How many? A potentially infinite number, essentially - thanks to the powerful course creator and an active online community whose creations already number in the thousands. What did keep me returning to The Golf Club, however, was the sheer number of courses available. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with that, but I would have appreciated some additional goals to strive for aside from merely trying to lower my handicap. Without carrots like these to dangle in front of us in The Golf Club, there’s little incentive to keep playing beyond the enjoyment and challenge of playing itself. One area in which the Tiger Woods games have excelled in recent years is keeping me engaged - I like the way it bombards us with spot-challenges and new gear to unlock at every turn. Having said that, The Golf Club does feel somewhat lacking as far as progression is concerned. It felt organic and rewarding, not unlike the real thing, as opposed to compensating for my own deficiencies by lazily beefing out a set of stat points in order to artificially power up my player. It seemed particularly hard to get to grips with after spending the past 10 years of my virtual golf career nestled within the Tiger Woods series’ more patronising embrace.īut things improved with patience and experience, and over time my scores came down as I grew more proficient in reading greens and adjusting for the lie of the ball. The slightest of deviations in each forward flick of the thumbstick caused balls to shank sideways into the brush, and it was tough to judge the length of my shots with the fully analogue putting. It’s down to you to read the green and rely on instinct to choose the right club and shot type, and apply the right amount of power to your swing with the right thumbstick.Ĭonsequently, The Golf Club was really quite challenging for my first few hours with it, particularly due to the absence of any kind of tutorial mode. All you’re given is the basic information for each hole - wind direction, distance to the pin and the elevation of the cup.
Each shot you take is bereft of the assists typical to modern golf games - there’s no swing timer to help you nail the right amount of power in your stroke, nor is there a virtual caddy to suggest which iron to use for your approach, nor aftertouch spin controls to correct a misplaced shot.
Yet The Golf Club is more about appropriating the feel of the sport rather than dressing it up with good looks or flashy gimmicks. Commentary is sparse, there’s no gallery there to cheer you on, and you’ll certainly never see a ball explode off the tee with a smoke trail behind it or have your ego stroked by a multi-angle replay each time you nail a chip-in from off the green. Anyone used to the dizzying amount of customisation options and myriad of real-world club and clothing manufacturers featured in the Tiger Woods games will likely be disappointed with the dearth of player-tailoring options on offer here.Ī similarly stripped-back level of design has been applied to the presentation out on the holes themselves. You can make slight alterations to the colour of each item of their clothing, but that’s it. Not only can you not play as any PGA pros, you can’t even play as yourself unless by remote chance you already look like one of the half a dozen non-editable players available. Little effort has been put into the creation of Golf Club’s golfers themselves.
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