The Golf Club Critic Reviews

There’s no denying The Golf Club needs some sort of proper career or long-term competition to help retain players’ interest...But if there’s ever a sequel – and I hope there is – then perhaps HB Studios can add this one last missing piece of the puzzle to what has turned out to be an excellent golf simulation.

The course designer adds a huge amount of depth to the game as you will never run out of new courses to play.

Game play trumps presentation here. Excellent swing mechanics make the actual act of playing golf in The Golf Club quite enjoyable and the social and online features are abundant and fun. These things outweigh the technical hiccups.

With a bit more polish applied to its presentation and the addition of a career mode to keep us hooked, this could well have been a package to seriously threaten EA’s dominance in the world of golf games. As it stands, it’s still a strong foundation for the team at HB Studios to build upon for the future.

The fact that we can say that true fans of golf who are looking for a new challenge might well have found their new home in spite of those technical issues, is a testament to how brave and revolutionary the game really is.

Taking advantage of the Tiger Woods hiatus, The Golf Club owns the scene of the golf-sims on the next-gen console, with a pretty characteristic interpretation of the genre. With the big Greg Norman Course Designer in the spotlight, this game can become a good ever-changing, community-driven simulation even with all its technical faults.

The Golf Club brings to the table some interesting features, like social interaction and the advanced course editor. Unluckily it fails in providing a good shot planning and swing mechanics, coupled with unpolished visuals and the lack of a more thought-out game structure.

The Golf Club can be a good investment for purists and the editor is a great piece of work, but this is also a game that lacks attention to detail at times and suffers because of that.

The Golf Club is functional. That is a huge plus for many people wanting to do away with the flash and gimmicks found in EA's golf series, but this isn't an excuse for the presentation to be as sloppy as it is.

The Golf Club promises a lot but falls down on its implementation. Golf fans will find a lot to like here, though, with the Designer and the solid gameplay providing an expansive experience. Unfortunately, last-gen visuals and a series of frustrating issues make this a hard game to recommend to all but the golf obsessed.

As it stands it is expensive, and can sometimes feel like a tech demo fleshed out with menus.

Real golfers will love the challenge, and the course design feature is a trump card. However, it won't give the average user much of a buzz.

The Golf Club is a little bit simple in terms of graphics and gameplay, but its procedural golf courses editor makes it interesting.

Unpolished to the point of seeming unfinished in places, The Golf Club isn’t a rival to the EA Sports Tiger Woods franchise but is more of a throwback to the hardcore, simulation days of Links.

The Golf Club is a game that relies on friends and the social aspects of gaming. The golfing itself is hardly interesting, as there is nothing to collect and to be fair: a bit of a boring sport like golf does not get much nicer by playing The Golf Club.