Dude Mini Golf.

How to play Dude Mini Golf

1. Press Play, then choose Tour to start Buttercup Garden, Daily five for today's holes, Party for friends on one device, or Practice to pick a hole.
2. Study the hole: the tee mat, the flag, slopes shown by the carpet colour and the slope button, water, sand, bumpers and any moving parts.
3. Press anywhere on the course and drag away from where you want the ball to go. The dotted guide shows the true path up to the first thing the ball will touch, and the ring beside the ball shows power.
4. Let go to putt, or drag back to where you started to cancel. Wait for the ball to stop before the next putt.
5. Time windmills, carts and spinners, and use rails and bumpers to bank around obstacles. Slow down near the cup, because fast putts lip out.
6. Finish under par for three stars, open the next course with your stars, and check the scorecard at the end of each round.

Make your move

About Dude Mini Golf

Dude Mini Golf is a free browser mini golf game with 36 original holes spread over four small 3D courses. Buttercup Garden teaches the basics with cream rails, a honey-coloured hill, coral bumpers, a working windmill and the original Little Garden hole from the first version of the game. Sunstone Canyon adds bowls, sandy mesas, a dry wash, a rail-less canyon bridge and a mine cart that rolls back and forth across the lane. Tidewater Pier sits on open water with ponds, buoys, a lighthouse, sliding cargo, a boost up the slipway and a long pier with no side rails at all. Lantern Grove is played at night between glowing mushrooms and lanterns, with portals, a faster lantern mill, spinning paddles and frozen ponds where the ball barely slows down.

Every hole is built from data that both the physics and the picture use, so the ball meets exactly what you see. Slopes pull the ball along their fall line and bend long putts; sand slows it sharply, ice lets it glide, boost pads add pace and portals send it out of a paired ring at the same speed. Rails return most of the ball's pace, hedges soak it up and coral bumpers spring it back a little faster than it arrived. Water and open edges cost one penalty stroke and put the ball back where you last putted from. The cup works like a real one: a slow ball anywhere over the opening drops, while a fast or glancing putt can dip, catch the lip and roll out.

Each hole has a par set by playing it many times with a steady simulated player, and a separate solver bot proves through the same physics that every hole and every mirrored layout can be finished under par. Finishing under par earns three stars, par earns two and a bogey one. A ball is picked up at par plus four strokes so nobody gets stuck. Stars open the next course (or you can simply finish the course before it), and they unlock new ball colours and trails in the ball locker. Each course also hides three golden stray balls on the green; roll over all of them to earn that course's own ball.

There are four ways to play. Tour plays a course's nine holes in order with a scorecard and saves your best total. Practice lets you pick any open hole, including mirrored ones, and undo a putt. Daily five draws one hole from every course plus a bonus, the same for everyone that day, and counts your first finished card toward a streak you can copy and share. Party is pass-and-play for two to four players on one device: each player plays the whole hole, then hands over, and the best score on a hole tees off first on the next.

The game runs in any modern browser on a phone, tablet or computer with no install or account, and loads its original Blender-made scenery only after you press Play. On a phone it plays in portrait or landscape and turns each hole so its long side runs along your screen. Frames are drawn only when something moves, and the graphics settle to what your device handles smoothly. Progress, stars, bests and settings stay on this device.

A little help for your next high score

• Pace beats power. A putt that would stop a little past the cup is the one that drops; a hot putt skims over or lips out.
• Read the carpet: raised ramps and mesas wear a warmer colour, and the slope button shows downhill chevrons. Aim uphill of the cup on a leaning green.
• Use the guide to plan banks. It traces the true line to the first rail or bumper, so line up the rebound before you pull.
• Watch a moving part go round once. Putt as a gap is arriving so the ball gets there as it opens.
• On pier holes and bridges with no rails, a gentle two-putt beats a brave one that costs a penalty stroke.

Good questions