Updates & Acquisitions

January 13, 2026

A new year dawns here at Golfshrine, or at least it allegedly does; it's been quite foggy lately, and we haven't had a good view of what the sun's been doing for a couple of weeks.

B-r-r-r.

I, however, have been itching for a reason to go out to town again. Well, specifically to Tapper's, since Retro Game Trader doesn't take PC games or imports, and Tapper's does. Granted, they don't give quite as good of a deal for them (my entire pile of things netted just $50 in credit), but I relished the opportunity to give their library a proper browse. ...And get lunch. Because if I'm going to ride a bus for half an hour, I might as well also get some food to justify the trip.

And here's what roughly $50 gets a guy. With some mild clean-up in store for at least one of these.

Clearly the haul is dominated once again by multiple Tigers Wood - less an anomaly when you realize that he's practically the only option on some platforms - but this time around includes the undated Tiger Woods PGA Tour (two copies, which I didn't notice at the time...) and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 for PlayStation Portable, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 for XBox 360, making the third version of 07 in the Shrine. They will all be banished to the relocated Fourth Tier of Golfshrine, so that all of the non-Tiger games can be at eye level for once.

The PSP Tiger Woods games, I really have to say, are quite... minimal about their updates. Each one does include a (slightly) different selection of courses, from year to year, but with the exception of 09, nearly all six of them run on the exact same engine, almost the same assets... and all of them contain a nearly-unmodified Pebble Beach Golf Links as one of their courses.

Do you know which screenshots are of which year? Because I took the screenshots myself and forgot.

It is this quirk of EA Sports' annual release schedule, by which I declare that it is No Big Deal that I accidentally bought two copies of the same Tiger Woods game on the same platform. They're all basically the same game in the end, right? ...Well, truthfully, I could always reuse the generic case for a different game. I do kind of like Tapper's' case inserts, though, even if they're nowhere near as cheesy as the Golfshrine Placeholder Template (but I am, of course, biased).

The non-Tiger games this time around include Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational for PlayStation Vita, which is (by my research, anyway) the only physical golf game available to American Vita owners, and the only physical edition of World Invitational released in the US (the PS3 version was digital-only). Unfortunately, I will always have to be a little bit disappointed in this edition of the game; the US release did not receive a majority of the DLC guest characters that the Japanese version did. Guest characters that we missed out on include Pac-Man (from Pac-Man), and the Yakuza series' Kazuma Kiryu, who actually has played golf in canon before, and retains his original voice actor.

"Eee-yikes! I'd better watch my aim, or I'm in for a Bunker Mitai!" --John Yakuza

The other non-Tiger console game is a Sega Saturn version of T&E Soft's Harukanaru Augusta 3 Masters, bringing the New 3D Golf Simulation's most-ported course in line with the 32-bit version of T&E's golf engine. This one technically predates the Super Famicom version of the third game, Harukanaru Augusta 3 Masters New, even if it is targeted at a more powerful hardware platform.

Which means I get to reuse this comparison screenshot. In order left to right, top to bottom: Augusta, Augusta 2, Augusta 3 Masters New, Augusta 3 for Saturn.

And lastly, Golfshrine's second-ever LCD handheld golf game, World Class Pro Golf from Radica Games, a revised edition of their previous World Class Golf handheld. The screen is roughly the same size, but the form factor of the device has been changed, the buttons moved around, and there are a few extra digitized sounds added to the ROM.

It's a difficult game to play, with how strict the course boundaries are.

I'm going to have a difficult time finding a way to keep this one standing up properly. The haul overall, though, I think was worth spending 3 hours walking around town and trading in a bunch of PC CDs I didn't care about. Even if I still didn't get the chance to pet the shop cat.

And lastly, a gift from my Mom: a book of stick-on eyeballs, with which to festoon anything I like.

Other remarks worth noting this time around...