A long drive golf game with a three-click swing

Long Drive in Games by Zaweba puts you on a driving range with six balls, a classic three-click swing and a crosswind, and asks how far you can hit it. Your score is the total distance of all six drives. It is free, works offline and sits on the Skill & sport shelf.

It's a short game with a lot of skill packed into three clicks, and one good drive can make your day.

The three clicks

Click once to start the swing. Click again to set the power. Then click a third time as the marker comes back through the green band, for a straight strike. You can use Space instead of the mouse if you like.

Power can go past 100 percent. That hits further, but it also magnifies any error in the third click, so a strike that would have been slightly off at 95 percent can fly badly off line at 110. Early on the third click means a slice; late means a hook.

Reading the crosswind

Check the wind on the map before every ball. It can carry the ball further, hold it up, or blow it into the rough. A following wind is a gift. A headwind takes distance away. A crosswind pushes the ball sideways, and combined with a slice or hook it can carry a drive out of bounds.

Balls past the red lines are out of bounds and score nothing. That's the real risk in Long Drive, and it is why the biggest hitters are not always the best scorers. Six solid drives in bounds beat four huge ones and two out of bounds.

Building a good total

Start the six balls with a safe power you can time well, to put a decent distance on the board. Then, if the wind is helping and your timing feels good, push a little harder. If a crosswind is strong, aim to keep the ball straight rather than long.

Learn how the wind and your mistakes combine. If the wind blows from the left and you tend to hook, the two cancel out somewhat. If you tend to slice, they add together, and you might do better with less power.

Your best total is kept on the game's tile in Games by Zaweba, in a scores file on your own PC.

The driving range is quiet and quick, so Long Drive suits a short break between other things. Each ball takes a few seconds, and a full round of six is over in a minute or two. That makes it easy to try a change of approach, such as less power and better timing, and see straight away whether the total goes up. Players who keep their power under the line and time the third click well often post bigger totals than those who swing at full stretch every time.

Getting to the tee

Long Drive is one of 17 games on the Skill & sport shelf. Press Ctrl+F and type drive to find it, or star it for Favourites. The title card explains the rules, F1 brings them back, Esc pauses and F11 gives the range the whole screen.

There are no adverts and no accounts, and nothing goes online. For the other end of golf, Crazy Putt on the same shelf has nine holes of seaside crazy golf, with slopes, ponds and a windmill.