Not everyone who walks into Eden’s TrackMan simulator room is looking to play 18 virtual holes at St Andrews. Some people want something quicker, more competitive, and accessible to people who don’t know what their handicap is — because they’ve never had one.
The games built into TrackMan are the answer to that.
Bull’s eye: hit the target on the screen. The target is at various distances, and you’re trying to land the ball as close to the centre as possible. The closer you are, the higher your score. This sounds simple and is simple, but the physics of the simulator, which reads your actual swing and plays the actual ball flight, means that the gap between “hit something roughly in that direction” and “actually hit the target” is entertaining to discover.
Closest to the pin: multiple players take turns hitting toward a virtual pin. Whoever gets closest wins the hole. This is how putting competitions work and it’s also how arguments at Eden’s simulator room work, in the most enjoyable sense.
Neither of these games requires golf knowledge. They require the ability to hold a club, swing it, and have opinions about whether your shot was better than everyone else’s. That’s accessible to almost everyone.
For actual golfers, these games are warm-up exercises or practice tools: you can work on your iron accuracy, your wedge game, your approach shot consistency, and get real data back from the TrackMan system on each attempt.
The driving range function is there too… pure hitting, with shot data on every ball. For golfers who play the Algarve courses and want to work on something specific without committing to another full round, the simulator is a legitimate practice environment.
Booking is advisable (see below). The simulator room is air-conditioned and makes for an excellent midday or early-afternoon option when the heat outside is peaking.
