The cabinet in the corner of the bar, the one with the trackball worn smooth: nine holes drawn in phosphor, a fairway that bends, sand where a drive lands, water where you would rather it did not, and a green with a tilt you can only read by watching it. A new course grows from the date at midnight, so everyone plays the same nine today. Pull back to swing, push through to hit, and keep it straight.
the course of the day.
The swing is the trackball's. Press on the course and pull straight down: how far back you go is the most the shot can have, and the meter on the right shows it. Then push straight up, quickly: how fast you push decides how much of that you get, and how far off straight you push bends the ball, right for a push to the right, left for a pull. Past the line at the top of the meter is more than the club has, and every crooked pixel counts eight times over. With a putter it is only how far back, since a putt is a stroke and not a swing. If you would rather a keyboard, space starts the needle, space again sets the power on its way up, and the third press is where it stops on the line on its way down: on it is straight.
Once it is in the air you can still lean on it, the way the cabinet let you spin the ball after the strike: drag left or right to bend it, down to put backspin on it so it checks, or even draws back, on the green. There is only so much lean to a shot, and the meter in the corner says what is left. The wind is the circle in the top right, drawn the way you are facing; it pushes the ball the whole time it is up.
The course is drawn the way the backrooms are, and the city: every patch of ground is a four-sided figure in the world, filled black and outlined in its colour (fairway, rough, sand, water, the green brighter and on a finer grid than the rest), painted from the far end of the hole to the near, which is how the far side of a hill stays behind it. No WebGL and no library; one script on a plain canvas. Each hole is a bent line from the tee to the green, and the ground is cut by how far it is from that line. On the green, the little marks drift the way a putt will fall. It is par 36, and the card keeps your best on each course in this browser.
The clubhouse board is the web 0.9 way, like the guest book and the ghosts: when a round is done, post your card and it opens an issue on the site's repository with the card in it, and a workflow reads the open ones onto the board, each player's best on each course, which the game shows under your card and from the button. An honour system, like the one in the clubhouse; closing the issue takes the card down. The muzak is the clubhouse speaker, optional and apart from the game's own sounds: a slow loop on an electric piano with the tape running a little uneven, a bass that walks when it feels like it, brushed drums behind the beat, a vibraphone with an idea every other bar, and a record that has been on all afternoon, made here as it plays. Mt Hood stands east by south on the horizon. It is usually quiet. Some holes, a while after you reach them, something tall comes out of the trees on one side, far enough off to be a doubt, and goes back; if you see it, the card says so.