Updates & Acquisitions

September 11, 2024

Good day to you all. Acquisitions are lighter than normal at this moment, on account of my trying to hold back on spending so much money, but there have been a few outstanding things that finally reached me over the last week. From left to right, we first have PGA Tour Golf II for the Sega Genesis, in an original case, courtesy of Joni who says that this was a game from her childhood. It is a great honor to be receiving a piece of somebody's own personal history as part of this project. Golfshrine did already have a copy of PGA Tour II, but Joni's copy has the original case and manual, and her cartridge is in much better shape than mine (much less sticker residue, for one), so I consider this an upgrade.

As for what I did with the case that I was using before? Well, that case is a BitBox plastic clamshell, from StoneAgeGamer, that unfortunately bonded quite badly with the color laser printed artwork I had in it before:

So, that case is now home to another variation of my custom-designed Golfshrine placeholder artwork. You previously saw this as a CD-tray insert, but it took little effort to adapt it to a larger print size for use with the larger BitBox. This case now belongs to PGA Tour Golf, the first one, that previously lacked a case entirely.

The third item here is Microsoft Golf version 3.0, the third release of Microsoft's Windows port of Links. This series' history is tightly intertwined with that of Links itself, and that's something that I hope at one point to do a whole timeline article on, but briefly, Version 3.0 is the first Microsoft Golf to be based on the updated Links 386 Pro codebase and assets instead of the original Links: The Challenge of Golf one. 3.0 also nicens up the UI with a nice brass-gold finish, and has some more flexibility in how the UI windows can be scaled and resized. Also, through the miracle of WineVDM, it runs absolutely fine in 64-bit Windows 11 on a 4K television screen.

Click to embiggen, but be warned, this is a 5 MB, 4K-resolution PNG file!

Lastly, from cool person Dasyati whom I know through the (18+!) TangoPunk zine's patron discord, a kindly donated (for the cost of shipping) PC boxed copy of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004 and a very nice sketch of Tango at the links. Since Tiger '04 is, to my knowledge, the first PC Tiger Woods game to feature EA's Game Face, I immediately set to work.

"Just move a few sliders and witness the results in real time." Do not tempt me, EA Sports. ;)	I call him Doug Perimeter. Dreadlocks aside, he slightly reminds me of my late grandfather, by way of Carl from "Up."

Alas, I didn't take very many pictures of Doug, so he's not going on the Golfer's Gallery for now. My energy for this update has been dedicated more to migrating my golf-adjacent posts from my Cohost presence, and coping with the imminent loss of one of my more favorite online spaces.

Once again, thanks go to Joni and Dasyati for their contributions to Golfshrine this time, and to everybody else so far who has supported my dubious mission. Want to make a contribution yourself? Consider leaving a tip.