GOLF+ Putting on Quest 3: Price, Setup and Modes Explained

GOLF+ Putting is a new, free app for Meta Quest 3 and 3S, and it does something a bit different. You use your own putter and a real golf ball on your living room floor, while the headset puts a famous green around you. It first went on the Meta Store on 2 November. I haven’t tried it, so here’s what it is, what it costs, and the setup rules that will decide whether it works in your house.

Welcome to GOLF+ Putting, from the official GOLF+ YouTube channel.

The app itself is free, but the main GOLF+ game is a paid one. If you buy GOLF+ or any other paid VR game on the Meta Store, you can use my promo code VRCGUY at checkout. It’s my code, and it helps keep this site going.

What is GOLF+ Putting?

GOLF+ is the official VR golf game of the PGA TOUR on Quest. Earlier this autumn it added a mixed reality mode called Immersive Putting. Instead of swinging a controller, you put a real ball on the floor and hit it with a real putter. The headset’s cameras watch the ball, and the game carries on the roll across a virtual green.

In October, UploadVR reported that this mode would be split off into its own app. That’s now happened. According to the GOLF+ help centre, Immersive Putting now lives in GOLF+ Putting, and the main GOLF+ game has gone back to controllers only.

The split makes sense. UploadVR pointed out that it removes the need to swap between controllers and hand tracking depending on the mode. GOLF+ Putting is hands only, so you navigate the menus with pinches and use your actual putter for the golf.

GOLF+ Putting price and what you need

Here’s the catch. The app is free to download, but you need a GOLF+ Pass to play it. The official putting page says the Pass unlocks GOLF+ Putting and every course in both apps. New players get a seven-day free trial.

In October, UploadVR listed the Pass at $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year. Earlier reports mentioned cheaper first-year offers on the annual plan, so check the app for the current price in pounds before you sign up. The trial can only be started inside the app or the Meta Quest mobile app. You can’t buy the Pass on the GOLF+ website.

Beyond the Pass, here’s what GOLF+ says you need:

A Meta Quest 3 or Quest 3S. Quest 2 isn’t supported.
Your own putter.
A plain golf ball.
About 4 feet of clear floor for the ball to roll out, plus room to stand and make your stroke.

There’s no launch monitor or extra sensor to buy. The headset does all the tracking. That’s a big deal, because home putting gadgets usually mean more kit and more cost.

The store data on VRDB adds a few more details. The app needs 2.26 GB of space, is rated Everyone, and doesn’t need an internet connection. It also lists GolfScope Inc. as developer and publisher. Oddly, it says “Supports Mixed Reality: No”, which is clearly wrong for an app built around passthrough. I’d put that down to a store listing setting rather than the app itself.

How GOLF+ Putting tracks your ball

This is the clever bit, and it’s also where things can go wrong. The help centre explains that the headset cameras watch your ball roll. So the cameras need a clear view, and they can get confused by anything bright, shiny or ball-shaped.

You place your ball inside a ring on the floor. When the ring disappears, the cameras have found the ball and you’re ready to putt. After each putt, the view fades to passthrough so you can walk out and fetch your ball. Then you put it back in the ring for the next shot.

Your putts also need to roll out the front of your hitting zone. A slight angle is fine. But if the ball leaves through the side, it can roll out of view and may not count. For big breaking putts, GOLF+ wants you to rotate your aim in the game, using a Turn gesture or buttons, rather than putting at an angle across your room.

Setup tips from GOLF+

The official help pages are refreshingly honest about what works. Here are the main points:

Use the plainest white or yellow ball you have. Split-colour, dark and multicolour balls won’t work.
Keep just one ball in view. With two, the cameras can’t tell which one to follow.
Putt on a darker, solid surface such as putting turf, short dark carpet or dark wood. A white ball on a pale floor is the hardest to track.
Avoid patterned rugs, glossy tiles and thick carpet.
Watch out for glare on a shiny putter head. It can look like a ball to the cameras.
Go for bright but even lighting, not one harsh lamp.
Put a backstop at the end, such as a pillow or rolled towel, as long as it’s not the same colour as your ball.

One tip is wonderfully low-tech. If your putter has a big two-ball alignment aid, the cameras might think those white circles are balls. GOLF+’s fix is a strip of dark masking tape over them. Hardly high-tech, but it should do the job.

What can you do in GOLF+ Putting?

