After a curiously long time without a big budget licensed golf game on the market, golf fans have now been treated to two polished and genuine rivals – PGA Tour 2k23 and EA Sports PGA Tour. Each holds one of the main trump cards in selling a golf game. The rights to Tiger Woods for 2k and the rights to Augusta National for EA Sports.
Gamers of a certain age grew up with the golden generation of golf games in the mid-2000s that capitalised on the apex of Woods’ popularity as a player. Commercially and critically acclaimed across the sport game genre, and not just limited to golf fans, the Tiger Woods PGA Tour game series peaked in 2004 and 2005 with ratings of 88 on Metacritic. Woods was reportedly paid more than $6 million annually as the games sold 25 million copies and $771 million of games were sold.
For a long time it was a successful formula, following in the footsteps of other popular releases such as Fifa. EA Sports released a game with Woods on the cover every year from 1999 to 2014, the word Tiger becoming as synonymous with golf games as Tony Hawk for skateboarding, or John Madden for NFL.
With Tiger’s exit from EA Sports games in 2013, Rory McIlroy took up the mantle in 2015 for the PS4 and Xbox One generation. But with the 2015 game released to middling reviews, EA backed away from making future golf games until this year, a curiously long eight-year gap for a once-annual release, the first EA PGA Tour game of which dated back to 1990.
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In that time gap, a rival emerged. The indie The Golf Club game developed and published by HB Studios gained a cult following for its realistic and challenging gameplay and the game’s course editor feature, which allowed players across the world to share their course designs. A sequel was released and eventually in 2018 2k, the makers of the most popular NBA game, got involved, acquiring the publishing rights to The Golf Club series under its 2k Sports label. At the end of last year, they even released a game with Tiger Woods on the cover, PGA Tour 2k23.
The indie-ness of The Golf Club stays in the game, despite some popular licensed pros like Woods, Jon Rahm and Lydia Ko (and for some reason John Cena). The course editor feature allows you to play an unlimited number of custom-made courses. PGA 2k23 captures the swing dynamic well and punishes bad swings (like the real thing). But there is something lacking in the overall polish of what you might desire from a PGA Tour game – the commentary is mediocre and career mode limited. Especially considering NBA 2k’s broadcast presentation is maybe the best in the gaming, the stale presentation is a surprise.
It is in this context that EA Sports re-enters the market for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S|X generation. While there is a strong roster of playable PGA Tour and LPGA Tour pros to choose from (and even some LIV golfers like Brooks Koepka) the real star of the show for is the golf courses. There are 30 official courses on offer, all meticulously and beautifully made as you’d see them on TV. What the developers have captured the best of any game so far is how all the courses feel and play differently, watch out for more bounce on a links course, St Andrews playing differently to Pebble Beach.
And of course, the jewel in the crown is Augusta National, brilliantly infuriating on the higher difficulties, with all the slopes of the greens that make you appreciate just how good the real professionals are.
Where PGA 2k23 lacks, EA Sports gives one of the most polished career modes there has ever been in a golf game, you can create a golfer and choose to begin as an amateur and work your way up or start immediately on the PGA or LPGA Tours. There is a plethora of official tournaments, with logos and true-to-life event fields. After struggling at AT&T Pebble Beach in my second event on Tour, I got into contention at the Waste Management Phoenix Open and the atmosphere really ramped up a notch on the famous stadium 16th hole and with AI versions of Xander Schauffele and Scottie Scheffler hot on my tail, it felt like I was on Tour. PGA 2k games create this dynamic with replays of other golfers while you’re playing, but it gets tedious quite quickly.
Easily customisable difficulty settings make it possible to set up as real a Tour experience as has ever been in a video game, something many older games have struggled to capture (with your opponents often being level par or -40). Commentary from Rich Lerner, Notah Begay, Frank Nobilo, Iona Stephen and Nick Faldo captures the biggest moments well, with comments tailored to every tournament and course you play.
The expanded shot selection in the game adds tremendous depth to the overall gameplay, with many ways to play a shot – low or high, spin or without spin. The way the swing feels is engrossing and feels close to real golf, although the swing animations are a tad slow in comparison to elite professionals. As for the main gripes, post-shot animations are goofy and get old quickly, the customisation of your golfer is poor relative to a game in 2023, with only stock faces to choose from and limited customisation options, something that was somehow much better 20 years ago than it is now. Shot shaping is a perhaps too tricky on higher difficulties and a driving range mode would help to practice.
Nevertheless, it is a strong re-entry into the series and with Matt Fitzpatrick added to the PGA 2k23 roster and EA Sports PGA Tour soon to add this year’s major courses in time for the tournaments, golf games are truly back. And a bit of healthy competition never hurt innovation.
