Button Hugging, The Downstroke, And Golf

Many of you reading this have already done a golf event, or two, or several. However, if you haven’t, check out Atlas Earth’s YouTube short. It’s semi-useful, but gives you an idea of what to expect.

This post is on tips and tricks to improve your odds at winning.

Preparation

I know these are obvious things, but it doesn’t hurt to remind you: make sure you eat, drink, and use the bathroom before golf starts. Minimize interruptions as much as possible. About 10-15 minutes before the event starts, close/force close any other apps you’re using and restart your phone.

If you plan on participating the entire time, save around 125-150 Atlas Bucks (AB) per hour. Golf day will vary from week to week and time to time.

Make sure you maximize your boost before the event begins. You won’t want to run booster ads when you could be golfing! Some people don’t run 2 AB ads while they golf.

Most importantly, make sure you have an excellent connection. Lag is one of the biggest factors that decide who wins ties during golfing matches. There will be matches that you lose because of lag. It happens even to top-tier golfers. Do as much as possible to reduce lag so that your swings will register correctly.

Each match costs 2 AB. From the 4 AB deposited, Atlas Reality will add 2 to 3 AB to the total prize pool. It is unknown if 2 or 3 is added until after golfing starts. The best way to tell is to look for the total prize pool. If it’s odd at some point, then it is 3. If it is never odd, then it is 2.

Starting The Event

Golfing officially starts when you see the golfing icon follow you. It looks like this:

If you tap this icon, this takes you into the golfing event. Tap the button at the bottom to pay 2 AB. The system will randomly assign you a golfer. It will do its best to match you with someone who has a similar number of wins as you do, though sometimes it matches you against a top golfer, even if you only have a few wins.

How To Play

This isn’t explained well in the video, so I’ll take this section to explain.

The goal is to get as many points as possible. Green is 1 point, blue is 2 point, purple is 3 points, and orange is 4 points. If you wait too long, then you will miss your stroke will score 0 points.

If you look at the image below, notice that there is a vertical bar on the top-right and a black tick mark that moves up and down. There is also a “swing” button on the bottom. “Swing” is your input and the verical bar is the associated marker for your input. After you swing, there will be a small delay before you can swing again. It is a full bar down, then up, then down again, before you can swing again. There is one exception to this, and I’ll go over that later in the guide.

In other words, every other time the icon moves up, you can swing.

I’ve marked the icon and its associated direction, below, in red.

Side Note: The colors represented correspond to the four rarities and their associated colors and percentages of the bar: green is common with 50%, blue is rare with 30%, purple is epic with 15%, and orange is legendary with 5%.

Playing The Lag

To those who haven’t played before, you’ll notice within your first few matches that there is a delay between tapping the “swing” button and when the game registers your input. This will take some getting used to.

Immediate Vs. Delayed Swinging

While many players will swing golf balls by pressing the “swing” button, others prefer to hold the “swing” button and release it when their icon is over the intended mark. While not universally true, such players believe that holding and releasing gives them greater accuracy than tapping. This is especially true of the downstroke.

What is the downstroke, you say? I’m glad you asked!

The Downstroke

As you may be aware, there is a full bar of delay (once down, once up, and once down again) before you can swing again. However…it is possible to swing your golf club on the second downstroke! You can even hit 4 with it if you time it right!

It works like this:

1. On the initial game, the bar goes up. Stroke normally.
2. The bar will have eventually met the top and work its way down.
3. The bar then moves back up a second time. As usual, you will be unable to swing the second time it goes up after you swing on the first.
4. This is the crucial moment: The second time the bar starts to goes down, you can get an extra swing in! If you time it right, you can even hit 4 on your way down. Some people have reported greater accuracy if you press and hold the “swing” button and release it than pressing it outright. Of course, you would want to immediately press and hold to prepare for the next swing.
5. Stroke normally.

A word of caution: this is tricky to pull off, and it will likely mess with your rhythm when you first try it. However, If you pull off the downstroke and your opponent doesn’t, then you will win all ties (see next section for how tiebreaking works).

Below is some video footage of me getting the downstroke during my first match.

Tiebreaking

Tiebreaking for golf is a two-tier process:

1. The person who got to the score with the least amount of strokes wins. So…if I get to 36 with 10 strokes 36 first, but you get 36 with 9 strokes second, then you win.
2. The person who got to the score first wins. So…if I get to 36 with 10 strokes first, and you get 36 with 10 strokes second, then I win.

