Golf on the ZX Spectrum

[PeteProdge]

It's Nick Faldo Plays The Open, isn't it?


Best golf game ever if you ask me. No real need to make any more golf games after this, but... software houses went ahead anyway...

Of course, we have to cite the huge commercial success of Access/US Gold's golfing franchise, Leader Board, which had quite a few outings on the Speccy...

• Leader Board
• Leader Board - Famous Courses Of The World Volume 1
• Leader Board Tournament
• World Class Leader Board

Also gaining the attention of full price buyers who only look at the big brands, here's Konami's Golf, brought over to the Speccy by Imagine.

And years before, the sister label Ocean put out Royal Birkdale: Championship Golf in 1983.


And for the pocket money buyers, Code Masters of course gave the sport an airing in its Simulator range...


There are 14 Speccy games literally called Golf, about half of them appear to be BASIC type-in listings, the other half tend to be releases from very early on in the Spectrum's commercial life.

What other notable 'putting around a green' games should be brought up? And what should be absolutely avoided?

[Dr beep]

What other notable 'putting around a green' games should be brought up? And what should be absolutely avoided?

This game is MINIGOLF, but released as Pit Pat.
Pitpat is outside minigolf but on tables.

The game itself is just 1K but a screen is added.

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/2 ... um/Pit_Pat

Based on this game MINIGOLF in 1K hiresfor the ZX81 was coded years later.
See the link at other versions.

[MonkZy]

I played multiple rounds on Troon.

My dad ordered the game from a small-ad. The cassette was cased with a photocopied inlay that had typed or handwritten sections. I was worried it would be unplayable. Once loaded up it was clearly written in BASIC, using INPUT statements to 'line-up' your shot. This was the one time I played computer games with my Dad (who was chuffed because it was as close as we would get to playing around of golf together). Dad was a keen golfer and found the game very satisfying.

My vote may be the only vote it gets, it was an obscure game.

[Juan F. Ramirez]

I also love Nick Faldo Plays the Open. Easy to play.

Call me twat, but I"ve never understood the perspective/slope in the Leaderboard games.

[Lee Bee]

Best golf game ever if you ask me.

Haven't seen it before. It looks great! (Not much in the way of audio though)

I"ve never understood the perspective/slope in the Leaderboard games.

Good point. That perspective lets you see more of the course I guess. One way to rationalise it would be if we were looking at things from a helicopter, quite far away but with the camera zoomed in!

[PeteProdge]

Best golf game ever if you ask me.

Haven't seen it before. It looks great! (Not much in the way of audio though)

Well, that does also apply to the real-life version of golf!

Also, when I say "Best golf game ever", that's strictly confined to the ZX Spectrum platform, because if we're talking all platforms, the answer is Wii Sports - Golf on the Nintendo Wii. It just is.

[Joefish]

Shame the green and blue of Leaderboard was just so consistently painful to look at. They could have just saved that for the courses that featured large areas of water. The 3D perspective is technically a brilliant presentation. Again, a shame though that it 'shows its working' in building up the layers as it just makes everything look a bit slow. And the trees look awful.

[toot_toot]

Shame the green and blue of Leaderboard was just so consistently painful to look at. They could have just saved that for the courses that featured large areas of water. The 3D perspective is technically a brilliant presentation. Again, a shame though that it 'shows its working' in building up the layers as it just makes everything look a bit slow. And the trees look awful.

I believe as part of the conversion, Canvas took the existing C64 code and from what I understand built a 6502 emulator for the Spectrum. That’s why it was so slow, but they had a really tight deadline and had to get it out quick.

Well, that’s what a guy I used to work with told me. He was part of Canvas - although not listed as a contributor. He also claimed to have been involved with the conversion of Highlander. I had to believe him, because nobody would ever make that claim!

[PeterJ]

[mention]PeteProdge[/mention],

The Spectrum Show 102 from [mention]PaulJ[/mention] has a good feature on Golf games:

https://youtu.be/HE4aJ4aFDDk

[RWAC]

Also, when I say "Best golf game ever", that's strictly confined to the ZX Spectrum platform, because if we're talking all platforms, the answer is Mario Golf - on the Game Boy Colour.It just is.

Fixed that for you

[Hank Scorpio]

There's also Crazy Golf, which was released by Mr Micro in 1983.

[toot_toot]

Also, when I say "Best golf game ever", that's strictly confined to the ZX Spectrum platform, because if we're talking all platforms, the answer is Mario Golf - on the Game Boy Colour.It just is.

Fixed that for you

I’m really surprised nobody did a rip off of Golf on the Gameboy

https://youtu.be/v2CI3YAoJwo

The simple graphics, I would presume, would be fairly easy to recreate on the Spectrum. Leaderboard (especially on the Spectrum) suffers from slow gameplay due to the screens being drawn, It might not be up there with Mario Golf, but the overhead view of Gameboy Golf really speeds up play. That makes it a lot more fun when in multiplayer. I’m also sure the ROM is 128KB is size, so it could fit.

Sensible Golf on the Amiga took Gameboy Golf and added more courses, single round or tournaments options and it’s one of the most underrated golf games out there.

https://youtu.be/ZqhKJCwJF8E

I’m certain the Spectrum could make a good job of Gameboy Golf, just make it a bit more like Sensible Golf (I wouldn’t expect it to have the sheer number of courses that has), add tournament and matchplay, make it multiplayer, add in a couple more courses and maybe even a course designer.

[bucephalus]

The only golf game I had was (I think) Pro Golf by Atlantis: https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/3 ... m/Pro_Golf

Wasn't a great game, but was notable to me because of the way I bought it. Went into either WH Smith or John Menzies and picked a game out of a book in a binder, then the member of staff made a copy while I waited. No idea what the system was or why it was preferable to just buying a cassette off the shelf. Theft?

I'd be interested to know more.