Pocket Golf - Dice Golf

Pocket Golf is a club-and-dice golf game for iPhone, iPad and Mac. Pick a club, set your power, shape the shot, and read one skill die off a shuffled, colour-coded bar to finish every hole under par.

Version 2.0 is a ground-up native rewrite, and it now plays on Mac. Six courses plus a tutorial, a new hole every day, a handicap of your own, and live head-to-head golf. No ads, no in-app purchases, and nothing ever locked.

THE SHOT

• Six clubs, Driver through Putter. You choose the power, anywhere from 20% to 100%, so laying up short of the water is a decision, not a lucky roll.

• One skill die, 1 to 10, is dealt fresh on a shuffled, colour-coded bar every shot: green for a flush strike, red for a duff. Read it each time.

• Pull back and let go to aim and set the power together, or work the aim ruler and power slider by hand.

• Call for a draw or a fade to bend the ball round the trees. The ground you land on decides the run-out: a fairway runs the ball on, rough and sand hold it up.

• The camera opens on the whole hole, closes in as the gap does, and pulls right down onto the green for your putt.

SIX COURSES, TWO OF THEM NEW

• Beginner's Links, Rocky Hills, Sand Dunes and Water Worlds, plus two new nine-hole courses built for the new engine: Windy Hills, played in wind over real hills lit so you can read them from the tee, and Foxwood Highlands, with lakes to carry, cliffs and two long par 5s in a light breeze. Both have greens that break and two or three pin positions, so the cup moves between rounds.

• Import your own .pocketgolf courses, or build one in the web editor at pocketgolf.app.

HOLE OF THE DAY

• One hole, the same for everyone, changing at midnight UTC. It is scored on points — two for a day under par, one for level — so a bad day costs you nothing and turning up is what counts. Keep a streak, climb the leaderboard.

• On an iPhone you can play it straight from a pocketgolf.app/daily link with an App Clip: the real game, same shot engine, same board, same dice, not a demo. Challenge links open the right thing for whoever taps them.

A HANDICAP OF YOUR OWN

• A Handicap Index worked out the way a golf club works one out: the best few of your last twenty rounds, measured against par. Lower is better, and it can go below zero.

• It goes to a Game Center leaderboard of its own, ranked from the lowest up.

PLAY WITH A BUDDY

• Five playing buddies, each with a handicap — from Ada, the club champion at 1.8, to Bea at 30.5, who took the game up this spring.

• They play the round beside you by the rules of stroke play: a draw for the honour on the first tee, the lower score away first after that, the ball farther from the hole played next.

HEAD TO HEAD, LIVE

• Play someone stroke for stroke on the same course. Quick match finds you an opponent through Game Center; SharePlay plays a friend over FaceTime.

• The same hole, the same cups, taking turns as the rules say — every shot they play flies across your board as they played it.

YOUR GOLF, TRACKED

• Fairways hit, greens in regulation, putts per hole and per green, sand saves, your average strike and longest shot, and the clubs you actually reach for.

• A seven-rung career ladder, Rookie to Legend. Eclectic scores, and a share card that matches the scorecard.

EVERYWHERE YOU PLAY

• iPhone, iPad and Mac, with iCloud sync — your scores, eclectics and settings follow you across all three.

• English, German, French and Spanish: every menu, readout, scorecard and rules page, not just the buttons.

Fewest strokes wins. Every score and course from before carries over on first launch — nothing to redo, nothing lost. See you on the first tee.