Use your iPhone as a golf club!

I’m a keen golfer, but what with the cold bite of the winter and the dreaded credit crunch I can’t get to the course nearly as much as I would like. So I thought I’d give iGolf a try, which uses the iPhone’s accelerometer to turn your device into a virtual golf club.

The principle of iGolf is simple – you step up to the tee, choose a club from the three on offer then hold your iPhone pointing downwards, adopting the kind of stance you’d use on a real course.

You then need to press the ‘Set’ button before swinging your iPhone like you would a club. And herein lies the danger of iGolf. In order to get a fair amount of distance on your shots you really need to swing the phone pretty quickly, and knowing how slippery the iPhone can get this can get pretty risky. The fact is, I was so worried about hurling my phone against the wall that I only dared play a couple of the nine holes in this free version of the iGolf. Judging by the many anecdotes in the reviews of the game on the App Store, others weren’t so lucky and there are a few sob stories about cracked screens and various injuries on there.

Graphically, iGolf doesn’t offer anything too exciting and the design of the course isn’t very imaginative. The sound effects are OK though and include a satisfying thwacking noise that plays when you strike the ball.

iGolf is certainly an innovative idea and it’s fun for a while, but I strongly advise proceeding with caution if you want to keep your iPhone in one piece.