Among his many accolades, Arnold Palmer was a professional pilot and officer in the Civil Air Patrol.
Despite giving away the answer up-front for post introduction picture purposes, I think I'll still set up the reveal. It is highly-accessible, making it a hobby recreation for countless many though few ever become good enough to play professionally. Yet it is significant investment for participants and proprietors alike, requiring a large set of tools for the former and maintenance of huge real estate for the latter. On a TV screen it gets exciting for those who are fans, while its lower pacing and volume can make non-fans fall asleep to it.
In the realm of computer gaming, the challenge is finding a sport that has NOT been represented: even extreme and niche sports got theirs starting with California Games by Epyx back in the day. Being one of the more common types, golf earned early portrayal on home computer and console systems alike. It became, like the real thing, more of a recreational escape than a gung-ho quest (being able to save mid-course and come back when needed helps). How to best translate the intricacies of stroke physics and terrain effects into interactive medium makes for a neat chapter in the history of games development.
To avoid complication this will not be anything close to comprehensive. Console makers including Sega
and Nintendo produced their own golf games for their earlier 8-bit systems with mixed results that were designed to replicate the fun but not actually simulate the experience of golfing. When computers and consoles became powerful enough that led to a simulation push and an oversaturated market (including a one-shot from MicroProse released in the US as David Leadbetter's Greens).
Instead I will focus on the golf-specific exploits of three key companies who competed in their own ways to establish the genre as it became at the turn of the millennium. Only one would continue running new entries to the present day, while fans of the deprecated competition keep them alive via production of new content in the same manner as modders and scenario designers of other popular classic games. As with actual golf courses, proper maintenance and periodic improvements will keep them timeless.
Legendary Simulation Sophisticators
Because of a certain program named Microsoft Access a company logo proved difficult to locate, so I had to use one from MobyGames this time.
Access Software was one of those game developers from the golden age of the 1980s who, rather than work up a large resume, attempted to push the envelope in their own way. At first they explored several genres, though their initial claim to fame was probably Beach-Head and others that combined multiple mini-games into multi-genre action-adventures. At the end they became known as Indie Built, but that gets a little ahead of things.
In 1986 Access launched Leader Board for popular 8-bit computers while entrusting Sculptured Software (remember that name: it becomes pertinent again later) with the enhanced edition for Atari ST & Amiga. Like the simple golf games that preceded it the included courses were not based on real ones, but from this beginning point Access made its clear focus to be on accurately simulating the game of golf itself as opposed to emulating the experience of playing through famous locales (already the approach of some of the competition). Commodore 64, the original target platform, got the most expansions and sequels, but the enhanced edition (favoring Amiga most) showed early signs of sophistication.
This first generation culminated in World Class Leader Board and its expansion disks which, for the most part, had real-life courses translated to computer. This release saw ports to the most platforms yet for the company including, for the first time, Sega consoles and IBM-compatible PCs. The PC port features an interesting extra of its own: Access had developed what they referred to as RealSound programming for playback of voice and effect samples over PC speaker, an option carried over to its famous successor.
The original Links: The Challenge of Golf was elite by the standards of its 1990 timeframe by requiring 256-color VGA when only a fraction of PC users could afford the upgrade from 16-color EGA (there was also an Amiga version but it ran so much slower that the system was no longer definitive). In addition to RealSound there was support for most accessible sound standards of the day including the proprietary IBM PS/2 Speech Adapter (one of the tiny handful of games supporting this peripheral). The adept play physics and beautiful rendering of the Torrey Pines course in San Diego exhibited advanced computer golf sophistication that could captivate despite the stock inclusion of a measly 18 holes (and no end-user tools to create more).
No less than 7 courses were translated as expansion disks for Links, and many of those for Links 386 and beyond had a backwards-compatible variant. The Sega CD version is probably the most unique since it offers the full audiovisual experience with Torrey Pines (which never got released on CD in any form save as part of the shovelware Course Library volumes that did not include the video features). As the decade drew to a close and technology had long surpassed this first release of the series that became Access's bread-and-butter, the extent of its later support is something rarely found in the computer business.
There is another computer company which has many faults but support of its aging software is not one of them: Microsoft. Microsoft got started in the gaming industry way back in 1981 with the IBM PC port of a preexisting simulation, with subLOGIC's Flight Simulator first making it to a 16-bit platform in form of Microsoft Flight Simulator. Come 1992 the House of Bill Gates staged a repeat performance, porting Links to their wildly-successful Windows 3.1 as the first edition of Microsoft Golf.
