First things first: put some time into the single player challenges. Use them to unlock new players, new equipment and new courses (and the points required to pay for them).
Apart from anything else, the game has a frustrating habit of withholding information from you and drip-feeding it to you, bit by bit. There's an info screen at the beginning of each round that tells you a little bit more info each time. So the more rounds you play, the more of these screens you'll see.
There are five variations on the control method too, so once you've unlocked these, you can experiment with them to see which suits you best.
The key controls are as follows:
Before your shot
* Press and hold triangle to zoom down the course to see where you'll be aiming. This should give you warning of any hazards in the vicinity of your landing position. You can use triangle to go forward, circle to pull back, d-pad up and down to go up and down, d-pad left and right to move your target left and right.
* Press X when you're looking at a view other than your player lining up to return to the shot position.
* Check the wind speed and direction (top right). Wind speed will veer the ball off its target while it's in flight and has a greater effect on higher trajectories (briefly - the shorter your maximum distance (bottom left), the higher the ball will fly and the more affected by wind).
* Check the ball lie - condition and angle (bottom right). This will tell you how well the ball is placed for hitting - the likely range of percentages of distance you'll get. The angle is even more important. If the land is sloping down to the left, your shot will start off at a bit of an angle to the left. The more pronounced the slope, the greater the effect. The further your club will hit the ball, the further from the target this effect will take it. So compensate for any left-to-right angle. If the ball's on an uphill slope, it will tend to come off the club face at a steeper angle; from a downhill slope, it will fly lower than normal - this also changes how much the wind affects the shot.
* L and R change club selection (don't forget you can zoom back and forth with triangle and circle to see where the approximate end position would be for a 100% hit)
* Select cycles between an overhead view (which you can still navigate around) and a landing site view.
* Square toggles power mode if you're far away, or approach mode if you're closer.
* d-pad down button, when in shot-taking position, will throw some grass into the air to help try to judge wind speed and direction, but you can usually rely on the wind arrow on the HUD. Except in 'Real Golf' rules, which hide the HUD and viewing trickery.
Once you've mastered the 'before shot controls', you've won most of the battle. The rest is timing and some sneaky things you can do with the face buttons.
While taking a shot (i.e. at the point of pressing X to hit the ball with good timing)
* Hold up to apply top-spin to the ball
* Hold down to apply back-spin to the ball
* Hold left to apply draw to the ball (makes it veer to the left and then back towards the right)
* Hold right to apply fade to the ball (makes it veer to the right, then back towards the left)
[assuming a right handed golfer for this terminology]
* Hold combination of vertical and horizontal buttons to achieve a combination of effects
...but once you've figured those out, there's more.
You can press one direction during your back swing, then the opposite direction during the down-stroke to achieve 'super' versions of these... But these will ONLY work if you achieve 'perfect impact' timing (no skulls, bunnies or turtles) and ONLY if playing from fairway or tee (good lie).
* Hold up during backswing and down during down-stroke to achieve super backspin
* Hold down, then up to achieve super top-spin
* Hold right during backswing and left during down-stroke to achieve a super draw shot
* Hold left then right to achieve a super fade shot
Super fade and super draw exaggerate the curved path that the ball follows in the air; super top spin and back spin exaggerate the effect on the ball once it hits the ground (and may slightly lower or heighten the trajectory; I'm not sure). Back-spin is most noticeable with the lower irons - you get blue flames as the ball reverses direction on the green.
If you're lucky (or good) enough to hit the pin while super spin is applied, something bizarre and wonderful may happen. 
Also worthy of note is that if you use one of your power shots (square), and fail to achieve perfect impact, all spin is cancelled (which is new for the series, and seems unnecessarily harsh) so if you're using draw or fade to swerve round trees, you need to think especially carefully whether you really need that extra power or whether it would be safer to lay up shorter.
On a power shot, you can waggle the PS Vita at the point of power and impact to get even more power. Supposedly. If you get perfect impact. I've never done it myself. I don't even try. Hitting perfect impact with a completely steady device is hard enough for me!
The guys who keep getting eagles and who finish a round of nine holes with a score of 9 under or better have probably unlocked the most powerful characters, the best equipment, know the courses really well, including some tricks to reaching the greens more easily, and they probably have an uncanny knack for hitting perfect impact most of the time. I hate those guys. (36% perfect impact is good, right? 
)
I forgot to mention some other things...
Once you've unlocked it for a character (by building up character loyalty), you can hit the ball with triangle or circle instead of X and this will tweak your shot power by 2% (triangle increases shot power, circle decreases power) - so if you didn't quite get the spot when selecting power, this will allow you to make small adjustments.
During shot preparation, if you've enabled rear tocuh pad, you can touch a cursor on to the course from behind and this will show you how far the touched target is from your current position (including by height) and how far from the pin.
Anything else? 
Level 6
I used to love the EG series but I find playing this version of the game a real chore 
chore/CHôr/
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No, the crazy scores are just that - crazy but real.
In fairness, I'm capable of crazy scores myself nowadays, just not very often. Some people are just incredibly consistent. Expert characters and equipment help, but practice is the key. Play an online event that enforces the beginner characters and people will still get crazy scores.
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