNG that will ruin your shot even if you do everything perfectly. There are accessories that can help with this, but considering you have limited slots, it's better to just keep things on the fairway when possible. When in the rough or bunkers, overhit any hazard by whatever percentage is the worst case, unless there's an out of bounds ahead.
This game applies draw/fade if you're on a sloped surface - even if it's up or down. Finding a flat spot on the fairway will keep your shot more consistent and make this game a lot less frustrating.
Yes, backspin will cause wind to have a great effect on your ball. However, it helps so much on approach shots that you'll want to use backspin almost all the time. If you have enough spin with that club to get super spin, then you can even just aim slightly long and let it roll back to the hole. There are some cases where you won't be able to use backspin, but most of the time you'll want to use backspin to try to pin the ball right at the hole for an easy putt.
Stamina can be frustrating if you're not able to consistently hit excellent shots or are running extremely aggressive items (Heavy Clubs/Heavy Shoes, Normal Clubs LVL10). If you're able to string together multiple excellent shots, up to 4x the normal amount of stamina from a single excellent shot. If your stamina drops below 100% (visible in the pause menu), you'll start to lose distance. Use power shots responsibly, and consider using stamina increasing items if you're struggling.
The easiest course in the game, you'll spend a lot of time her leveling accessories, clubs, and balls here if you're going for mastery.
Because this is a short hole downhill, you might need to slightly underpower your shot here or else you'll go long of the green. I won't mention this on other Par 3s that go downhill - this will apply to a lot of par 3s.
Stay on the right side of the fairway to avoid being blocked by a tree. If your power is high enough, the tree isn't a problem anyway.
Easy strat is to just go across with a wood/iron, and then hit uphill, however, you can aim up the hill slightly if your character has a high enough distance + trajectory. You can't go directly to the green (at least in my testing), but you can get a much easier approach shot clearing some of the trees.
This is a really easy hole to eagle once you have some power, but I wanted to mention this as a candidate for a potential albatross. I didn't level up all of my accessories, but if you mix Drive Killer with a power character? You might be able to drive the green, or at least get very close. You need an albatross for one of the achievements, so keep this hole in mind!
This one is a bit deceiving due to the hill midway up. Low power characters will want to stay on the left side of the fairway, where as mid/high power characters will also stay a little left, as that bunker near the hill will swallow them up! However if you have massive power (300+), you can actually just clear the hill, bunker, and tree and get a free shot at the green.\
This is a tricky par 5 that you're going to want to play safe until you have a little bit of power. Don't bother going over that lake to get the green in two unless you're able to get to the green with at least a 3 iron (and then go up to a 2 iron and overhit lest you go into the water).
The general strategy once you have the power is to aim over the trees to the fairway near the clearing, and then just aim at the green and over hit to avoid the water.
A tropical resort with a golf course on islands. A lot of low hanging palm trees can get in the way and there's always the risk of getting an OB with the vast amounts of water around the course.
There are some islands on the left, but I generally don't find them worth it. If you have enough power to green in two, you can do it without risking a water hazard anyway. The RNG in this game makes landing those islands perilous even with a perfect shot.
All the noisy options at the start are just distractions. Hit straight and land before the hill for a pretty easy approach shot. If you have enough distance, there's a crest on the hill for a second flat spot closer to the green.
This massive uphill can make landing a shot hard! If you lack distance, you'll have to aim for a fairway bounce with backspin and hole it stops before sliding off the green.
Island hoping adventure! This one isn't too bad. Just play it safe and aim for the second island before the lip at the end of the fairway. The bunker isn't a huge threat as it has hills leading up to it. There's a nice, big clearing toward the green.
Unless your playing base Miho, you can aim right over the mountain and with a little backspin, get to the free flat fairway with a clear shot at the green. You just need a little bit of distance and height. Even base Yoshiki can make it with the 3 wood. After that, it's a simple chip to the green and hopefully a birdie!
