Whatever happened to...PC Golf Games?

TGCTours!

www.tgctours.com

Ok, I had no idea this was a thing until this morning. Apparently there is a tour for The Golf Club with its own website and tours that span all platforms including PC and console. They have weekly tournaments for each tour and stat tracking, money lists, and even Ryder Cup points with a PGA Tour and European Tour.

I am going to have to sign up for this today and try out. It sounds like you start out with Q-School (Awesome!) and how you do determines which tour you get placed in. They even have a Web.com tour and lesser ones that you can get placed in while you try to skill your way up to the big tour. I have been waiting for something like this since The Links Tour and this will be right up my alley. It even sounds like they have ways to check if you are cheating, or using guides for perfectly straight swing guides, etc.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the swing system in The Golf Club when it came out, but I tried again yesterday and it isn’t as bad as I remembered. I believe they maybe tweaked the response of the mouse system to make it a bit more stable and responsive. I had a horrible time before, but last night it wasn’t too bad and I felt my bad shots were my own fault and not what appeared to be random mouse glitches, or overly sensitive responses.

Tom will also like that people actually use their real names on the tour so the leaderboards won’t be filled with wacky screenname #319 or something.

Luckily, my real name is Yoloswaggins #420 RonPaul2012.

I never had a problem with the swing system in The Golf Club, but the putting system makes me want to slam my fingers in a car door.

Hah, good one.

Yeah, the putting can be rough. I found some guides, but it takes some practice for sure.

So, I signed up for the tour and the Q-school and am going to start my 6-round 6-course school from hell tonight, heheh.

<stumbles across thread> I was just thinking that golf games are poised to make a big comeback in the next few years, thanks to VR.

It’s pretty much perfectly suited for VR with motion controls (Vive or Oculus Rift with Touch controllers.) There’s a couple of VR minigolf games already in development (e.g. Cloudlands: VR Minigolf) and I would expect a bunch more in the future.

I know not graphical/arcade like the golf games mentioned above, but if you do like Golf and want to participate in a simulation of it, ASG Golf is currently free until the end of day, where you get the base game and a course, where you can try it out. This game is based on a board game, but really plays out nicely as a golf strategy game. Since it is FREE, nothing to lose to try it out…

Wow, thanks for mentioning that, Grim! Going to check it out.

EA killed them? Have we had that yet? The best (and one i still play from time to time) was the early PGA Tour series (by EA):

The Amiga was the best looking version, and a really geeky sim. It all went downhill pretty much from there iirc?

Indeed. I just signed up.

Warning: It’s a bit of a bizarre process to get the game. I mean, the game is easy to get–you just download the demo–but then it looks like you email them a code from the demo and then you’ll get a code to unlock the full version. I think? Hasn’t actually gone through for me yet.

Correct…it is their form of protection…basically you provide your machine id and then they send you a code to unlock the full game. Usually you get the codes within 24 hours or sooner.

There is another very good game like this called ActionPC Golf from dksports, which was also free earlier this month, but the special is over…both games are very good for golf lovers.

www.dksports.com

I got my code in about a half hour. I haven’t tried it yet but it’s installed.

Well, started the Q-school and was doing well with a couple early birdies until I tried to get cute and go around some trees and ended up with a 9 on a hole, heh. A late eagle on No. 9 helped a lot and ended up with a 75 (+3) on the first course.

The second one had different greens, I believe, and I struggled putting mightily as I couldn’t get used to the slow pace of them. I still need to figure out the course settings before a round starts. Second round was an 81 (+9).

I hope they still have those lower tours active, heh, as there is no way I am making the big tours at this pace.

I did a season but it was madness. So called new players shooting 20 under. I was shooting 3 or 4 over per round and finishing towards the bottom.

The system they have didn’t work, it was becoming a very popular game and the set up and system used to put people in to their leagues just didnt seem to work. I wanted to play against people who were as bad as me not who were 30 shots better than me. It seemed people joined, played non stoip and got very good very quickly and just dominated the league.

Real shame as it had real potential

Thanks for the heads-up. I will have to see how it goes.

I just finished up my Q School and finished up with scores of 75, 81, 68, 71, 69 and 74 and qualified for the CC-D tour. So I only have the CC-C, CC-B, CC-A, to get through to get to the Web.com tour and then maybe get a chance at the PGA heh. Not likely, but it will be fun to try. I am already pulling off some fun shots and as with normal golf, a few great shots normally keeps you coming back for more.

Now I will see if I can get in this week’s event and try to gain a world ranking and get on a money list.

Ok, so I hate to double-post just to talk about myself ;), but I can’t help it!

I just had the most fun round of golf on the computer since well… the last rounds I played in competitive computer golf back in 1995 or so. I was getting pretty intimidated by the other golfers and early on in my first tour event I made a really bad calculation and ended up at the bottom of a ravine in front of a bridge. Well, I tried to hold my cool and gutted out a 69 and 70 my first two rounds, which was good for something like 86th place. I totally get where you are coming from, Reemul, as that was better than my qualifying Q School scores, but barely enough to avoid getting marks against me in the current tour and risk demotion if I do it 3 times in a row.

However, I am stubborn as hell and started reading the charts a bit better and learned a bit the effects of wind on various shots. The most important thing was I finally learned to putt a bit! My last round was a 60, and I blew a few shots at the end there. They ghosted me with 3 of the leaders and I was consistently hitting better approach shots than they were so I hold out hope I can keep grinding and actually compete with these guys and gals. I just had to share that I am really glad I joined this tour and the added competition and leaderboards, stats and money lists is pretty damn awesome. You can even join in from the PS4 or XBOne and be on the same tours.

They had a moving month for February which opened up the exemptions and I went from D to C to B to an exemption try into CC-A this week. I hope I can stay there and have a good week!

I am really learning a lot and enjoying the competition. I finished -38 the past event and left quite a few strokes out there. It really is like real golf in how you have to use course management to give yourself better shots at birdie and taking the time to practice each course before competition can be a huge help.

If you finished at -38 then it’s not like real golf.

That is why I haven’t taken the plunge. I looked at the leaderboards on the site and the winning scores were -25 to -40 even on the lowest tier tours. That shows me that this is not anywhere near the simulation-type golf game I’m looking for. Too bad, because I love the concept.

Yeah, I get that. There are many factors that account for the low scores, but there is still a lot of room for different skill levels and golf acumen going into determining how well you score. Since release they have made it much more easy to hit straight shots, and the shots you intend to hit, so there is much less dexterity needed to pull off good shots. When you add in all of the aids that you get and take away the random elements of real life (more variable winds and lies and other random elements like ball marks and variable grain in greens), they all add up to more birdies than realistic. I would still argue that the game is far from easy and takes a lot of work and practice and attention to detail to shoot those low scores and I would rather have it as is than be fighting my mouse constantly like I did at release.

They also have the True-Sim Tour where it forces you to play without aids and makes you actually try to read greens by their contours and coloring/shading. I have no idea how those guys do it, but that may be more what you are looking for even though you can still see some low scores there.

Yeah the game is far from easy, now Rory Mcilroy is easy this I found tough but like any sport game play it
enough and you will do too well.

Finished in 2nd place this past week on the CC-B tour. My closest to a win yet!

Now I get another crack at the A tour on exemption and hopefully can stay there or gain a rare exemption to the Web.com Tour. I like the course this week so am hoping for good things.

I keep learning new tips and tricks to the game and keep squeezing more and more out of my game slowly. My biggest improvement has been in putting, though, and am even starting to drain some 15+ foot putts with lots of break to them.