PGA Tour 2K21 (from the makers of The Golf Club)

New branding calls for a new thread. A licensed PGA Tour golf game from the makers of the Golf Club, backed by the might of 2K Studios (as was the last Golf Club game). TPC Sawgrass is looking good. Full details to come next week.

I love golf games but have never got around to giving the Golf Club series a try. Should be good, right?

I’ve never had a video game make me as angry as the putting does in the two Golf Club games.

If that hasn’t been resolved then they could offer me money to download the game and I’d turn it down.

Constantly reading people complain about the putting is probably the #1 reason why I never bought any of them. That and my fickle nature.

Yep love golf, love golf games, hate the putting in this series

The putting isn’t ideal, it’s really more frustrating than it should be. I played Golf Club 2019 recently quite a bit on PS Now. I think it’s got a lot going for it, but putting is annoying, there are times when the line is just too fine between a good shot and a terrible shot (and not just once, either – too many times I would take what seemed like a good shot, and it sliced out of bounds, then I proceeded to do exactly the same thing with 3-4 following tee shots).

My main gripe though with that particular game is the course design. There were way too many holes where you can go off the fairway, over a cliff, basically, and have the ball roll like 200 yards. And the worst part is from many of these spots you end up it’s literally impossible to get the ball back on the fairway or on the green. I would just have to hit shots into the side of an Everest sized hill until I ran into the stroke limit.

I have been playing Everybody’s Golf lately. Not without some complaints, but by and large I much prefer it.

Yeah Everbody’s Golf is great.

I play real golf off a 10 handicap and putting in real life is way easier than The Golf Club. The trick is in making the putting hard enough so you don’t always 1 or 2 putt but not too difficulty that you end up 3 or 4 putting a lot of the time. The Golf Club games do not manage that.

I will still probably give this a go like I have the others

PGA Tour 2k21 came out yesterday - anyone pick it up yet? Best deal I’ve found is a GreenMan coupon for $49 for my gold level, but haven’t jumped on that yet.

I’m probably going to wait for a sale, which is what I said for previous entries in the series that I never actually bought.

There are a few things that curbed my interest in it, most notably that you cannot add or edit the courses in career mode events (or players, so there won’t be any mods available that recreate pro golf). I don’t really mind the lack of a full roster of pro players so much. A bigger issue for me is that there is no Augusta National or UK links course among the 15 courses included in the game, so that means no Masters or Open Championship in career mode. Maybe there’s a fictional stand in for them, but that’s not quite the same. Also, there’s no playoffs in tournaments, so if you finish tied for first, you win. A bit anti-climactic. Lastly, I’ve read that putting is more forgiving, but it still seems like the same mechanic that people have been complaining about for years, just easier I guess (maybe that fixes the problem with putting?).

On the plus side, it looks like you can play multiplayer offline, so that might be fun, using the course creator to make absurd courses to annoy each other with. But that doesn’t sound like the kind of thing I’d pay full price for.

I bought it. Played it a bit today while I wait for MS to fix autopilot issues in FS2020. Anyway…

Honestly - it feels like one of the older Tiger Woods games, at least with the various assists on. Such as the putting preview - I remember that, right down to getting only one read per put, and you could limit the number of previews per round. The clubs you unlock lets you drive farther or get better control, but you as a golfer don’t change (I really miss what Rory did with golfers getting better). But sponsorships are back, and doing enough challenges (3 contracts per sponsor, 3 challenges to complete, harder contracts = harder goals), so that’s nice. One thing different from a presentation standpoint is if you’re in a PGA event, it’ll break in every now and then and show you nice shots from other players (the other pros in the game - that’s all you’ll see of them). The other thing I miss from Rory is the ability to shorten events to where you only play 4-6 holes per round (except majors, where you always play the back 9). So I’m thinking of changing non-majors to only two rounds. But aside from that, I like it, and it’s nice to have a golf game on the PC again.

This popped up on the Switch. I had no idea and I generally check the estore upcoming games weekly. God, the estore front end bites. Anyway, there is only one review but it indicates the golf is great but the presentation (no LPGA golfers, only 12 pga golfers, that sort of thing) brings it down. I don’t really care too much about that. So if some good reviews come in I’ll have some couch golf going soon.

That’s encouraging since those were IMO the pinnacle of PC golf games.

Played last night. Pro level. Most assists turned off. Liked it. Loved the older Tiger games. Putting is still a bit whacky. Will play a lot more today to get a better feel. Good challenge is a nice sign though.

Fast forwarding through shots and no replays. Took 18 minutes for the round. So that was quick.

The 2 things that are always wrong in these games are backspin control, and your ability to stop or back up a ball on a green. Just about every golf game plays like “links” golf, i.e. the greens are like a gym floor and there is no way to stop the ball, especially with a lower club.

I played a lot of real golf, and I could stop a 5 wood dead on a green, so it’s one of the things that really bugs me with these games. A lot of the most recent golf games have had big problems with spin control, tying it to power applied etc, which is also bs.

If ever a golf game gets this right, (which was one of the best things about the early Tiger Woods games), I’d be all over it.

I play on easier settings, but I can get a 5-wood or hybrid to pretty much stop w/in 2 yards if I pull back on the backspin (ie, use the most) and put the flight path at the highest.

I’d love to find a golf game that got spin right, that’s encouraging. Is the backspin mechanic tied to power level of the main swing, or is it just independent? I loved Tiger Woods for the after the swing backspin, even though it was completely unrealistic, it was an awesome level of control, and a great mini game unto itself.

I have to admit to hating that aspect of spin, as someone that actually plays golf and at a decent level I know how hard it is to get it to spin and also control that spin. Also the expectation that you can get spin with all your clubs, just so hard to do.

This version is a massive improvement in my opinion, the putting is a lot better and it there seems more control over your shots, chipping and short game aspect is a lot better. However spin is still drop and stop rather than 6 yards of back spin. You adjust loft which helps stop the ball quicker as well.

I’ve had plenty of shots with 6 yards (sometimes, unfortunately, more) of backspin. I mean, sure, it’s generally a wedge doing that, but backspin on those isn’t an issue.

Spin in real golf is mostly about control of draws and fades, a draw is very easy to topspin, and a fade is easier to backspin, especially on lower clubs. It’s entirely possible to do the opposite of that, and it’s sometimes required, but that’s the natural proclivity.

If there’s ever a demo of this, I will certainly check it out, I’ve still not found a better golf game than LINKS lol.

How do you do backspin? The only thing I saw in the tutorial was changing where you were hitting the ball for more loft. I remember in the old Tiger Woods PGA games you could influence spin as it was in the air.

If backspin is tied to loft, which I think it is in their other games, then to me that’s an instant no thanks. It’s entirely possible to hit a low trajectory shot with a ton of backspin on it, and there are many situations where that’s needed.

The one thing that has bugged me about all of the modern golf games, is that they really feel like they were programmed by people that weren’t very good or had much experience playing real golf. Maybe that’s why Links is still so good, it was made by people who were real world golf fanatics.

I would guess that the mechanics in this game are based on ‘The Golf Club’ series, so that description of the backspin mechanic makes perfect sense. It’s the one thing that really ruins those games. Backspin needs to be it’s own control variable, and not tied to loft or power.

I think the problem with this, from a sim perspective, is that there are 2 different ways to generate spin in real life. One is where on the ball you hit (which is what most sims do), and the other is how you hit the ball. Hitting down on the ball vs hitting through the ball makes more difference in spin than position on ball. Your angle of attack is a much bigger influence on ball behavior than just raw position.