This is a tricky hole. Unless you have super spin and enough power, just play it safe and hit at power with backspin so you don't end up in the water. If you have a long two putt, so be it.
This hole is a problem, until it isn't. At certain power levels, there are trees right between you and the green. Aim for the gap at lower powers, there's a little offshoot of the fairway to mark it, and aim past the trees at higher power for an even easier chip. If you end up in the rough, don't panic, just overhit and try to dodge the bunker. If you end up in the bunker, just chip out and try to save par.
This hole has a massive drop after the second shot. Just avoid the trees with the first shot, and on the second shot, have fun. If you end up on the green at all, it's a huge win. Just take your lucky eagle opportunity or safely two putt to convert an easy birdie.
If you're low on distance, stay right on the fairway or you risk an unplayable spot that can block your follow up, or potentially force redo that costs you two strokes. Those little trees are dangerous! As long as you stay right, you'll have an opportunity for the green-in-two. If your distance is high enough, you can play aggressive and hit left past the little trees and make your approach easier. Note: Those trees may not be present on every season.
Do not try to land on the islands. It's just not a good idea. If you have the power to clear it, then just do that. If you don't, play it short.
A fairly simple course with a few very difficult holes sprinkled into the mix. Play consistent and careful, or else this course will make you pay.
One of the harder par 5 holes to this point. With the giant mountain in the way on the left, most characters will have to lay up and take three shots to get to the green. If you have monster build with the drive killer or other distance increasing items, you can aim over the tree on the right and try to hit the right side of the green near the cactus. If you can get there, then it's pretty easy to get a green-in-two and an eagle opportunity.
The first hole where a curve shot may look enticing. However, unless your character has a low trajectory, you can just ignore this one and aim straight for the flat spot on the green. If you're nervous about clipping the cliffside, simply hold left on the dpad to apply the correct curve and just go around it.
The bridge may look scary, but it's hard to hit. I've tried hitting and couldn't. If you have an absolutely monster drive distance, maybe it can happen, but if you're that deep into the game you probably don't care.
A very dangerous hole with dangerous out of bounds potential. The rocks directly in front of you can easily lead to an out of bounds. Unless your 1w drive is in the 260s or higher and you're confident in calculating how the wind will affect your ball, it's better to just stay left and take the harder chip.
If you do go for the clearing, be careful - left and right of the rough is straight up out of bounds. If you miss long, you're potentially going to eat two strokes for it! And short? Well, that's also a problem. Oddly enough, hitting the trees branches to slow down the ball works great if you can nail it. It'll usually drop it right onto the fairway.
One of the most dangerous holes in survival mode, and a dangerous hole in general. While it may be tempting to just blast the ball here, you're actually going to want to lay up as early onto the fairway as possible. Somewhere left of the bunker works well for characters with decent drive distances.
Based on your first shot, you have a decision to make then. If you look right, there's a gap between the cliffs that lead right to the hole. You can apply some curve to help out even to make it through. And even if you miss the green, as long as you land nearby, it can be an easy chip + birdie. However, if your first shot ends up in the rough and bunker, it's better to just cut your losses and go around for the par. Technically it's possible to chip back to the fairway and then go for the gap, but if you miss the gap at that point, you're getting a par at best.
Going around usually results in a par unless you have pretty high distance, so in survival mode where the AI will usually birdie (or triple bogey with no inbetween) here, you need to go for the gap.
A hole that looks pretty difficult, but actually gives birdies almost consistently. The key here is to land on the right side of the early fairway so that you can hit around the rock with a little bit of dpad right curve on the second shot. If you landed right and can do that, you'll either land on the fairway, bunker, or even sometimes the green. Regardless, you'll be close enough to the hole for an easy chip into a birdie opportunity.
If you're on a good round and don't want to risk hitting the rock on an awkward first shot, going around can still yield birdie opportunities on the other side.
