The Things I'm Missing

It's so hard to quantify the things that I don't have in Golfshrine, because what I most look for are just things that are cheap. I can't exactly filter an eBay search for "video games, golf simulators, old" - there's a number of things that definitely belong here, though, that I'm either waiting for a good deal on, or just have not found yet.

Console-based golf games

• World Masters Golf, from Virgin Interactive. A PAL-exclusive Super Nintendo game originally named "Gouraud Golf," so named for its method of shading its 3D-rendered course. It looks quite neat. It's inexpensive but I'm not terribly likely to find it at the local thrift mart, since it's unlikely anybody in the US ever imported it. So, registering my interest here.
• Sega Game no Kanzume, Vol. 2 (Sega Games Can). In Japan, Sega had an online service that distributed small Mega Drive games over a cable connection, a bit like Sega Channel but also a bit not like that. The games released for that service were never released on cartridges, but later on, Sega released a pair of compilations for Mega CD containing games that were previously online exclusives. These compilations are the only legit way to get hands on those games - Volume 2 (the blue one) in particular contains "Putter Golf," an isometric mini-golf game that Sega would later iterate on for "Putt & Putter." Oh, and the disc is literally packaged in an aluminum can.
• Mini-Putt, by Accolade. The big-box version has, in typical Accolade style, a very striking design that'd be great to display on the shelf, but just as fascinating would be getting the Japan-only Game Boy or Famicom versions.
• Ninja Golf (Atari 7800). Not in print for very long and released at the tail end of an unpopular console's lifespan, this one is also well known due to the Angry Video Game Nerd if I recall. It also recently appeared in the Atari 50 collection in 2023, which is neat. I don't presently have a way to play a real cartridge, but I am told Atari have given it a reprint for their 2600+/7800+ line of reproduction consoles for a somewhat more affordable price. Said price is still around $30 which is slightly north of my impulse buy margin (especially for a system I don't own yet).
• Ribbit King (PS2 or GameCube). A tiny print run and a high degree of desirability among collectors makes my ownership of this game very unlikely, but someday, I will experience the game of Frolf. The GameCube version is much rarer/more expensive and seems to come with a second "Ribbit King Plus" disc; I do not know what the contents of that disc are.
• Links: The Challenge of Golf (Memorex VIS). The only port of Links I'm missing. Probably exceedingly rare, rarer than the console that's supposed to play it, but hell, if it ends up in my lap, I'm not going to say no. I've been told there's a vendor online that sells new-old-stock VIS systems and software, but because it is a one-man operation with a lot of manual effort behind it, prices are understandably high, at several hundred for a machine, and just above $40 a title. Somewhat out of budget.
• PGA European Tour (N64). Not the 1995 EA Sports game. Inexplicably one of the most expensive US-released Nintendo 64 games, published by Infogrames. I guess there's no shortage of golf games on N64, but this one is rare and expensive, so. [/shrug] This game is apparently also available on the PlayStation in PAL territories, so I guess I kind of want both versions to compare and contrast.
• GALF (NES). A Limited Run Games-distributed NES adaptation of the GALF minigame found in the Nintendo Switch game, Golf Story. Comes in a distinctive green cartridge. Unfortunately, it's sought after entirely because it's an LRG game, so it's expensive - even brand new from the manufacturer. Well beyond casual impulse purchase.
• Putt & Putter (Sega Master System/Game Gear). Two largely different games, both published by Sega for different 8-bit platforms. The SMS version was never released in the US, so I'd need to import it from Europe... or Brazil, maybe. Would love to have the Japanese GG version in a box; that's a really artful cover it has.
• Pro Golfer Saru (Famicom Disk System). A title for Nintendo's fairly short-lived quickdisk-based Famicom add-on, based on a popular manga series about an aspiring young golfer who happens to look a bit like a monkey. Dr. Sparkle covered it on Chrontendo a long while ago.
• Pro Golfer Saru (Wii). A very early Japanese-only Wii game, also based on the above-mentioned manga series; notable for being tied for Famitsu's worst-reviewed game ever, but also having one hell of a weird aiming and swinging interface!
• Neo Turf Masters/Big Tournament Golf (Neo Geo CD). I'll probably never get an NGCD. But if I had the opportunity to own the legend itself, I might make that choice at some point. The CD version, specifically, has much more in-depth stat-saving, tournament mode, and - if my sources are correct - the hidden Scotland course doesn't exist in the cartridge version.
• Philips CD-i-related golf items. The CD-i has a LOT of golf on it; not all of it is golf games as there are a lot of instructional videos and sports-highlights type titles. Some of them require the Digital Video Cartridge. I do not have a CD-i yet, or the cartridge. I do already have that Eugene Levy mini-golf game, though, so don't send me that.
• My Personal Golf Trainer for the Nintendo Wii. Designed by Data Design Interactive and intended to be sold to actual golfers, it sounds as if this is less a golf simulator and more of a teaching aid (featuring golf trainer David Leadbetter, to boot), and as such, is said to have been sold for $100 USD at retail. I've seen examples of it on eBay, but while I'm here in wishful thinking mode, I'd love to find one that still has a price tag attached to it.
• Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14 Masters Historical Edition (PS3 or XBox 360). I really, really don't need more of the EA Sports PGA Tour games, considering the sheer amount of Tiger already takes up nearly an entire shelf. But this one... This was their last one to have Tiger in the branding, and this Historical Edition gimmick seems like it'd be interesting - on top of it looking like it includes a bunch of the DLC courses on disc? Unless I've missed my guess.
• Chip Shot Super Pro Golf for the Intellivision. Computer Entertainer magazine gave this latter-day golf sim for yesteryear's console a better review score than The Legend of Zelda, in the same issue. I've got to learn why.
• Miyazato San Kyoudai Naizou: Sega Golf Club - a Japanese PS3 exclusive that launched with the console. It has a unique swinging system, and it occurs to me, I only have two PS3 golf games in Golfshrine.
• Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds. I already own this by way of a PSN download, but it should be represented physically in Golfshrine some day. If it's cheap.
• Famicom Disk System Golf games. Nintendo released a few different versions of "Golf" for the FDS, with new courses and minor iterations over Iwata's original Famicom game - especially backporting the additions from VS. Golf. There's a gold-disk version of one of them that, I'm told, was a contest prize - that's probably going to be very expensive so I don't necessarily need that version.

