Hands-On Preview: The Golf Club

Golf has always been a funny subject in the gaming community: Many enjoy the competitive aspects of playing against your peers and hitting that winning putt, while some dislike the dry and slow gameplay which can occur in a round of golf. Titles such as the early PGA Tour games, Wii Golf and the highly successful Tiger Woods series have helped to give golf a green jacket so that it can forever be taken seriously when it comes to games. As well as playing the sport, wouldn’t it be great if you could create your own fairways, bunkers and surroundings to share online? That’s exactly what HB Studios have done with their latest release, The Golf Club.

With all the creative games which are on offer these days, it seems only right that a game exists where you can create your own courses to play on and share with the world. The game was released on Early-Access via Steam a few weeks ago and it has been popular on the Steam marketplace ever since. Something I did before I delved into the game was that I watched the instructional videos which HB Studios have put on YouTube, so that everyone can learn about the game first before starting with a 0 handicap.

There are numerous options to choose from when you have an idea of what you’d like your golf course to look like. You can select from a variety of environments including plain, desert, alpine, autumn and links, which is soon to be available, and alter the amount of obstacles around the course. Some of these aforementioned obstacles include trees, water and hills which can all be individually increased or decreased in frequency.

If it doesn’t matter to you how many hazards your course has, then you can select ‘randomize’ which alters the amount of difficulties which you may face. Once this has been determined, you are provided with a randomly generated golf course which can contain as many holes as you wish.

From this moment you are then able to modify each hole individually, as you wish: You can copy sections of the fairway and paste them into the middle of some water, adding as much or as little challenge as you wish. In addition to being able to place landscape where you like, you can alter the width of fairways, the gradient of fairways, the rough and greens and basically let your imagination run wild.

The menus are all laid out very well and are easy enough to navigate through, meaning that anyone can create their own golf course whether they are computer literate or not. This is something which many people will enjoy doing as we have seen the wonders which the gaming community can create through Minecraft and mods for several other games. The chance to create your very own Pebble Beach or St Andrews is something which keen golfers will want to do, as well as the creative types who want a weird and wonderful project. As weird and wonderful as the courses will seem, however, they will still maintain the serious attitude of golf.

Once you have created your course, you are allowed to play on it and share it with others who own the game. Much like other golf games, the controls are simple to learn and you only really have to worry about where you’re aiming or how far you wish to hit the ball. Unlike Tiger Woods games where you have complete control over the ball in terms of spin, once the ball is in the air in The Golf Club, you cannot control its outcome. While you cannot control the amount of spin after the ball’s been hit, you can alter the way in which your shot will be hit, such as a higher loft or a lower loft to try and avoid trees as well as putting a fade or draw on the shot. It is very much a true-to-life interpretation of golf and even if you only feel like playing a round of golf, you can play this game just as a  golf game rather than a blueprint with golf added in.

The best aspect of what has been shown so far for me seems to be when you’re playing against friends: It all seems very laid back when playing on your own, which some people may enjoy, but even against computer opponents you find things get exciting. Even if you find yourself behind by a long way in terms of a scorecard, you still feel great when you win a hole and everything goes your way but, then again, that is just the game of golf.

From what I’ve played of the Early Access version of The Golf Club, it seems as though HB Studios know what they’re doing and have clearly worked on this for some time. The problem with some golf games is that once you’ve played a golf course a few times, you feel like you know it inside out. With The Golf Club, however, no two courses are the same and it allows the player complete freedom to make their mark on the game. Sharing your course is very simple and the game has a great community feel about it, as people love putting their own mark on a game. The early signs are promising and it’s definitely something any golf fan should look to chip-in with.