If you want to make your chip easier and find the flat spot of the fairway, you're going to want to use dpad right curve to curve around the mountain. Unlike the tee shot on Hole 3, this one is definitely in the way, and will deflect your shot. Once your around it, this hole is fairly clear and open. Even if you lay up, you still get a long green-in-regulation attempt.
This one puts some trees right in the way, and you have two options to deal with them. On low distance characters, you'll want to stick close to the left side of the fairway and find a gap in the trees. High distance characters will instead go left side of the fairway and hit past/around the trees. If you do it right, either strategy will lead to a very easy chip that could lead to a birdie.
That giant tree sure does look scary, right? It's not, especially with high distance characters with medium or higher shot arc. Aim for the left side of the first fairway unless you have a monster drive, and just hit over the tree. Even base Yoshiki can do it. The only worry would be hitting too far up the fairway and placing yourself too close to the tree. Just hang back a little to give your shot room to gain height and you'll be fine for an easy birdie opportunity.
A really long par 5 for this course. A low-end power character will have to two shot to get before the second bunker and then just take the green-in-regulation. If your power is high enough, you can kind of ignore both bunkers by shooting past the first one onto the flat spot of the fairway, and then just launching a wood or iron at the hole, depending on your distance.
This course has lots of slopes and some fairly dangerous winds. At times, you won't be able to aim for flat spots on the fairways, so you'll have to get used to how the slope affects your ball to really excel at this course. There are some very dangerous holes, but also some very good opportunities to grab birdies and even eagles.
By the time you unlock this course, you should have some accessories maxed out on your character and a decent drive distance to help make things easier. Otherwise, this is the course where a short drive and limited stats will start to hurt. Aim for a 250+ drive.
A dangerous hole with trees and water that may get in the way depending on your distance. There's a flat spot ~230 yards in that leaves you with a tree in your way toward the hole. However, with backspin, you can simply clear that tree for an easy birdie opportunity. If you're character has a low shot arc, use curve to get around the issue.
Fairly simple hole, but the bunker on the left side is dangerous. If you're worried about sliding in, aim short of it. If your distance is long enough, it can be worth hitting a power shot past it for a really easy approach shot to a fairly big green. The green is on a hill, so aim toward the center of the green and try to let the ball bounce toward whichever hole location you have. At worst, two putt for par.
This is a very difficult to eagle Par 5, with two tricky shots to get past if you want to go for it. For a real chance, you're going to need a monster drive (potentially with drive killer to help the first shot get past that second bunker). If you are going for it, you may want to apply dpad right curve to the ball to push it as far left on the fairway as you can. Further left on the fairway will let you potentially green in two, but conservatively you can just hit anywhere on the fairway and then iron over the trees for a VERY EASY approach shot and birdie.
If you're laying up before the second bunker, just be careful of the first one. Try to land your second shot past the tree on the bend to give yourself a birdie opportunity. If not, just chip closer to the hole and try to save par.
If you're strong enough, you can literally just hit through the gap on the trees to the left, go past the bunker, and then get a really easy approach shot toward the green. If your close enough, you don't have to worry about those bunkers since the high irons (7/8/9) should have a high enough arc to land on the green and stop.
Going around isn't too bad - apply some top spin to give your ball a bigger roll and then try to chip to the back end of the green. If you try to hit the front of the green, you will land in that bunker, so beware.
While the building may seem like a problem, I haven't had an issue with it. If you're super nervous, you can put dpad right curve on this and go around it for sure. But most characters can just ignore that it's there - their shots will go over the hill and even the lower rung of the building.
A rather interesting hole that has eagle potential. You'll want to aim over the trees on the right and go for a long drive on the fairway. Your goal is the gap between the trees over the farm. If you get that gap, you'll have an opportunity to go for the green. The second shot won't be easy though - under hit it and you're doomed to an OB! Play long for the big green, and if it slides off, just chip back on for an easy birdie.
Depending on your distance, there are two ways to play this.