Handheld golf games, standalone or otherwise

• Ernie Els Golf (Game Gear). I'd have to import this one from Europe if I want it. I don't know what it is about it, but this game refuses to load on my Analogue Pocket via the OpenFPGA Game Gear core. Hard to say if it's an incompatibility or if there's something unusual about the hardware in the cartridge, but the best way to figure that out is to just buy a copy.
• Sports Illustrated: Golf Classic. This Game Boy title does a particularly funky thing with Super Game Boy: it borrows the SGB's interface sounds. That is roughly the most interesting thing about this game, but you know, that's the reason I've had it on my eBay watch list.
• Radio Shack Championship Golf. An LCD handheld game sold by Radio Shack in a number of different designs; Championship Golf II has a unique double-screen arrangement with the course map on one screen and the golfer view on the other. They give off such a different vibe compared to Radica Games' World Class Golf handhelds. Probably want one that has the manual included, for the best experience. I guess Radio Shack also made one years later called "Talking Golf Tour" - yeah, let's just list that on here too. And then Radio Shack's sub-brand, Tandy, also made one called "Championship Electronic Golf" - it seems to be a completely different item in itself! Damn, these could form a whole sub-collection in themselves.
• Hole in One Golf (Game Boy) - A Natsume release from that neat era after they'd gained their second foothold with Harvest Moon, this one comes on a uniquely-shaped black cartridge with a rumble motor, powered by a single AAA battery. That is exactly weird enough for me.
• Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational - The only physical US release this game ever got was for the PlayStation Vita. I used to own this, even, before I sold off my Vita for some quick cash in a more desperate time. It seems like its value has not really gone up since then, at least. But it might also be the only native PS Vita golf game, unless there was some PSN-exclusive something or other.
• Nice On - I don't yet own a Bandai WonderSwan. But there's a golf game for it. Which means I now want to own a Bandai WonderSwan.
• Zio Golf 1 and 2 - ZioSoft released physical CD-ROM versions of their golf games for Palm and Pocket PCs. Come to think of it, they might have also released a CD-ROM version of the Palm OS Tiger Woods game. I'm interested in those.
• Minna no Golf Portable Coca-Cola Edition - A limited-edition demo of Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee, exclusively released in Japan alongside a Coke-branded PSP console. This thing is hideously expensive - I regularly see it go for hundreds of dollars for even just the UMD.
• IntelliGolf - This one isn't a golf game, but it's the only other piece of software I know of that was released as a Springboard Module for Handspring Visor PDAs. As far as I can tell, it's a score-keeping app with some other functions useful for real-life golf. I never see this one listed separately on eBay - only ever in lots with an entire Visor handheld and accessories.

