I've been waiting all month to write this update, because the contents of it have been arriving in a series of packages over time, that I've arbitrarily decided counts as my birthday present to myself. It's taken a while. But damn, I've got some fun stuff here.
About half of these are pickups relayed to me by frequent Golfshrine contributor nebula, while the other half I owe to more eBay browsing whilst under the influence. (Drinking: it'll cost you money in ways you don't expect. This has been a public service announcement.) In order to fully catalogue these, I'll have to take to Bulleted List Format for a moment. So, in order from top to bottom, left column to right:
GOLF, for the Virtual Boy, in a repro case. This one normally goes for a lot of money, because it is a Nintendo game, for the Virtual Boy, and presumably did not sell well at the time either. Boxed copies - which I wanted, because that is a very striking box - are even more expensive. It's quite nice to finally have it in the collection, and I have nebula's local game shop to thank for it being in this nice reproduction case (in a Nintendo DS-esque form factor, which is interesting!). GOLF here is actually a T&E Soft production, and the last of their golf games to use their unusual ball spin gauge with the wandering dot.
The Links at Spanish Bay, an add-on course for EA Sports' PGA Tour '96 for Windows. Spanish Bay is, if I recall, located at Pebble Beach, and was a relatively new construction as this CD was issued. I have it disc-only from an eBay lot of eight.
TPC Sawgrass, another PGA Tour '96 add-on. This course used to be included as standard in earlier PGA Tour games (like PGA Tour 486, which is on the same engine except that it runs in DOS), so it not being included in the updated edition only to be sold separately is, shall I say, peak EA behavior.
PGA Tour '96 for Windows 95, the game for which the aforementioned courses were produced. Unlike PGA Tour 486, this one is a native Windows 95 program, but it does mean that's still well within the realm of games I can emulate via a virtual machine to verify they work. This is the fourth different version of PGA Tour '96 that I own, and I assume the only one that has support for course add-on discs of the four. I can still find my amusement with it, though:
The install program, from an era in which it was possible to install a game piece by piece, and trim away the parts you didn't need for the sake of disk space - even individual golfers! Times sure have changed since then.
Every course included with the game has its own theme song that plays in the menus (and during the hole fly-by videos). Content Warning: This video contains bagpipes.
Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Zombie Ninja Pro-Am, possibly the most unconventional golf game in the collection - even moreso than Kirby's Dream Course. Sure, you whack a ball across the course, but between shots, you fight zombies and assorted other bad things (including your next door neighbor) with swords and chainsaws and fireballs and shotguns and such. It also has a handful of full episodes of the TV show on it, so it's kind of the ultimate experience for ATHF fans. It was also weirdly hard to find, and ultimately surfaced at nebula's local game shop. I can finally strike it from the wishlist.
I love when instruction manuals look like they've been scribbled all over, as a stylistic thing.
Fox Sports Golf '99 for PC, which didn't really need the year tag on it because there's only one edition of the series. This one's interesting because it is a US localization of the Gremlin Interactive game, Actua Golf 2, given a Fox Sports coat of paint. I think one of the game's two announcers was replaced, too? It is interesting on a technical level for running on a fully real-time 3D engine, which was very unusual for the time, as PGA Tour and Links LS were still pre-calculating to render the viewpoint for each shot instead. It is also one of the earlist PC golf games to support 3D accelerators, which is neat to go with a certain project computer I've got.
For some reason, this PC version also has an "NTSC-U/C" marker on it, which must have been templated into the disc artwork from the PlayStation release - PC games generally aren't region-locked, nor do computer monitors care about the NTSC standard.
Links: The Challenge of Golf, in MS-DOS CD-ROM format. I believe this disc has the same contents as the copy I've already got in the Shrine, but it is missing the foil SoftKey sticker from the front of the case. I'm not sure, now, if SoftKey ever published a budget re-release of Links, or if somebody just happened to reuse a case from another of their products. This bears further investigation.
The Original Links: Solid Gold Edition, another different CD release of Links that also bundles every Championship Course add-on released for the original game. This one was published by a company in Minnesota called Laser Media; there is, to my knowledge, one other CD compilation under the LaserSoft brand.
Super Naxat Open: Golf de Shoubu da! Dorabocchan for the Super Famicom - what outwardly appears to be a relatively serious golf simulation, is actually a sort of golf RPG featuring the adorable cast of one of Naxat Soft's other Super Nintendo games, The Twisted Tale of Spike McFang. This one even got a fan-translation patch a few years back!
Jack Nicklaus 5, an Accolade production that is very proud to include a course designer tool on the CD. I did briefly goof around with this one, but will probably want to consult a manual or tutorial, as its swing system is a little different than I'm used to. Ignore the scraps of Goodwill price tag: it came in a flexible plastic sleeve instead of a jewelcase, so I'm using one of my spares instead.
3D Ultra Minigolf, which I already have in the Shrine, but it came as part of a lot so I can't complain.
PGA Tour Gold, the 1998 edition of EA's PGA Tour series (not to be confused with PGA Tour '98, apparently). This one is apparently from EA's CD-ROM Classics line-up and is marked as "Not For Resale," leaving me to wonder if this was bundled with somebody's home computer. It, like Jack Nicklaus, came in a nondescript sleeve, which was in awful shape, so I disposed of it immediately and grabbed a spare jewelcase instead. What's so special about this one? Well:
I am easily amused. When things make fun sounds, I will make the things make fun sounds. A lot.
An even more customizable installer than PGA Tour '96's, which is well content to let you create a world in which only Craig Stadler exists, in a lonesome golf purgatory of your own creation.
And while it more or less seems to work as intended, I did manage to hit this shot that, for reasons unclear to myself and noted physicists the residents of one of my Discord hangouts, ended up in the ocean. [/shrug]
And lastly, Virtual Golf: The Scottish Open, a DOS game (despite claiming Windows 95 support, it just runs in a DOS box) from Tomb Raider creators CORE Design, featuring a limited but highly entertaining tool that lets you paint your golfer funny colors.
"Stealth Camouflage?" Love how only his teeth and glove are visible here. There aren't a ton of colors available, but I appreciate that the devs let you use any color on any body part. You could even make a Simpsons character; it has the right shade of yellow.
From the bad future where the Valley of the Jolly Green Giant was turned into a country club. HO, HO, HO.