Method 1 - Monster Drive: If you have a 300+ drive, you can just drive straight on this hole and give yourself a flat spot on the fairway with a straight shot at the hole for a very good eagle opportunity. All you have to do is avoid the green side bunker, but there's a nice big spot on the green just waiting for a chip. If you're running a maxed out drive killer, this is a very realistic strategy.
Method 2 - Tricky Curve: Most characters will have to go to the right side fairway. If you go far enough right on the right side fairway, you'll have an opportunity for a green-in-two. Apply some dpad right curve (if necessary) and go around those trees. The fairway will help you get onto the green and avoid both bunkers. This works pretty well with 265ish drives.
I don't recommend laying up regardless - even if you mess up on Method 2, most of the time you'll be in a green side bunker and still manage to get a birdie.
While it may be tempting to go to the right to the fully flat fairway past the river, it's actually a pretty tough shot to get to the green. That route will usually yield a par, but having to hit through trees with the correct power to land on the green for a birdie is tough. If you master going through trees, it's definitely possible.
Instead, just go left and lay up a bit to find the gap in the trees. If you see the tree on the left of the fairway, if you stop the ball right before that tree and look right, you'll have a direct path to the cup with no obstructions and a fairway lead up that makes chipping even easier. Do this right, and you'll be sinking birdies here all the time.
One of the rare cases where if you have a 320+ drive and good wind, you can straight up green-in-one. Unfortunately, because this is a par 4, the drive killer won't help you here and you'll need to rely on other methods to get your drive that high. Realistically, you should be aiming left of the first bunch of trees for the gap, and trying to land on the close half of the fairway for a chance to chip at the green. It's not that hard of a hole, but the tree near the green can make it tricky. At worst, just settle for the par and move on.
This hole looks harder than it is. There's a tall tree on the corner around the fairway - just go a little left of it with backspin and drive over the smaller trees for a very easy chip opportunity.
A very long par 5. If you have a 280+ drive, you can probably get past tree for an opportunity to green-in-two. Otherwise, just play it safe and get the green-in-regulation for a birdie putt. It's not a complicated hole, but that tree does make it a little tricky for the second shot.
This is a very simple hole, but it needs to be mentioned how dangerous the front hole positions can be. Don't be a hero - just aim for the middle of the green and avoid the water hazard.
It's not worth going past the river, just stick to the left side of the fairway and get the chip to green. If you really want to go past the river, it does make the second chip easier, but you need a 300+ drive to consistently get past that bunker.
An absolutely brutal course full of difficult holes and treacherous high winds. This is the point where pretty much every hole has something to it, but if you've gotten this far in the game, you can probably handle a lot of the tricks it's ready to throw at you. If you have the Windproof Ball, this is the course to use it on.
The course starts off fairly simple with 4 holes that are mostly about just dealing with the high winds. Hole 4 does have an eagle opportunity, but it requires you to position your ball just right to give yourself an angle between the building and the tree. Or, if you're running a maxed out drive killer, you can just hit past the tree and give yourself an easy way out - just beware of the bunker.
A really tricky hole due to the two bunkers around the second fairway. If you're feeling daring, you can try to split them to give yourself an easier chip, but just laying up still gives you a pretty good opportunity for a birdie try. Once your distance is long enough, you can just go over the bunkers and it does get a bit easier. Just beware of the wind.
This is the first hole where I need to stress how evil the greens are on this course. If the hole is on either of the humps, you need to try to land right on the uphill part of the hump with backspin (but not super spin!) to get a landing near the top. If you fail this? Odds will you'll roll off into the rough or bunker. This is a very hard hole, and it's easy to end up with a double bogey or worse if you're not careful. Take the two putt for par.
A huge downhill means huge distance and an eagle opportunity, right? Well, yes, but the game is trying to trick you here. The huge downhill means that your first shot will be affected by wind even more than useful. Use top-spin to counteract it and hit a monster drive to give yourself a chance at an eagle.