Golf games for computers

I have quite a lot of PC golf games and games for consoles at this point, but among the bigger gaps in my collection is the really primordial stuff for 8-bit computers. I've got an Apple IIe on the shelf (that needs some PSU maintenance), and it'd be cool to have some real software for it besides copied disks. I don't presently have a way to play anything for Commodore 64, Atari 800, or anything else of the era, but I would definitely not say no to software for those (at the right price). (Now, if anybody wouldn't mind helping Golfshrine get hands on said old computers at reasonable prices...)

• Sports Illustrated Tournament Golf (Apple II/Commodore 64/128) - from MicroComputer and Avalon Hill. eBay listings indicate that there are disks for multiple computers in the box.
• Professional Tour Golf (Apple II) - from SSI, who I'd always wondered if they'd ever done a golf game.
• Mean 18 and its course disk(s) (Atari ST) - especially for that old-school, early-80s Accolade box art.
• Leader Board - Access Software's previous golf game before the release of Links, Leader Board was available for a lot of 8- and 16-bit platforms (even for MS-DOS), and even had an arcade version for Arcadia Systems' rare Amiga-based arcade board. I've got options, really. Golfshrine has the Game Gear port from Tiertex, and the Genesis version is one I also would like to get eventually, but a computer port must exist in Golfshrine eventually. It is a moral imperative. ...According to me.
• World Tour Golf - Electronic Arts' original 3D golf simulation, which included a course designer. Available for a whole mess of 8-bit platforms, particularly the Apple IIgs, which while I have no way to run a game for that on real hardware, would be a fun way to get some platform represetation for it.
• The rest of the Microsoft Golf chronology. This was such a weird side-chapter in the legacy of Links; I have a CD version of 1.0 and the Eddie Bauer demo version of 1998, but would love to have 2.0, 1999, and 2001 especially. There are also Microsoft Golf-branded versions of the Links Championship Course add-ons and those are fascinating objects as well that I'd love to have.
• British Open Championship Golf (not the SoftKey "Special Edition" release). A golf simulator from the makers of System Shock and Flight Unlimited! Golfshrine has a copy of the SoftKey release, which is missing the second of the two courses that are supposed to be included with it.
• Peter Jacobsen's Golden Tee Golf (PC). One of only two home ports of the actual Golden Tee arcade game (discounting the plug-and-play and Arcade1UP versions), uses the mouse to replicate the trackball controls.
• Buick Dimensions 1994 / Cadillac Impressions (PC/Mac?). General Motors and the InMar Group produced more car catalogs with built-in golf sims, and for some damn reason, I need them now. This is a healthy hobby, I swear.
• Pro 18 World Golf Tour. From Psygnosis and frequent Westwood Studios collaborators Intelligent Games. I don't have much other information about what makes this one unique, but it's one I don't have yet, so.
• Links 2003. The only major entry in the Links series that I do not yet have, excepting some of the annual-revision Links LS versions.
• Caddie Hack Golf / CGA Tour. A shareware golf game for very old IBM PCs that has been sold in stores under a variety of different brands; you're most likely going to find this as a 5.25-inch floppy disk. It's weird how rare shareware golf really was, historically speaking, which makes this one an artifact that'll be quite unique in the collection.
• Fuzzy's World of Miniature Space Golf. Speaking of shareware, this is the only other shareware PC golf game I know of, off-hand; produced by Pixel Painters in the mid-90s, and sold physically on CD-ROM by a couple of different distributors.
• Picture Perfect Golf, in its other courses. The one that I own, in the silly 2-in-1 value pack, is the 9-holes version of Harbour Town Golf Links. I'm aware of editions of Picture Perfect that contain the full 18 holes of Harbour Town, Coeur D'Alene, The Prince Course, and Sugarloaf.
• The other Sierra Sports golf games. This one will be confusing, because some of these releases went by multiple names. I already have "All American Sports Series: Golf," which as near as I can tell is a rebrand of "Front Page Sports: Golf," but Sierra also released "Sierra Sports Golf Pro" and two editions of "PGA Championship Golf" of which I have the 1999 edition - I'm aware of a 2000 edition also existing.