Handy enough for those who used Windows for business and now had a full-featured edition of the best golf simulator of the time that could run on any Windows 3.1 computer, it failed to keep its relative edge at first because that same year Access introduced Links 386 Pro, which pushed PC hardware so much it would only run via programming libraries that expanded DOS past its 640 kilobyte memory limit. High-resolution Super VGA graphics were the only way to go with 386 Pro, pioneering the expectations which would follow the next 3+ years of games eschewing Windows due to expanded DOS offering superior potential capability in its wider hardware support. Yet Microsoft beat Access to the punch on the multimedia push, releasing a special edition of Golf that included (for the first time in either Golf or Links) video clips of hole fly-bys and pro trips to augment the experience. This particular experience would expand on the Windows front; 3 expansion courses were published specifically for Microsoft Golf (to questionable ends, since Golf was compatible with any Links course disk), with the one for Pinehurst also getting a CD-ROM release with multimedia features. When Microsoft Golf 2.0 also got a CD version, its multimedia (like that of Microsoft Pinehurst) differed from the standard Access was implementing in Links 386 CD and its CD-ROM expansions.
Links 386 Pro was ported to Windows as Microsoft Golf 2.0, followed by Links 386 CD as Microsoft Golf 3.0 (this one for Windows 95 and above only). The high-resolution graphics were an obvious translation but, once again, ancillary features differed between Microsoft editions and those by Access which were exclusive to DOS. The next leap came in 1997 with Links LS: Legends in Sports, taking advantage of the latest GPUs while bringing aboard the endorsement and personality of Arnold Palmer, but it was such a big generational leap that expansion courses beyond this point stopped being compatible with earlier entries in the Links series.
Further abandonment of the past came with Links LS 1998 ditching DOS in favor of Windows 95, then it all came to a head in 1999 as Microsoft acquired Access Software outright (their first publication in the series being the uncharacteristically whacky Links Extreme). Through 2000 Microsoft promoted Links as their "Professional" golf simulator while retaining the Microsoft Golf name for more basic editions. The last title in the series was Links 2004 which was exclusive to Xbox (part of the short-lived XSN Sports line, possibly its most successful entry) while user-created additions for Links 2003, the final Windows release, are found at Links Corner Golf Simulation Software Resources.
The Master Course Designers
All who have played an Accolade game would be aware that they feature a unique animated logo.
Like many pioneering computer game companies Accolade was all over the place; unlike Access, they never reached the point of a finding a major niche on which to concentrate (though sports, such as their Hardball series, arguably came close). By the same token, they supported a great variety of computer systems from the beginning then jumped onto consoles once it became feasible. They gained particular notoriety on that last point when they landed in hot legal water for their efforts to bypass security and licensing on the Sega Genesis.
1986 was the debut year for the golf games destined to precede the hits of the 90s, and Accolade's was Mean 18. The base game and separate expansion disks included 3 or more real-life courses each (which ones varied by region and platform). But the real treat was its engine features which, while falling short in providing a true-to-life golf simulation, were all about the actual game and its potential for growth.
That growth came ahead of the competition in 1989 by bringing aboard Jack Nicklaus, one of the best golfers who ever lived plus a professional course designer of his own right. Developed by Sculptured Software (remember them from before?), they gave the Mean 18 engine a boost which made it quite fun to play if not that accurate to how golf really is. However this new series premier Jack Nicklaus' Greatest 18 Holes of Major Championship Golf, while like its predecessor got a series of expansion disks with 3 courses each, eschewed the course design feature that had been so touted in Mean 18.
But that potential would not be left fallow for long. In 1990, the same year Links premiered, Accolade released Jack Nicklaus' Unlimited Golf & Course Design. As implied it was 2 programs in one, and this edition carried the bonus of being compatible with the expansion disks from Greatest 18 (future entries were developed with both base games in mind) plus a unique course designed by Nicklaus himself, The Bear's Track, exclusively for Unlimited Golf...done with the exact same toolset that comprises Unlimited Course Design.
In 1992, the same years Links 386 Pro premiered, the next updated re-release (a more accurate term than "sequel" for these first 3 games in the Jack Nicklaus series) came in the form of Unlimited Golf & Course Design Signature Edition which established the trend for the rest of the series. Greatest 18 supported at best EGA on PC, Unlimited Golf & Course Design embraced VGA but with EGA-type palette limitations, then finally Signature Edition allowed 256 colors on all terrain and models. That, as an example, shows how the Jack Nicklaus series was not interested in pushing computer hardware to create a sophisticated simulation but preferred to offer a more basic golfing experience for players to build on for themselves.
Nicklaus himself, of course, is one incredible individual. Golf is more than his profession: it is his passion and to that end he has produced decades of work, including this computer game series that eventually grew to 6 entries (outlasting Accolade itself, as a matter of fact), to help people learn to appreciate golf as much as he does. He has said that the courses he built will be his most lasting legacy, thus it is most appropriate that the defining feature of Jack Nicklaus is its course design tools.