Hole 10 has a learning curve to it. The first time you play, you'll aim left of the lake with your 255 - 270 build that you've brought here and expect a really easy chip for a chance at birdie. You do the hit, and boom - you're in the water. If your ball hits the crest of that hill, it bounces straight into the water, so either aim far left (use the leftmost bunker as a marker) or lay up (if you don't think your power is enough to get over the rough when aiming at the bunker).
Those trees look scary, but they're actually not bad. In fact, most of the time just aiming at the fairway through the trees works fine. Worst case scenario is that you catch some branches and land on the fairway and still get a chance at a green-in-two. If you manage to miss the branches, you get an even easier chip. Don't aim too far left, though - landing on the rough will kill your chances.
Going to the right fairway is also an option, but I find the shorter approach worth the risk of dancing with the trees.
After a bit of a break with some rather easy layouts (with diabolical greens...), we have this monstrosity of a par 5. There's two methods here depending on your loadout. With a 300+ drive and decent wind, you can hit right of the third bunker and give yourself an opportunity for an eagle. Otherwise, just lay up before the first bunker so that the cliff isn't in your way and try to give yourself a good chip for a birdie opportunity.
Just mentioning this one because of how short it is. If you're running a high distance character, you can straight up drive this green. Just be careful of the hill on the right side of the fairway near the green.
The final challenge of the game. While the wind isn't nearly as bad as the Royal Classic, it has some diabolical and tricky holes that don't always have easy solutions like in past courses. Playing safe and consistently and then taking birdies and eagles when they come is the way to go.
Stay left to avoid the tree branches hanging over the green. Beware of the water hazard on left side cup positions.
This is a weird hole that is tricky to figure out. The long, thing fairways can be difficult to hit with high wind, so be careful of missing and landing in the water. The left fairway makes for a much harder approach to the hole, but the right fairway means you have more distance to go. With a drive killer build, you should just go right fairway and give yourself the opportunity for an eagle.
The tee shot is a little tricky, as the fairway is heavily sloped. Unless you have a huge drive build, you'll want to lay up and aim near the right bunker and try to get it to roll toward the gap between the two bunkers. Going too far to the left risks getting blocked by the low trees, forcing a curve shot that could be difficult with bad wind. The green itself has a nice flat spot in the middle, making it so that you can get a birdie opportunity if you play safe, but you can also hit at other hole positions if you're feeling aggressive.
This is a very tricky hole that the AI will often get triple bogeys or worse on. There are two methods to getting to the green in two shots.
Right Fairway: This isn't usually an option on the back tees, but on the front tees you can aim right of the bunker on the left fairway and get a nice and short chip to the hole. Depending on where you last in the fairway, you may need to apply curve to get around the trees. Note that if you end up in the bunker, you need to just do a safe chip out - don't attempt to go to the green from the bunker.
Left Fairway: This is pretty much your only option on the back tees. Just aim toward the tip of this fairway, and if you do it well enough, you'll get a shot at the green without any of the tall trees in the way. You'll likely end up on the left half of the green with it rolling if you use the fairway to help push the ball on the bounce.
If you're on the front tees, just aim straight and give yourself an easy chip toward the green. If you're on the back tees, apply some dpad right curve to give yourself a similar position to the front tees.
This is one of the hardest par 3s in the game. The front tees are actually harder than the back tees as they put you right in the way of a tree. You might have to curve around it depending on your cup location. Landing on this green with anything less than an 8 iron can be really tough, as the back half of the green has a huge slop that can lead you into the rough or worse.
If you're not confident, just lay up and hit the early fairway, and then give yourself an easier chip and take a par chance or even a bogey. It's better than the alternative.
A tough hole that can requires a little bit of finesse if you want that birdie opportunity. An odd thing I noticed while watching the AI is that you can to the left of the two trees on the corner and go through their branches and you'll usually end up on the fairway with a perfect angle to the green. I always made it through when doing that, and the biggest problem was rolling too far and ending up in the rough.
