How to Play Daily Holes: Line, Power & Scoring

How to play Daily Holes here

Open the game and start a round. This guide explains how to play Daily Holes at daily-holes.org, our independent daily golf game. Every UTC date has nine holes: three par 3s, four par 4s and two par 5s, selected from eighteen original layouts. The same date and course revision produce the same layouts and wind for everyone.

Daily Holes controls: aim, lock, then swing

Tap the map to set the center of your aiming direction. The moving line swings to either side of that center. Choose a route, wait until the line points where you want, then press Lock the line. This captures the line’s actual direction at that moment.

The power meter now moves. Press the same main button, labeled Swing, to stop it and hit the ball. The 86–94 band gives a clean strike. Lower power gives less distance. Beyond 94 is an overswing: it loses distance and magnifies any off-center direction you locked. A clean power hit does not erase a badly locked line.

For example, locking slightly left of the flag and then striking cleanly produces a leftward shot, modified by wind and rollout. To improve, change when you lock the line or set a different aiming center before locking; simply hitting harder will not fix the direction.

Dragging moves the camera. Lifting your finger or mouse never shoots. Use the return-to-ball control after looking around. Timing keeps the camera steady so the moving line remains readable. Flight and landing can move the camera to keep the ball visible; camera movement never changes the shot calculation.

Use Cancel to unlock a line without losing a stroke. Opening the menu also cancels the lock. During flight and rollout, another shot is disabled.

Golf clubs for your next shot

The club strip shows DR, 3W, 5W, 4i, 6i, 8i, PW, SW and LW. These are a driver, two fairway woods, three irons and three wedges. Swipe the strip horizontally on a narrow screen to see every option.

Driver and woods carry farther, roll more and have faster timing with a wider direction swing.
Irons offer intermediate distances and timing.
Wedges fly higher, travel less and stop sooner, making them useful for a short approach or clearing a nearby hazard.

The displayed distance is carry for the current lie, before wind and rollout. It is a guide, not a guaranteed landing. Rough and sand reduce the next shot’s distance; club values update immediately. Changing clubs does not remove that lie penalty. There is no manually controlled putter: settled green balls use automatic putting.

Golf routes, wind and hazards

Wind pushes the ball while airborne. Inside the marked corridor, airborne shots use its local wind push instead of the hole’s normal wind. Ground rollout follows the surface under the ball: stone runs farther, while rough and sand stop it sooner. These are simplified game rules, not a professional golf simulator.

A ball can fly over water safely. If it lands or rolls into water, the shot counts, one penalty is added, and the ball moves to the hole’s designated safe drop area. The result message explains the penalty and drop. Check both the first landing and the room needed to roll.

The eighteen layouts span meadow, coast and highland scenery. Short holes ask you to protect a green or attack a closer landing. Doglegs may reward a safe route or a stone shortcut; longer holes require more than one landing decision around water. A route that offers more reach can also leave a harder next lie. Look for a safe landing and the next club you would need from there.

Automatic putting and direct holes

The green shows the scoring regions around the cup. Once the ball stops on the green, the innermost region adds one putt, the next adds two, and the remaining green adds three. The flat-green defaults are three and nine yards from the cup; slope can shrink those regions, and the visible rings follow that rule.

A direct landing into the cup, or a slow rolling cup capture, adds no automatic putt. Flying or rolling across a green does not finish the hole if the ball ultimately stops outside it. The final resting position matters.

Daily Holes scoring

Your hole total is shots + water penalties + automatic putts. For example, two shots and a two-putt finish make four strokes. A shot into water followed by two further shots and one automatic putt makes five: three shots, one penalty and one putt.

A hole caps at par + 5: eight on a par 3, nine on a par 4 and ten on a par 5. The menu’s Pick up records the same cap. Capped holes are marked on the card. Press Next hole after the result to continue; after the ninth hole, the round result appears.

Play with assisted timing, keyboard and reduced motion

The menu’s Slower timing (assisted) slows the direction swing and power meter. This preference is remembered locally when saving is available. It keeps the same two stages, terrain and scoring rules. Using assistance at any point labels the whole round; turning it off cannot turn that round back into a standard one. Assisted and standard records stay separate.

Use Tab to reach clubs, the main button and menu controls. On the focused map, Left and Right adjust the aiming center, Up and Down select clubs, and Enter or Space activates the current timing stage. A held key does not create repeated shots. Native menu controls remain keyboard accessible.

Reduced-motion preference removes nonessential motion while preserving the feedback needed to understand line, power and result. It does not invent an unmarked standard score.

When storage is allowed, the game saves accepted shot input before showing its flight. Refreshing during that flight restores the same result rather than undoing the stroke. The daily game uses daily-holes:game:v4:daily, with its course revision. The earlier three-hole preview and v3 data remain separate and are not compared with nine-hole scores.

Your first completed daily challenge for a date and mode stays fixed. Once it is complete, replay that course in practice; later finishes can improve best and increase the practice count without replacing first. The browser keeps history for up to thirty completed UTC dates, with standard and assisted records separated. A completion streak counts consecutive dates and can continue beyond the thirty-date history window. An active round keeps its starting date after UTC midnight; a new round uses the current date, based on your device clock.

Copy the result text, download a locally generated score image, or use device sharing when available. Each hole’s color describes its result relative to par, rather than using the same absolute stroke bands for every hole. Both text and image include the date, course version, mode, nine-hole results, total and site address. Nothing is posted automatically. Canceling a share is not a successful post, and a blocked clipboard leaves text available for manual copying.

Restarting an unfinished round requires confirmation. Deleting current daily-game data removes its progress, results and preferences after confirmation; it preserves older version and three-hole preview saves. A storage warning means you can continue in this tab but cannot rely on recovery later. Browsers unable to coordinate saves across tabs preserve existing records and allow only session play. There is no server backup or device sync.

Playing with sound

The menu controls effects, ambience and music separately and remembers your choices locally when storage permits. Music starts off. Sounds are generated in the browser after you start play or use an audio control; no audio service or microphone is used. Switching away pauses audio. If the browser rejects playback, the game remains playable. Browsers may require a deliberate action before allowing sound; MDN’s Web Audio guidance explains user-initiated playback and sound controls.

If you are learning how to play Daily Holes, finish a first round before chasing a lower score. In practice, change one decision at a time—route, club, direction lock or power—so you can explain what improved. Play today’s course, or use Daily Holes help for recovery steps.