The Tournament Administrators
Accolade was not the only company attempting to release games for Sega's Mega Drive/Genesis on their own terms. How Trip Hawkins managed to turn things around and net EA preferred status is a well-known chapter of retro gaming history. The pertinent long-and-short of it today is that Electronic Arts is a large part of the reason why Sega's 16-bit success includes what many still hail as the richest library of sports games for that era. Even though most entries appeared on SNES, objective feature sets combined with subjective anecdotal experiences serve as proof that Sega version were generally superior. While EA Sports began to leave its 16-bit roots behind with 3DO and eventually settled on Sony's PlayStation as their new focus system, they also began a unique (for 3rd-party developers) practice of supporting obsolescent consoles with new games for as long as they held a viable market.
EA Sports, originally EASN (before ESPN stepped in to coerce a change), has a continuing history far too vast to cover, but it came of age and achieved breakthrough with 16-bit consoles despite Electronic Arts having started as yet another pioneering computer game company in the early 80s. It is in this early era that is when they began making sports games as well as collaborating with athletes or other prominent sports figures such as John Madden. But their real practice that helped set them apart back then was giving starring role to the actual game designers, something they kept up well into the 90s with it even rubbing off on other companies like LucasArts (that EA collaborated with Lucasfilm Games several times in the 80s may have had an influence).
Not one, but two, of these designers (an unusual practice for the time) came together to develop World Tour Golf which released that key year of 1986. Unlike all the other early entries mentioned in this post, World Tour Golf was strictly a spiritual predecessor in being the company's first big golf game. It could boast of greater stock content than any of the competition with 12 real-life courses...a good thing for its legacy since it would receive NO expansion disks. It had a captivating multi-graphical (or multi-window) presentation and topped off its feature set with a course designer, making for possibly the best-rounded package of the time.
This particular entry may have been going for a feature set since design philosophies were different back then, but World Tour Golf was also made to be an engrossing game. The full feature set would not carry over into its succeeding series, but the core execution would be. What needs to be understood about the way Electronic Arts approaches sports games is the same as they approach their action games: they replicate on the interactive screen the experience on the passive entertainment screen. This means that their military games will sacrifice realism for the sake of letting players become world-saving heroes, and it means that their sports games may be shallow or they may be deep but they will always favor the TV-style presentation.
This explains why EA was so forward in bolstering support of their sports titles via celebrity collaboration and their still-running PGA Tour franchise is no different. While from the beginning it has had [not a few unique] entries on home computers because the golf genre is more at home there, PGA Tour is more of a console-focused property than any others (even though Links and Jack Nicklaus saw a tiny handful of console entries). Only the first game from 1990 was widely ported; home computer editions expanded with a Tournament Course Disk while console expansion was just as pronounced as Sega Genesis got a full trilogy and beyond. It turns out the definitive way to experience "original trilogy" PGA Tour is on the Macintosh, since it was the only home computer to receive all 3 entries original to Sega Genesis. Starting with PGA Tour 96 it becomes a challenging series to document accurately since the name was used for all kinds of different system releases that share little to no common content beyond the opening menus; for instance, 96 for 3DO is equivalent to 486 on PC while 96 on PC is totally its own thing with unique expansions. Through the later 90s Windows releases of the series continued to differ greatly from their console counterparts, and I am not sure if they became more equivalent during the Tiger Woods PGA Tour era because my interest in EA Sports games ends before that point.
Pick any EA Sports game from the 90s and one will find professional-style commentary (sometimes with real professional announcers such as Ron Barr and John Shrader). Computer versions may have superior resolutions and more control options, but it is difficult to top the console versions for their pick-up-and-play simplicity and the sensation of playing rather than merely watching sports on TV. This is what really tickles retro console gamers, though old sports games are worth no more than the scant few dollars they typically sell for: what was lacking in technological presentation could be made up for with imagination, and EA was one company who adroitly and consistently nailed that balance. If anyone doubts this, they can set any one of these games to Demo Mode and then try not having a good time watching a unique match play by itself on the TV via 90s-era AI.
Finishing Disclaimer
Answering the original question: unfortunately, having played golf for real, I do not consider it relaxing so much as frustrating, and what is the point of making the investment to engage in a recreation which ultimately proves frustrating? Granted, it would likely ease the frustration if I could invest the time and practice into playing better, but I am simply not into it with golf. I know it is a classic sport and I still have my clubs in storage, but have not dug them out in years.
This is why I keep gravitating towards gaming as a prime hobby: interactive medium makes it possible to enjoy the fun aspects without necessarily having to deal with the real-life plaguing nuances, step back to take a break at no cost if things get frustrating, then come back to try again at convenience. While I will not rule out playing real golf again the future (as a social activity more than anything else), on computer and console I can not only get better than I would in reality because I can master the necessary skills in a simpler manner, but also play through high-class courses without the high-class cost of entry. For much of history humanity had to exclusively use his imagination to grow beyond the confines of his day-to-day life; to live at a time when technology can relieve imagination of the burden of developing fun challenge to overcome and instead let it be shaped by the joy of accomplishment (even if entirely artificial) leads to thankfulness that video gaming is available as a tool which, used in proper context, can be quite a therapeutic hobby for modern times.
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