After A Few Months

After a few months playing EA PGA Tour here is my opinion.  As an avid golfer for over 30 years I am looking for realism.

I play with a controller using the stick for the swing.  

Swing difficulty - Hard

Putting difficulty - Hard

Swing Meter - Off

Power Boost - Off

Spin Control - Off

Shot Shaping - On

Lie Effect - On

Zoom - On

Aiming Arc - Off

Putting Aim Point - At Cup

Putt Read - Off

Putting Grid - On

Wind Gust - On

Wind Reading - Direction Only

Elevation - Full

Auto Tap In - One Foot

Mulligan - On

A good round for me is breaking par.  I only use mulligans for practice as there is no practice option in the game.  I use the putting grid because I don't think that the graphics even though they are the best I have seen in a golf game are good enough to enable you to read a putt.  It also speeds up game play.

Chips, pitches, shots from greenside bunkers and flops look realistic to me.  You have to figure out where to land the ball which is what you do in the real life and the ball flights are what I expect.  When I first got the game I thought flop shots were too accurate but it appears they have fixed that.  The animation for chips and pitches don't quite look right.

Putting is good as well.  As in real golf you are not going to make 20 footers or 12 footers that have a lot of break very often.  I am thinking of turning off the auto putt as it just looks awkward although I haven't yet experienced a miss.

My biggest disappointment with the game are the full swing shots.  With other golf games I knew or thought I knew after a shot what I had done wrong in my swing to cause the ball to go off line.  In EA Sports ball flight for full shots seems random to me and the developers have never detailed the mechanics of a good swing using the stick method.  I realize there is the RNG but in any computer golf game the results of a shot should to some degree depend on the "skill" of the player and I don't mean purchasing skills like you do in this game.  I understand that the difference in your backswing vs. your downswing impacts the power but there is no satisfaction from hitting a good shot because I don't know what I did to produce that or how much RNG impacted it.  I really think EA should come out with an explanation of how the stick swing works.  

I would like to see the following added to the game.

1.  Being able to save quick rounds.

2.  Replays from different cameras and the option of saving replays.

3.  Turn based play for multiplayer stroke play.

4.  The option of moving your ball position on the tee box.  This option is golf 101 and there are a number of holes such as the 15th on Augusta where you cannot aim down the middle of the fairway because of over hanging branches.

5.  I turn the galleries and commentary off but would like to see animated golfers on the course.  I always wondered why no golf game ever released has this. After all has anyone ever played when they were the only golfer or group on the course?

Unfortunately the friend that I played online with for years cannot play a full round without the game disconnecting.  He has submitted multiple help tickets and even received a reply on the forum which he tried but it has not fixed the issue.  It is always more fun to play multiplayer.