If that's too spicy, just lay up and take the longer chip. Or, if you're strong enough, just clear the water outright and give yourself a super easy chip and an excellent birdie opportunity.
This is another tough hole. In this case, it's actually better to land on the right side of the fairway, but the fairway wants to roll you to the deep left. If you end up there, you'll have trees blocking your way to the hole. If that happens, lay up and head to the fairway just across the river and then take the par opportunity from there.
If you do get into a favorable position for the second shot, you still may have the rightmost tree in your way. While it may look scary, you can usually go between the rightmost tree and the tree left of it when chipping to the green. This can give you a birdie opportunity on left side cup locations, but clipping a branch will usually mean a water hazard.
This is a drive killer hole - without it, you're going to just have to lay up unless you're a power build. I'll split things into two strategies.
Drive Killer/300+ yard drive: The right bunker has a little bit of fairway past it. If you can manage to hit that spot, you'll have an opportunity to drive for the green-in-two along with the potential eagle. If you miss that, you can drive past the pond and get onto the fairway connected to the green. From there, a short chip should yield you a birdie if you aim correctly
Standard/Spin Build: You'll have to lay up to the left of the first bunker, and then lay up again to the edge of the fairway before the lake. The whole fairway works, but toward there is a downhill lip at the very end you want to avoid. Find a flat spot, and then chip to the green from there for a birdie opportunity.
The hardest par 4 in the game requiring two tricky shots to get a simple green-in-regulation.
Shot 1: From the front tee, you'll have an opportunity to go through the trees. Basically, the first left on the fairway you get, the better your next shot will go. And given this hole's difficulty, going through the trees is actually recommended. The gap to the left of the two rightmost trees should be visible - just adjust for wind and go for it! You may need some top spin to avoid the branches overhanging it. On the back tee, your angle is even worse, forcing you to do this with curve. Otherwise, just lay up and aim for the fairway.
Shot 2: The further left you are on the fairway, the easier this shot is. If you've got a ton of trees in your way, cross over to the fairway past the rivers and chip from there. If you have a shot at the green, beware of overhanging branches and apply curve as necessary. There is a gap in the trees if you're very far left, but this one cannot be recommended.
A par on this hole is a victory.
This whole is fairly self explanatory. If you're going for the eagle, you need to have the distance to cross the lake on the first shot. Otherwise, just hit before the water hazard and stick to the fairways. Simple hole to finish off a very difficult course.
A simple par 3 course. Use it to practice your approaches while you're getting the achievements for shooting -5 or better with every character here. With your main character, you'll want to go for the Wai Wai Wait What?! achievement with your most upgraded character and a good caddie. Once you've done all that, you'll never have to return to this course.
Mastering this game was an exercise in frustration. Beating Tour Mode was fairly painless, and the Mini-Games, while frustrating at times, weren't awful. Survival was a real test of patience, too. But all of that paled in comparison to the absolute nightmare that was unlocking and leveling up all of the club sets, balls, and accessories.
There was so little information on this guide, that there were serious doubts (to the point that some achievements were going to get removed!) that some items even existed in the NTSC version of the game. There was almost no English documentation on how to level up any of the items, except for a vague hint on the Dead Clubs. There was no guide for this game out there. The only thing left is some old Japanese fanposts talking about their guesses and tips of leveling up equipment. Special thanks to Layton for finding those, as without them I would have never have thought of some of the requirements due to translation errors.
Coming from almost no information and trying to level up items with no clue (or indication) that what you're doing is correct was an awful experience that I wouldn't wish on anyone. As I got closer to Mastery, I realized that unless I documented what I found, anyone else coming to this game would end up in the same position as me.
With this guide being out there, I think this game will be much more enjoyable. There's still a few mysteries that I couldn't quite figure out (darn you Wilson True Ball!) but for the most part I think that this is a very doable achievement set now with this information available. My biggest hope is that people can enjoy this game and this achievement set.
Thanks for reading this far.