Fairway Solitaire Cheats
I’ve been getting lots of emails about how to cheat on Fairway Solitaire because some of the end courses are really tough. There are no in-game cheats at all I’m afraid - they were all removed in the final version. However, it is possible to modify one of the data files to make the tough courses easier as follows (Windows XP):
- Go to your C Drive via My Computer
- Go to Program Files\Fairway Solitaire
- Go into Data\Levels
- Make a backup copy of CourseList.csv somewhere safe.
- Right Click CourseList.csv and click Open with WordPad or NotePad (if you are using Windows Vista you need to open it with Adminstrator privileges)
- Find the course AFTER the one you are stuck on
- If you are modifying Joe’s Gas and Golf - find where it says SCORE,-1 and change -1 to something much easier like 20
- If you are modifying Mystery Madness - find where it says TOKENS,25000 and change 25000 to something much easier like 1000
- Save the file.
- Run the game and check the course goal, it should have changed.
- Tada!
The courses mentioned in the cheats are only really hard in V1.01 of the game. They are easier in V1.02 and higher. Please note that it is not possible to cheat on the last course: The Baron. Also there are no cheats for the Mac version.
Hope this helps you out, and thanks for playing the game so far!
Mac
It is possible to adjust the data files using the above technique on the Mac version shipped by BFG, but it requires a little “hacking”. The problem is that the data folder is a hidden folder, and it’s inside the application bundle. So once you get inside the application bundle you need to tell Finder to be able to view hidden folders so that you can locate the data folder. However, I cannot tell you how to do that because BFG would not be happy if I said how to hack their Mac wrapper. If you googled for the information you might succeed…but it’s probably easier to just try to beat the level 
January 27th, 2008 at 7:36 am
Thanks for the tips. Do you mind if we post your cheats on casualgameguides if we link to your blog?
January 28th, 2008 at 9:03 am
You are welcome Jason. I spoke to BFG and they weren’t ultra keen on the cheats being spread as they prefer “walkthroughs” rather than all our cheats like this. So if you can please NOT post them (but by all means link to this blog), that would be great thx.
January 31st, 2008 at 11:07 am
Hello.
You can cheat on the last course, just go to the map courses and open the baron, the 1ste numbers you see is the amount of strikes you needed to play par, just ad something like 27 more so 60 becomes 87 for instance.
And then go to the map holes en open one by one the the holes from baron 1/9 and change the figure below hole, for instance make 5 an 8, just ad 3 to all holes so you became 27 in total. This will make it a lot easier to win the game.
Just look out you don’t ad to much because otherwise the game crashes, but you are still able to start where you crashed though.
I think the crash is because when you overad like a hole with par 4 you make a par 12 and you manage to complete the hole in 5 then he does not have the graphics for that because i think you can not do better the triple eagles, and 1 par 5 at a course that is par 12 is much more then triple eagle.
You can change the pars on every hole this way.
January 31st, 2008 at 11:44 am
Wow good tip! I hadn’t even thought of that (it’s been so long since I programmed the reading of those files). Yeah basically the game has graphics for 1 to 4 under par (Birdie, Eagle, Double Eagle, Triple Eagle) and graphics for Perfect (can be 3,4, or 5 under par depending on the hole). So if you score 5 or more under par and it’s NOT perfect, the game will crash. For example you should be able to score 12 under par, providing it’s Perfect, but anything from 5 to 11 under par will be a crash.
Anyway, The Baron is not too hard, it can be done with the right clubs and some careful play.
February 2nd, 2008 at 9:46 am
One thing i don’t understand, in the map holes are only the holes for about 30 courses a lot of the courses are not situated in that map, so i am curious to know where the data is for the missing courses.
February 2nd, 2008 at 11:19 am
Each course file contains a list of hole files that are used for the course. Sometimes the names are not the same and some are reused.
March 13th, 2008 at 1:33 am
I recently bought this game through Big Fish. The version is 1.1. How do I update it to 1.2 without losing my progress? Thanks in advance.
March 13th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Hi Chris. Big Fish Games don’t have 1.2 online yet, although I think it will be happening soon. The three courses that were made easier were:
Cherry Lakes
Joe’s Gas ‘n’ Golf
Mystery Madness
If you get stuck on one of those before they release a V1.2 update (I’ll post news about it in this thread), then email me and I’ll send you a new data file or just try the cheat mentioned above.
March 16th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
I’m curious about how to win the Scoring Cup Trophy. It’s supposed to be awarded for “the first time you score 9 or lower on a course”. I’ve scored as low as -30 but haven’t won the trophy yet.
