2K Games, the maker of everyone’s favorite NBA game NBA2K19 has now entered into the realm of golf with their newest entry The Golf Club 2019. 2K games is looking to fill a hole left by EA games when they ultimately decided to kill off their PGA Tour game. Although golf isn’t for everyone it’s still a hugely popular game for the fans worldwide and now that Tiger Woods seems to be back into the swing of things after his big PGA Tour Championship win last week the golf sim may be coming back to the forefront and The Golf Club 2019 is here at the right time.
The Golf Club 2019 offers a great deal in terms of the overall gameplay. HB Studios which is the developer of the game paid great attention to detail and customization with Golf Club 2019. As it stands right now you (the player) can play in a 32-tournament season within your golf tour on intricately and beautifully designed tour courses (TPC Courses including TPC Boston, TPC Southwind, TPC Summerlin, TPC Sawgrass, TPC Deere Run and TPC Scottsdale). There are 6 playable PGA tour courses right now with updates in the future hopefully adding more licensed courses.
Career Mode
From the moment you start the game you’re thrust into career mode. Career mode allows you to create a character and customize it with surprising detail. I created a character that was a pretty good representation of how I look in real life. There are a ton of options from eyewear, to pants, shirts, glasses, clubs. Branded gear from Under Armour, Tattoo Golf, Royal & Awesome, and Vice Golf have been included as sponsors in game for some cool gear. As you progress through the game and place well in tourneys you’ll open up more gear and be able to tweak your character to your personal perfection. Career mode goes deeper than just how your character looks. You will have to play some golf. Once you start off you’ll be thrown right into a tournament and the fun begins. At the beginner level you’ll be competing for tourney placement, money and world ranking. This is your Golfer level and the better you fare in each event and tourney the better things get. You’ll earn points for each event and over time you’ll create rivalries with other golfers on the tour. While this proves to make the game instantly competitive you won’t get anywhere without learning the game.
Lessons & Understanding your strength and swing
Typically in a game such as this you’ll have a tutorial which if you’re like me you’d probably skip past and wing it until you get comfortable because tutorials can be boring. Since I’m no expert and I have a novice level understanding of golf as a whole and the fact that I’m a little older I took the time to go thru the lessons. The lessons that The Golf Club 2019 offer you right away are a must (Not to mention you have to do them anyway). They’ll teach you the mechanics of the analog stick relative to your strength and swing which has to be somewhat fluid if you want to be successful on the course. The lessons weren’t particularly easy but then again, neither is the game of golf. The learning curve associated with this game feels very rewarding once you start to understand the science of the swing whether it be a power swing for yardage or a chip shot 15 ft from the cup. The hardest part for me was learning about how to position the ball on the green by slicing, changing the height of the ball or adding backspin while trying to follow through on my swing. Picking the right club and being able to choose how you ultimately hit the ball very easy with some simple button pushes on the controller. What’s kept me away from golf games in the past was the attention to detail that it would normally require and all of the complex controller button combinations or gestures needed just to do certain things. With The Golf Club 2019 it felt good that I was able to jump right in and play right away.
Build a Course
The most fun to be had in The Golf Club 2019 is in course building or as it’s called COURSE DESIGNER. Basically it’s “Build it, they will come”. You can build out a course to your exact liking and preferred difficulty with this feature. Truth be told, I personally spent the most time in course building trying to create what I believe is the perfect golf course. As I said before I’m a golf novice and I know every little about the game but I do know that the course is where the competition is. It’s a great element of the game to able to add, ponds and lakes, gators, widen or tighten the greens, expand the rough, add and remove bunkers. Best part? You can save the course you made and play that course. You can also upload your course and have rival golfers play the course with you for a challenge. Playing The Golf Club 2019 cannot be properly played unless you build a course. Do it and you’ll understand why I spent so many hours trying to make the course difficult but not ridiculous. That’s a tough balance to strike and it’s such a challenge to nail it. If you’re not into course building and things that take away from just golfing that’s fine but I can assure you that you’ll be missing out if you don’t use this feature.
Societies
Societies is the online mode for you, your friends and the rest of the online gaming world who play this game meet up. The goal of Societies is to create a club, join clubs and compete against one another in a variety of different events. Within the society you have different events that you can take part in such as Skins, Alt-Shot, Stroke and match play. An online competitive feature is almost a must within sports games nowadays and The Golf Club 2019 is no different in trying to address that need. You can play an online season that season will run for a few weeks or just play head to head.
Final Thoughts
The Golf Club 2019 is a solid golf sim. Whether you like golf or not there are reasons to play this game. There is a realism that comes with this game in its appearance. The courses in this game are stunning and they are a joy to play on. The Golf Club 2019 does and will challenge you so it’ll definitely get your competitive juices flowing. Course building is the star of this game without a doubt. Building out a custom course to your liking and playing on it either solo or with your friends and rivals is how we all like to game in 2018 so adding it to this game is a huge plus. The Golf Club 2019 has a particular focus on customization aside from course builder from the Society club to your personal career character for in-game career mode. Realism is accentuated in this game.
Playing the game right to get results is imperative. The mechanics of the golf swing is part of it and one that you find yourself always trying to perfect so you can be competitive. Club selection and ball travel matter as much as your swing, so that adds an element of challenge to this game. The simulation quality of this game is top-notch. The Golf Club 2019 has a lot going for it as a game not just a golf sim. There are things that can be improved upon. While HB Studios was able to secure the PGA license for this game, the fact of the matter is, of the 32 available courses in this game, only 6 of them are actually from the PGA tour. Over time, updates can change the number of tour approved courses in this game so we’ll just have to wait and see.
Online play wasn’t that great at least in the public space when I tried to enter a game. It took entirely too long to get into a match. Eventually, I did get in a match but it took forever. This is also something that can change because online play is finicky, a minor issue and as more people play the game this will improve. The problems that exist in this are fixable and it doesn’t kill the drive to play The Golf Club 2019. If you love golf then this game is a great addition to your game library and I would easily recommend that you play it. As a golf novice I enjoyed the game a great deal. When 2K gave me the opportunity to play it, I wasn’t sure but I’m glad I did. So far, I’ve put about 18 or so hours into this game (mostly on course building) but I’ve been having fun and I think you will too if you give this game its proper commitment.
Right now this game is available on all major platforms (PC, PS4 and XBox). I’ve been playing the PS4 version. You can pick this game up HERE for your respective platform.