There’s more here than a single practice green. GOLF+ says you can choose from more than 50 famous greens at any distance and break, and it claims they’re surveyed down to the centimetre. The help centre splits the app into three main areas.

Play and tournaments

You can play a round or a practice round on any course in the library. GOLF+ has built putter-only routings of all of them, so you play the greens without the long game. You can pick your tees, pins and green speed.

There’s also a weekly tournament and daily tournaments. Your finishes earn points towards a ranking, which works like the main GOLF+ TOUR. For now, every GOLF+ Putting player competes in the same Diamond tier.

The practice facility

Warmup: 15 putts that start short and straight, then move through different distances and slopes.
Endless: open practice, filtered by distance, from 2 to 60 feet.
Mastery: a progression tree of lessons, finishing with a Final Test.
Combine: ten-putt skill tests with up to 100 points per putt, tracked on leaderboards.
Putt Putt: an 18-hole putting course for something more relaxed.

Games and drills

Then there are three drills. Survival gives you five balls and takes one away for every missed putt. Clock Drill sets six positions around a single hole. Push Back starts you at three feet and moves you back a foot every time you hole one. Miss, and you’re back to three feet. That one sounds brutal.

Every putt is measured and saved, too. You can see quick stats in the headset, or a fuller breakdown at golfplusvr.com/stats.

Is it any good so far?

It’s early days, but the signs are positive. On VRDB, GOLF+ Putting sits at 4.8 stars from 45 ratings, with 89% of them five stars. That’s a small sample, though, and some of those players will be existing GOLF+ fans who were already using the putting mode in beta.

I can’t tell you how accurate the roll feels, because I haven’t used it. The proof will be in whether everyday rooms with everyday lighting give reliable tracking. GOLF+’s long list of setup advice suggests the answer depends a lot on your floor. Before you start a paid Pass, use the free trial to test it in the room you’ll actually play in.

Real kit in VR: why this matters for sports fans

The interesting part for sports fans is the idea behind it. For years, VR sports have meant waving a plastic controller and pretending it’s a club, racket or bat. GOLF+ Putting flips that round. The real equipment does the work, and the headset just watches.

Cricket is a long way from that. You can’t swing a real bat at full speed in your lounge and expect the headset to track it, and you certainly wouldn’t want to. Instead, the practical option for VR cricket is a bat-shaped holder for your controllers. My guide to the VR cricket bat for Quest 3 and 3S explains how that works, and the VR cricket bat for Meta Quest 3 and 3S is the one I recommend. It gives you a proper bat feel while the controllers do the tracking.

Space is the other thing golf and cricket have in common. If you’re working out where to set up, my guide to space for VR cricket covers boundaries and small rooms. Much of it applies to putting as well.

Spin-off apps are becoming a trend

GOLF+ isn’t the only studio pulling a popular mode out into its own app. When Superbright announced In Death: Siege of Heaven as a standalone game, UploadVR listed GOLF+ Putting as another example. The reason is simple. A mode buried inside a bigger game has no store page of its own, so new players struggle to find it.

For GOLF+ Putting, being free helps. It can now show up when someone browses sports and fitness apps, even if they’ve never heard of GOLF+. The Pass is where the money is made.

Other VR sports games worth a look

If you like the sound of real-world sports in VR, my VR sports and fitness hub rounds up the active games on Quest. Two recent ones are Curling VR on Quest, which is in Early Access, and Darts VR2’s new league mode with crossplay. Still on a Quest 2? My piece on Quest 2 end of support explains why more new apps, like this one, are skipping it.

What we still don’t know

The exact UK price of the GOLF+ Pass, which you’ll see in the app.
Whether the putting app will follow the main GOLF+ game to Steam. UploadVR says GOLF+ is coming to Steam, but nothing has been said about the putting app.
How well tracking copes with typical UK carpets and lighting. Early ratings are good, but the sample is small.

GOLF+ Putting FAQ

Is GOLF+ Putting free?

The app is free to download, but you need an active GOLF+ Pass to play. There’s a seven-day free trial for new players.

Does GOLF+ Putting work on Quest 2?

No. GOLF+ lists Quest 3 and Quest 3S only.

Do I need controllers?

No. It’s hands only. You use pinch gestures for menus and your own putter for the golf.

Where did Immersive Putting go?

It moved out of the main GOLF+ game and into GOLF+ Putting. GOLF+ says your stats carry over.