Golf Video Games: Top 20 Golf Games of All-Time
By Danny Norris
3. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 03
After years of hard work and years of building a foundation Tiger Woods PGA Tour 03 was the first masterful game in the series.
Developer: Headgate Studios
Publisher: EA
Release Date: October 2002
After years of building a foundation, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 03 was the game where the foundation was complete and an empire was finished.
This was the first game in the series and possibly the first golf game that made people sit up and take notice.
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 03 was the game that dialed in the gameplay, the graphics took a huge leap, and the game was packed with some bonus features.
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This game had a lot of confidence and swagger – especially for a golf game. It’s as if EA knew this was a special game that people would enjoy.
After booting up the game, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 03 greeted you with some heavy rock music from Saliva blaring from the speakers. That right there gave you some indication that this wasn’t your average, typical golf game.
The golfers had a new life to them. When you made birdies and eagles your avatar on-screen would do celebrations that would make your playing partners want to smack you over the head with a golf club.
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 03’s gameplay absolutely nailed the process swinging the golf club. The analog stick swing took time to master, perfect swings didn’t come easily you had to work at it.
Eventually, once you got the reps in and got better your virtual golfer got better, as well. You were able to level him up and continue to get better and better. After enough time you would be skilled enough to bomb the ball and hit fairways and greens on a regular basis.
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 03 also featured two modes that gave the game a lot of longevity. One was Tiger Challenge which gave the player 50 challenges to complete.
After completing all the challenges within a circle you would have a “boss fight” where you would have to defeat a golfer to finish that section. Eventually, once you completed all challenges the final boss fight would be defeating Tiger Woods.
The other was a neat little skills challenge type that boarded on the extreme side, but was still very fun.
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 03 was a seminal game. Not only a seminal golf game, but a seminal sports game. This game was the epitome of fun.
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