Family/Friend Activity: TopGolf

This is the ultimate social activity and will pave the way for future entertainment. Innovators, take notes.

What is TopGolf?

Top Golf is basically a driving range on steroids. There are different floors first off, so on the top deck, you could be hitting into a driving range four stories up, which is fun all by itself.

However this is a gamified version of the driving range. Rather than just practicing your swing, you get to play games, which is great with family and friends WHILE upping your game.

You begin by entering your name into the kiosk. Every time you are up to swing, you will click on your name so every ball hit is registered to you. What do I mean by that?

Well, when it is your turn you will approach the hitting area. When you want a ball, you will wave your club in front of the sensor, which will spit out a ball for you. This ball spit out has a tracker and technology in it, so it knows that this ball is yours. When you hit the ball, the tracker sends a signal to the kiosk showing where it went.

Now that you know that, you can get to the game modes. There are tons of game modes, definitely too many to get done in an hour or two. But they all use the same targets: The big giant glowing holes in the middle of the range.

Depending on the game mode, you'll want to hit different targets, but there are a whole bunch of different colored targets on the range. You can play who can hit the farthest, most accurate, consistent, there so many different games to play that utilize the targets and tracker technology.

While you are playing though, there are waiters and waitresses bringing you drinks and food. The food is actually amazing. So imagine eating bomb food while hitting bombs destroying your friends at golf.

The Social Aspect

The social aspect is great. While waiting, there is a big comfortable chair for you and your group in a semi-private area. While one person hits, the rest can talk and eat... and make fun of the person hitting.

Top Golf provides just enough privacy to hear each other without yelling over other groups. Again, the chairs are very comfortable, my brother actually fell asleep in them. Twice. The food brought to you is great. And sitting there, clenching your butt as your friend knocks his last ball in the drop dead middle of the red circle, the only thing he had to do to beat you, is a great experience. Competing with friends, while eating great food in a comfortable setting. It's great.

The Games

Again there are many games you can play, and each game is rated with it's difficulty. So don't worry, even if you've never touched a golf club before there is something for you. Here are my top three.

TopGolf

In this signature game mode, you can hit your ball into any target. The farther the target, the more points you get. To get more points, you are going to want to hit each following ball into the same target for consistency points. The more consistent you are, the more points you get!

Quick Nine

In this game mode you get three shots at three different targets. The first three are at the closest target, balls 4-6 you are aiming at the second closest target, and balls 7-9 you are aiming at the third closest target. The more in a row you get, and the closer to the center you get, the more points you get!

Angry Birds

This is neat! On the kiosk, structures like in Angry Birds will be built. Using the tracker technology in the balls, you will get three shots using three different birds (that have abilities) to knock down the towers shown on the kiosks. You can use the targets as reference to visualize where the towers would be.

Overall

TopGolf is a great social activity to play with friends, that you could do every week if you wanted to. There are so many games to cycle through, the food is great, and it's pretty relaxing. I highly recommend giving TopGolf a chance, just don't let go of the club.