GOLF+, the PGA TOUR-licensed golf game on Meta Quest, made TWO MOVES this week. It added Payne’s Valley, the FIRST PUBLIC course Tiger Woods ever DESIGNED, and it is preparing to split its mixed reality Immersive Putting mode into a SEPARATE app. According to UploadVR’s October 16 report, the standalone putting app is targeted for EARLY NOVEMBER, and EXISTING subscribers KEEP their access and their STATS.
Payne’s Valley Opens a Five-Course Ozarks Run
The course went LIVE in GOLF+ on OCTOBER 14, per the developer’s own announcement and the Quest store listing tracked by Quest Store DB. It costs $11.99 on its OWN, or it comes INCLUDED with GOLF+ Pass at $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year. The add-on supports Quest 2, Quest Pro, Quest 3, and Quest 3S.
The real course opened at Big Cedar Lodge in southwest Missouri in 2020. It HONORS Payne Stewart, who won the 1989 PGA Championship and the 1991 and 1999 U.S. Opens. GOLF+ lists it as a par 72 at 7,370 YARDS, routed by Woods’ TGR Design with consultant Beau Welling. The design is DELIBERATELY FORGIVING: more than 85 ACRES of fairway, landing areas close to 100 yards WIDE in places, and tightly mown runoffs that let players putt from well off the green. The SIGNATURE finish is a BONUS par-3 19th hole by Bass Pro Shops founder Johnny Morris, an island green beneath a limestone wall called The Big Rock. It does NOT count toward par.
Payne’s Valley is the first of FIVE Big Cedar Lodge courses scheduled for GOLF+ over the NEXT FEW WEEKS. The others are:
- Buffalo Ridge, Tom Fazio’s design and the resort’s ORIGINAL course
- Ozarks National, by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw
- Top of the Rock, a Jack Nicklaus PAR-3 course above Table Rock Lake
- Cliffhangers, an 18-hole par-3 layout cut into limestone CLIFFS by Johnny Morris and his son JP
Immersive Putting Gets Its Own App
Immersive Putting went LIVE inside GOLF+ in September. As the GOLF+ explainer describes it, the headset uses PASSTHROUGH to MAP your room, ANCHORS a virtual green to the FLOOR, and TRACKS a real ball struck with your OWN putter. The game then applies slope and green speed to the roll and reports start line, pace, and proximity on EVERY stroke. It REQUIRES a Quest 3 or Quest 3S, because it relies on color passthrough and depth sensing; Quest 2 is not supported. Access is INCLUDED with GOLF+ Pass.
UploadVR reports that the mode will now SPIN OFF into a STANDALONE app that sits ALONGSIDE the main game. Current GOLF+ Pass subscriptions CARRY OVER, and so do STATS, HANDICAPS, and MEDALS. The practical gains are STORAGE and FRICTION. Players will be able to choose which courses to DOWNLOAD for full rounds and which to keep only for putting, and they will no longer NEED to switch between controllers and hand tracking depending on the mode.
Why It Matters
Splitting the mode out is a BET that mixed reality practice is a PRODUCT on its own, not a FEATURE buried in a VR game. A putting tool that uses your REAL equipment on your REAL floor is an EASIER pitch to golfers who would NEVER buy a VR sports title, and a dedicated app makes that pitch CLEANER. It also keeps the subscription at the CENTER: the Pass unlocks the course library, the putting mode, and now a second app.
TWO caveats apply. The early-November target comes from UploadVR’s report, and GOLF+ has NOT published a FIRM date, so treat it as a WINDOW, not a commitment. The remaining four Big Cedar courses also have NO individual dates beyond “the next few weeks.”
GOLF+ sells for $29.99 on the Meta Horizon Store with THREE original courses, and it is also part of Meta’s Horizon+ subscription. A PC version is on the WAY, and the game can be wishlisted on Steam now.