March 16th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
Ah yes, to win the scoring cup your total score for the course needs to be 9 or lower, not your To Par. So that means you only left 9 or less cards on all the holes. I’d have thought that -30 would be enough to do it on some courses though…Anyway, keep an eye on your Score not To Par (on the Score Card) to see if you are close to winning this trophy.
March 16th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Love this game … very addictive! I won my Scoring Cup [I scored exactly 9 and was -28] … Thanks for your help.
One more question ….
I noticed that my name seems to have disappeared from the top scores list for all the courses except for the very last course I played. All the other top scores belong to phoney names [?] and they all have the same date and time stamp. I was hoping to go replay some courses and try to beat a few of my previous scores.
March 17th, 2008 at 9:30 am
Great, glad you won the scoring cup!
That’s very strange about the top scores list. That scores list is created once, when you first run the game (what date is on your list?) and then gradually your scores get added into it. It shouldn’t get refilled with the names of BFG staff at all. Did anything unusual happen to your system or the game (did you reinstall it)? Unfortunately they may be lost now, but I don’t know why.
March 17th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
I figured it out … I play on 2 computers and transferred my saved files to another PC (which worked fine), but failed to copy the best.dat file. All my data shows up now.
March 17th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Cool, glad you figured it out and it wasn’t a bug!
April 16th, 2008 at 7:39 am
Hello. I wanted to start all over again because i made some adjustments on the courses so i uninstalled the game en installed it again, the only thing is that all my aliasses i used are still visible in the scorecards from the courses so to beat those scores is almost impossible if i play with the standard configuration. Is this somewehere stored on the pc and did not remove when i uninstall the game ?
Thanks in advance.
greetings
April 19th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Hi Leendert, (sorry for the delay in replying, I’ve been away for a week). If you are using XP, go to C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Grey Alien Games\Fairway Solitaire\ and delete best.dat or if you are using Vista go to C:\ProgramData\Grey Alien Games\Fairway Solitaire\ and delete best.dat
This should remove the best scores and the game will reset them to “random” ones.
April 20th, 2008 at 9:45 am
Thanks for your reply, that solved the problem.
May 22nd, 2008 at 6:59 pm
I have Fairway Solitaire for Mac, and like others, I’m stuck on Mystery Madness. I’ve played that course over 20 times, and nothing. I tried starting with a bag full of clubs many times, but I still can’t win. I’ve come within a few hundred dollars of the goal on at least five occasions, but sill nothing. I’ve enjoyed the game until now, but this is ridiculous. How do I get past this course?
May 23rd, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Hi alphadog, I’m sorry that you are finding it hard but the Mac version is a bit easier than the early PC version on Mystery Madness and it is possible with the right tactics and a bit of luck (plus you must have all the clothing items).
The cheats on this page only work for PC I’m afraid, there are no equivalent cheats for the Mac version.
By the way, if you ever get stuck on Mystery Madness hole 4 where the bottom card on the far right column does not turn over (it says “invalid”), try clicking on the very lowest part of the card which does not overlap the middle card and it should turn over.
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:31 pm
I’ve played the same course eight more times with no luck. Do you have any tactical suggestions? I’ve got all the clothing and start out with a full bag of clubs. Is there a distinct pattern to follow? I can’t seem to find one.
May 23rd, 2008 at 9:16 pm
There were some great tips on GameZebo but they’ve had a recent site redesign and I can’t find them any more!
As you may know, “Golf” is a type of solitaire (it’s listed on Wikipedia) and it has its own tactics. Then there’s extra tactics for Fairway Solitaire due to the sand traps, water hazards and irons.
- With the irons, try only using them towards the end of a hole so that you can get under par as this gives you a big bonus which increases even more if you have a good multiplier. Save them for holes where it’s more likely you’ll get perfect.
- Don’t forget that irons can be used to a) keep a run going for longer by jumping it to a totally new value, or b) start off a brand new run.
- Memorise where all the sand wedges are and uncover them as soon as possible unless it adversely affects a long run.
- Remove water cards as soon as possible (but not if it means halting a good run elsewhere) - use your judgement.
- Try to beat the mini-games for more bonus which is multiplied up.
- If a course is going badly, you can just exit to the title screen and when you click play, do not resume, go and restart the course instead. This will save you time as you won’t have to complete courses that have gone bad.
- Use the X-ray specs wisely to decide on your next action.
- Use the mulligan tactically. If you are not sure which of two cards will yield the best result (i.e what’s under it), click one, then if it’s no good, mulligan it and click the other. You can even mulligan a 2nd time and go back to the first choice!
