Sorry for the delay, @AStott! I got the message on my phone last night, but I was bowling and busy at work today until now.
I played the first The Golf Club religiously for almost a year and worked my way up on the TGCTours competition to a world ranking in the 200s and on The PGA Tour when I quit. I had a very good feel for how all of the physics worked at the time.
However, I was out of practice for quite a few months when The Golf Club 2 came out and I haven’t really given it the time it deserves to make a valid comparison. The top level clubs were very difficult for me with the new Tempo swing system. I use the mouse for making a swing (one of the few in both games) and I have a very pronounced sub-second pause at the top of my backswing that is greatly pronounced in the new swing system. With the most difficult, top-tier clubs, it made the game basically so hard it was unplayable for me. It didn’t feel like the tempo was anywhere near what it is swinging real clubs, to me at least, and not being able to pause for even what felt like 0.1 or 0.2 seconds at the top of my backswing without shanking it in the rough or hazard made it super frustrating. I did play a few rounds trying to force myself to get used to immediately starting my downswing, but I could never get it right and after probably 1000+ rounds doing it my other way, I just gave up trying to train myself to a new way.
However, with all that said, the second difficulty level appeared to be perfectly playable for me, and very similar to what I remembered from The Golf Club. I was really determined to make the top tier work, though, so didn’t spend a lot of time on that skill level.
The putting was different, and probably more detailed overall with the physics, but perfectly playable and I never felt like I was getting robbed in the new system. It was just going to take a few more tweaks to get used to.
Another thing they did with the new version that was talked about a lot in the Pro Tour I was in was that you could no longer dial in perfect yardage with all clubs, nor super loft 2 irons to basically render all but the hardest/fastest conditions laughably easy for the top pros. I don’t recall all of the details, but I believe they restricted the amount you could loft certain clubs, and removed the extra grid lines that allowed you to darn near dial in a yardage before. I liked this change as I was never that great at doing this before and I like the idea of golf being a bit of a feel game as opposed to gaming the system.
I really should give it a shot again and just realize I will never enjoy the top tier clubs and see if I like it with the 2nd skill level.
EDIT: I should probably add I haven’t played since probably the first 2 weeks the game came out, so it is very possible the swing mechanics have been patched in some ways. I haven’t been following it closely.