Exiting Golfing

You can skip part of the “results” animation if you keep tapping the bottom of your screen where the “OK” button exists. This will save you a few seconds each match, allowing you to do a few extra matches.

Below is example of me quickly exiting and re-entering a match.

Mulligan

If you lose a match and want a chance to get some of your AB back, you can run an ad to get 1, 2, or 3 AB. There’s a bit of a delay between stopping the needle and when the needle actually stops. Just like in other events, lag is a major factor that determines your result. However, lag tends to clear up after the first hour.

Bear in mind that if two people play each other trying to purposefully lose, the app will just assign one of you as the winner.

Below is an example of me running the Mulligan.

Ranking

Your rank in golf depends on the number of matches you win. If there is a win tie between golfers, the golfer who got their first will rank higher.

If you want to win the top prize, you’ll need to play the entire time. However, sometimes you can’t do that. If you are a proficient golfer, consider going for bottom 500 for a small payout. This will help you minimize AB cost and earn you a decent payout while you practice your skills to take one of the top 100 spots. People in ranks 101-400 usually lose AB. However, with the Mulligan feature, the 101-400 people can make a profit.

There is also ranking payouts available for your state/territory. This will vary considerably, depending on which state you are in. Atlas Earth will assign you to a state/territory based on your location when you first open golfing during the event.

Finally, if you want to minimize the number of matches you do, aim for the bottom of your target tier. However, the number of wins you will need depends on the number of participants. The more people there are, the more times you will need to win. However, more participants also mean a larger prize pool. Obviously, if a golfing event exceeds one or two hours, more wins will be required to keep your rank.

Other Tips

1. The biggest thing you can do is not panic, and just play your best game. If you concentrate on your swings and stop worrying about the other player, you will fare better. However, some people will choose to glance at the score and shoot for 3’s when they are three points ahead, which forces the other player to get 4’s or lose the match.
2. The biggest issue isn’t lag, it is lag spikes. If you had consistently bad lag, you can compensate for that. What you can’t compensate for is when it is all over the place. So if you have a lot of lag spikes, this might not be the game for you.
3. Because of lag, it is better to be a little conservative over missing. However. If you find that you are consistently losing to someone, then it is best to be a little more courageous on your swings.
4. You can also break the cycle of facing the same player over and over again by waiting about 10 seconds before starting another match. This is useful if you keep losing to the same player over and over again. It’s a good time to check the leaderboard!
5. If you find that you are losing a lot, consider taking a break and target a lower rank with Mulligans. Or…perhaps this just isn’t the minigame for you.
6. If this is your first time, consider pushing for top 500 on your first go and Mulligan every time you lose a match. If you think you are decent at the game and have time, push hard for a typical 2 to 2.5 hour event. This will help you figure out your overall rank and will help you figure out which rank you should target and how often you should Mulligan your losses.
7. Ask yourself what your goal is. Look at how long the event is through Reddit, then ask what you aim for. If you want T100, most times you’re going to need to play for most of the window. T50 or above, unless you’re RainbowUltra, Arn, me, etc. You’re playing the full 2 1/2 hrs or about 4-5 hours on weekends. If you can’t manage to play that long, consider shooting for top T500 and relax. It’s a minigame, it’s supposed to be fun!
8. If there is 30 minutes to an hour left of the game and you’re on the edge of a higher bracket, consider sacrificing Mulligans to push for the higher bracket. You are risking a little bit of AB for a potentially bigger payoff.
9. If you think you have your ranking secure and have time to continue playing, consider Mulliganing your losses intentionally to squeeze a few more ads for a few more AB. This will also help raise the pot and could potentially raise your payout. However, bear in mind that other people might also be Mulliganing their losses, which could lead you to unintentionally winning a match and wasting 2 AB.

Closing Thoughts

I hope you found this guide helpful.

If you have any questions, feel free to DM me on Reddit or Discord. If you don’t know where the Atlas Earth Reddit and Discord servers are, select Resources.

For those who haven’t yet downloaded Atlas Earth or want to learn more about it, check out my Beginner’s Guide.

Updates:

03/15/2024 – Added captions to comply with Google Adsense’s policies.

03/08/2024 – Added videos for quickly exiting/rematching and running the Mulligan.

02/21/2024 – Added tips 6-9 in “Other Tips”, which was inspired by this post by u/princesky_.