The Golf Club, PGA TOUR partner on revolutionary new game

Image Courtesy of TheGolfClubGame.com /

The Golf Club franchise has seen its popularity explode thanks to realistic game play and endless customization options. Now, their partnership with the PGA TOUR will give gamers what they’ve been missing for years.

The Golf Club franchise launched back in 2014, and it was one of the first of its kind. While the golf game market was cornered by EA Sports’s Tiger Woods franchise, The Golf Club took a completely different approach.

EA Sports’s decade-plus run as the only game in town was winding down. The publisher’s contract with Augusta National came to a close, which definitely hurt. Frankly, too, many gamers grew tired of paying for a perceived “roster update” of essentially the same game. It’s the same problem many sports game franchises face, but the question of how to fix it has always been hard to answer.

After the critical and sales failure of EA Sports “Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR”, something had to change. While that game garnered praise for its visual updates – EA Sports always makes a beautiful looking game – it was panned for a miserable lack of content.

That’s where The Golf Club found its niche. While its gameplay is as close to a real simulation as possible – HB was contracted to work on Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 15 before its cancellation – the creation hub is the true revolution.

Players have complete freedom to create brand-new courses, which can then be shared online to play with people around the world. Many users have created excellent replicas of big-time courses (check out this version of Augusta National), and the options are nearly limitless.

The Golf Club has the potential to revolutionize golf gaming

While The Golf Club certainly has a dedicated fan base, there was always one big thing holding it back: licensing. Hardcore fans fell in love with the simulation pretty much from day one, but casual fans need something to draw them in.

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The PGA TOUR and HB Studios are doing their best to fill that gap. The studio announced six TPC courses at launch: Summerlin, Scottsdale, Sawgrass, Southwind, Deere Run and Boston. This allows players to work their way through an entire season, from the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open in the fall, all the way to the Deutsche Bank Championship of the FedEx Cup Playoffs.

Players will work their way through a fully-licensed career mode as well, from Q School to the Web.com Tour, and finally into the ranks of the PGA TOUR. Even if the six licensed TPC courses are all that come out at release, it’s not hard to envision the avid creators of the Golf Club community filling in the gaps – all for free.

That’s what’s truly great about this, of course. While the EA Sports golf franchise was fantastic, it eventually let fans down. Player rosters didn’t keep up with the times, and too many courses were locked behind microtransactions. This partnership combines a revolutionary developer with the power of the PGA TOUR. And the fans come out on top.

Next: The Golf Club 2 stands out in golf gaming

We’ll wait anxiously for the first gameplay releases of “The Golf Club 2019” to hit consoles later this summer. This pairing looks like a match made in heaven, though. Check back here for more as the release date gets closer.

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