As someone who was once an enthusiastic golfer, I’ve covered many miles often wondering what I could do to make a scenario easier or more difficult. Wayward drives would often result in me having to play from the rough or losing my ball to the dreaded overgrowth which gobbled up golf balls without a trace. While my passion for golf may have died down in recent years, I know the creative freedom which many golfers wish they had control over and while this isn’t really a possibility in real life, it’s certainly possible with HB Studios’ latest release The Golf Club on Steam, Xbox One and soon to PS4.
I recently previewed The Golf Club as it was in an early-access stage on Steam with the whole game yet to be completed. With the game now finalised and ready for full release on the Xbox One, as well as the PC, it seems as though you can enjoy creating courses just as much as sinking that winning putt.
The main draw to The Golf Club is that it allows you to create and share golf courses which you have created. With games such as Minecraft, Terraria and Project Spark providing the players with the ability to create worlds, HB Studios’ latest title looks to provide players with the ability to create their own St Andrews or Pebble Beach and then share them among the community for other people to play rounds of golf on. With the amount of randomisation no two courses are the same and it’s this level of customisation which will have you excited to share your course with The Golf Club’s community.
That is, of course, right up until you come to actually sharing your course as it seems to get lost among the many courses which have already been shared throughout the community. If people are looking to play on someone else’s course then they’ll pick the course which has been played the most or has the highest rating. While I understand this is a downside to several other customisable games, all of the courses I played had a similar feel to them and nothing which made me want to play one particular course again. There was no 18th hole moment at St Andrews or the 10th hole par 3 at Augusta as it all felt one in the same.
While the game does allow for some decent customisation, there are not as many options to choose from as many would think. From the outside the game seems to have a high level of customisation available, but ultimately fails to show this when you finish editing your course. While trees, gradients, water hazards, rough areas, greens and fairways can all be altered in size and frequency, it doesn’t feel in-depth enough and the course relatively feels the same as it did when you were presented with a randomly generated course. Although I was using an Xbox 360 controller during my time with The Golf Club, the controls seemed confusing and nothing is really explained to begin with. To counteract this problem, HB Studios have released several YouTube videos which can be viewed on the company’s YouTube channel here: HB Studios YouTube Channel
Once you get to grips with how to edit your course, you are able to play a round on the course and, compared to other golf games, the playing experience is rather dry but is true to the real game. In games such as the Tiger Woods series or PGA Tour games you were able to progress your character so they could strike the ball further, have more spin on the ball and generally improve their game with each round. There is no feature which allows your player to be any different to any other player online and while this seems fair, it doesn’t feel as though you’re progressing in any way other than learning how the game plays. I want to feel rewarded when I’ve played a good round and steadily improve my game rather than stay at the same level and constantly falling short with shots due to the thumbstick swing controls.
The thumbstick swing works fairly in terms of hitting your shot straight as even the slightest stray in movement can throw your shot off, to some extent. The problem I had was that the first half swing movement was fine, but the forward action is very unreliable and you have to thrust the stick forward, while trying to keep it straight, and this often hooks or slices your shot. Again it is very true to the real game of golf, but when you are consistently looking for the maximum distance from the tee, it’s very frustrating that you have to move the thumbstick so quickly in order to get the best results. It’s almost like a risk reward factor, but it is very frustrating.
Even when the game is running on its highest graphic settings on PC it fails to impress. Everything looks okay and not much you can fault, but games these days have a tendency to push the boundaries of graphical performance. The graphics don’t draw you out of the experience any, but it isn’t one of the game’s major upsides. While other golf games have great commentators featured heavily throughout each round, The Golf Club has someone called John providing small pieces of audio at each hole, whether it’s stating the obvious distance to the hole or telling you how well you’ve performed on the last hole, it gets annoying after a while and I eventually muted the sound altogether.
It may seem as though I’m being very negative towards The Golf Club and while it isn’t everything it promised to be, it does an okay job of allowing some customisation and an average golf experience. I didn’t find any game-breaking bugs or errors which caused me to have to restart the game. The main thing to take away from The Golf Club is that it works, but isn’t anything near what it could have been. Hopefully HB Studios continue to update the game and make improvements as I would find it hard to recommend this game to anyone with its current design. I’d still rather walk over the bridge at the 18th hole at St Andrews.
The Golf Club is available now via Steam and Xbox One and will be released soon on PS4.