The Golf Club review

Any time a new sports title joins the mix, there is a level of skepticism regarding staying power after its launch. With The Golf Club from HB Studios, fans of the sport may have the next great franchise to hang on to.

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Released on PC, Xbox One and, soon, PlayStation 4, The Golf Club is a game that puts the power of creation into the hands of the player with a course creator that shines through. More on that mode later on.

On the course, The Golf Club impresses much more than it did when early access for the game began back in the Spring. The gameplay is both fun yet challenging thanks to the skill it requires when taking your shots. If you want to hit that perfect fade shot, or get the exact amount of backspin needed for success, then you are going to have to work magic with the right analog stick.

It may feel like a daunting task to get the hang of swing power compared to ball striking location, but once you get into a rhythm, the feeling of satisfaction that comes from it is pretty gratifying.

Multiplayer in The Golf Club is asynchronous which allows players to pick up and play around to compete with friends whenever they want. Want to join a game in progress? You can do that too by starting at the first hole, and playing catch up with those further up on the course. It takes away having to rely on others to play multiplayer, which is a breath of fresh air for a golf game.

Also, the no loading times between holes allows you to play rounds of golf as fast as ever.

The biggest selling point for The Golf Club is the aforementioned course creator mode that allows fans to take any idea they have in their minds, and transfer it into the digital world in the form of a golf course. Players can test each hole on an individual basis while creating a course to make sure that it plays exactly the way you hope.

These courses can then be shared with anyone playing The Golf Club, no matter the system, for use immediately.

From the amount of trees to whether or not to have a boat in the water, the course creator in the game is one of the more detailed creation tools to ever be implemented into a sports game.

But where the course creator shines, the rest of the customization in the game falters. Mainly because of the fact that there is no real customization throughout the other parts of the game. Unlike other golf games, you don’t create a golfer, build his attributes and make him one of the best in the world. Instead, this game is all about creating, or downloading, a unique course and trying to get to the top of the leaderboards.

There really is no true form of progression when it comes to building up your golfer. It really doesn’t matter which golfer you choose in terms of the play on the course.

Still, The Golf Club is a game that focuses itself on being a true-to-the-bone golf experience that adds a level of never ending replay value thanks to the course creator. It’s a perfect foundation to build off of for the future, and could very well be the golf game that challenges EA Sports Golf when that series returns in 2015.