[I recently discovered that I had missed out a large number of #1 games earlier in the ’90s and plan to catch up on one each Wednesday, with the help of guest writers. To write about this one I am happy to welcome Adam Frost, who you can find on his website or on Twitter as @_AdamFrost. He also previously contributed to the Goldeneye 007 post]
Rocco Mediate, Fuzzy Zoeller, Duffy Waldorf… against all odds the whimsical names I remember so well from PGA Tour Golf II’s leaderboards turned out to belong to real people. In 1993 neither they or the PGA meant anything to me. Nevertheless, the game was among my most played Mega Drive cartridges and it was with relish that I prepared to once again tee up at Sawgrass.
Aside from the option to practice driving or putting in isolation, PGA Tour Golf II offers you, the player, three scenarios to which to bring your ‘A’ game: a practice round, skins challenge, or tournament. The practice round is something of a misnomer, as you can choose to play competitively against a second player or one of ten Mega Drive controlled PGA Tour professionals. The skins challenge is a match which replaces golf’s traditional scoring method with winning varying amounts of money for each hole. For me, tournament mode – in which you vie for the big prize against sixty other entrants – is the go-to option. Again, you can choose a fellow player or one, or more, of the pros to compete directly alongside you during the tournament (you can also select only the pro and sit back and watch them play.
Quirkier still, you can choose ‘no players’ and start a tournament in which you see no golf, but simply click through a scoreboard showing the results after each round). In practice, adding Mega Drive controlled players to your round slows down the fun considerably as you’ll have to watch their shots in between yours. Assuming you forgo that option, you won’t see your competitors during the tournament, but you’re updated on their progress after each hole via the leaderboard and every now and again commentator Ron Barr will pop-up mid-hole to give you some breaking news.
Whichever play mode you opt for there are six courses to choose from, each a representation of a real course from the tour. Before each hole one of the PGA pros will share some advice accompanied by a flyover view of the hole. I found neither of those things useful in playing the game (especially when some of the advice boils down to nothing more than ‘avoid the bunkers’), but it’s a nice way to add extra differentiation between the holes and allows time for a burst of music in a game which otherwise uses sound sparingly. Plus, the pros look happy to be there.
For every shot you take the game uses a ‘three-click swing’ mechanic, widely employed by golf games in this series and elsewhere. Click one starts filling a power gauge below the player. Click two sets the strength of the shot depending on the extent to which the gauge has been filled. Click three determines accuracy: halt the now receding fill-line back at its origin point to strike the ball straight and true. Stray either side of that origin and you slice or hook your shot, the consequences of which can range from minor to severe and also depend on the power of your shot. If you’ve chosen to overpower your shot (by letting the power gauge fill entirely, exceeding the usual distance limit of the club) even a moderate slice or hook will send your ball off on a banana-like trajectory. There is a risk vs reward equation at play here as strategic overpowering can give you a substantial distance advantage if you hit a straight shot.
When it’s time to putt, the game presents the player with an isometric view of the green with an overlaid grid which indicates contours effectively. You can adjust the aim of your shot directly from this screen, though reading the green correctly will count for little if you overpower, underpower or mistime your stroke.
After a few holes it struck me that the gameplay felt exactly how I remembered it, which has seldom been the case when I’ve returned to games of a similar age from more action-orientated genres. That may, in large part, be due to the durability of the three-click swing mechanic, which remained a staple of golf games for the next couple of decades (EA’s final PGA game, 2015’s Rory McIlroy PGA Tour, still offered the three-click method as one of three possible control options).
Revisiting the game, one of the things I found most satisfying was its use of sound. Rob Hubbard’s title-screen tune is a belter, but during play sound is minimal and every effect earns its place: the swoosh of your driver, snatches of birdsong, the satisfying thunk of the ball coming down from on-high and hitting the fairway, and, best of all, the oohs of disbelief from unseen onlookers when a putt stops tantalisingly short of the hole.