Some general “golf” solitaire tactics:
- Study the face up cards carefully (take your time) and make no mistakes. It’s fun to rapidly click away but you can make mistakes due to not having seen the card which is flipping over whilst you are busy clicking another one…
- If you have choice between clicking a card on a stack or one on it’s own, always click the one on the stack to free up the one underneath. Clean up single cards at the end.
- If you have a choice between uncovering one card or two cards, clearly you need to uncover two cards (unless you can see them both and they are not much use right now and the single card is face down - it’s sometimes worth the gamble to reveal the single card).
- Try to remember which runs you’ve had already as the chances of getting similar ones later are reduced because you’ve used up those cards - so you can take your future runs in a different direction instead!
- Try to keep your runs more flat than sloped. What I mean is try to go 2,3,2,1,2,3,4,3,4,5 etc instead of just 2,3,4,5,6,7,8 etc. This helps to clean up similar cards so that you don’t have to go back to them later for small runs, and it gives you bigger runs.
I hope some of these tips help. If anyone has more, please post them!
Thanks.
June 2nd, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Love this game! Any word on that v.1.2 yet?
June 2nd, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Thanks Corona. You can tell what version you have by looking at the flag on the logo on the title screen. BFG should have V1.03 or V1.04 live now so you just need to download it again (not sure how that works, you may need to ask their support people), but it won’t overwrite any saved games, just the game .exe and level data. Reflexive had V1.02 from the start.
July 1st, 2008 at 6:14 am
Hello.
After a few months i still love playing this game, and not only me, for me it is surely one of the top 5 games ever.
I was wondering is there something i can do so i can add more users, for now you can only have 7 users at the same time in the playerslist, but at my work it should be great if 10 or more different players can be in the playerslist.
Thanks for the game again.
July 2nd, 2008 at 11:28 am
Wow, thanks. Glad you like it so much. I’m afraid the list is limited to 7 users only. You could always copy out some of the users from the Profiles folder to make room and put them back in when those players want to play. Bit long winded but if you made a shortcut to that folder it would be doable.
July 5th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Hi I just finished all the courses in Fairway including Mystery Madness (which was really tough until I began to see a pattern). This was a great game experience and I hope there will be sequels . I’m 60 years young and really enjoyed this game (by the way I played it on a Mac). Thanks to all and tell Big Fish Games more like this would be great.
Best regards,
Stevo!
July 5th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
Thanks Stevo, glad you liked it! It was tough at the end but it’s cool that you beat it. I hoped you liked the game finished animation
July 5th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Yes, I really like the ending animation and music a lot! Is there a way to save that for replay? Actually I enjoyed the animation throughout the game including the pesky gopher and that worm that would appear. You really did a great job!
Best regards,
Stevo
July 5th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
Sorry, there’s no way to replay it other than beating the Baron again. I love the animation on the wildcards too. Yep, our team did a good job and we are proud. We are hoping it will win the Zeebys award for best card/mahjong game of 2007.
July 9th, 2008 at 7:21 am
Hi, My wife has played this game for months and absolutely loves it,However i am about to set up a shiny new pc and was wondering how to move the save file for this game,I have searched all through the drives for it and can’t find it.
Any help much appreciated.
July 9th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Hi Dan, the files are in a hidden folder whose location depends on which OS you are running. In XP the path is: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Grey Alien Games\Fairway Solitaire and in Vista the path is C:\ProgramData\Grey Alien Games\Fairway Solitaire. If you don’t know how to show hidden files and folders, just google for it, it’s nice and easy
Good luck.
July 9th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Thank you very much,Will try that.Thanks again.
July 18th, 2008 at 1:31 am
Fairway Solitaire was the most addictive game I’ve played since my first PC and game, Canasta, 13 years ago. I played it 88 hours over 2 1/2 weeks to finish it, then another 10 days to get the last 3 trophies just now completed. BIG FUN!! Thank-you and Cheers, Bill
July 18th, 2008 at 8:24 am
Excellent, thanks Bill! Sounds like you had a full-time job completing that game; I guess it was good value for money then
July 28th, 2008 at 4:12 am
I just purchased Fairway Solitaire from BFG in early July. My version is 1.01, according to the little flag in the menu screen. Isn’t there supposed to be a version 1.02 or 1.03 available? I have a pc with Windows xp. How may I obtain the latest version? Thanks!
July 28th, 2008 at 8:32 am
Hi, yes there should even be a V1.04 available. I thought they would have put it online by now, I’ll ask them about it.
OK just checked and indeed 1.01 is still online, weird, I’ll ask them to update it ASAP.