Arcade golf games?!

There's such a wide array of ways golf has been represented in arcades, and some of them might be compact enough to mail. ROM cartridges and/or disks of golf games for arcade boards, like Sega Mega-Tech/Mega-Play, Nintendo PlayChoice or VS. System, anything else that might exist? Probably expensive as hell. But putting this up here just to show my interest.

• Pebble Beach: The Great Shot (Sega ST-V). Is this T&E Soft's only arcade game ever? It's a "more exciting" adaptation of the Saturn Pebble Beach game for Sega's Saturn-based ST-V arcade board. Currently it doesn't emulate well either. Arcade hardwares are something I've always been fascinated by, at that, so while I don't presently own any arcade PCBs, it'd eventually be fun to try.
• Skins Game (Arcade, 2000). Not "The Irem Skins Game" from 1992. Basically the only game released for Midway's "Atlantis" arcade board, Skins Game has a unique controller (a spring-loaded "bat" joystick that you pull back and release). It's basically NBA Jam but for golf. No home ports, didn't seem to sell very well (but despite that, got a Tournament Edition upgrade). Also apparently a revision exists that's called... Swingers Tour.com? [/shrug]
• Vs. Ladies Golf (Nintendo VS. System). One of the handful of "VS. Paks" released by Nintendo for their VS. System arcade boards; it's an alternate set of ROMs for Vs. Golf (itself an adaptation of Satoru Iwata's NES Golf) that replaces the normal Mario-like golfer with a female character. Flyers indicate that it sold for the same price as the normal Golf game ($295 in the 1980s), so it might exist as a VS. Pak in a black suitcase, but this one might as well be my white whale now. (With hat tip to Frank Cifaldi of the Video Game History Foundation, for reminding me it exists.)
• Top Player's Golf (Neo Geo/CD). The only other golf game on the Neo Geo, and somehow also one of the worst golf sims I've ever tried to play. I had the opportunity to rank this game for Hardcore Gaming 101's Top 47,858 Games of All Time podcast (Patreon episode 212), so my opinions on this game are well documented. But even an awful golf sim belongs in Golfshrine. And so shall it be written.
• World Class Leaderboard (Arcadia Systems). The Commodore Amiga-based Arcadia Super Select System is extremely obscure as it is - RMC Retro has a very good YouTube series about the thing if you've never heard of it - but even weirder is that among its library of Amiga-adapted titles is a version of Access Software's World Class Leaderboard. More than just the floppy disk game burned to ROM chips, it contains a number of visual upgrades despite running on the exact same hardware. I don't want anybody to have to part out an already complete or functional Arcadia board for the sake of this, but if anybody just happens to find the ROM board for it by itself and it needs a good home, well, I can see about taking care of that.
• Arcade1UP Golden Tee Golf. I mean, I don't hear the greatest things about these machines, and I haven't the slightest idea where I'd even put one if I got it, but if anybody feels like being the most awesome person in the world during the holidays or my birthday or whatever...

How you can help Golfshrine

If you have any of these titles that you are willing to either donate or sell for a reasonable price, please get in contact with me at wild.weasel@gmail.com and include "Golfshrine" in your subject line. I also accept monetary donations via Ko-fi, as naturally, physical games do not tend to be free, and life itself is expensive.