Golf. Where would we be without Golf? Enjoying the countryside that bloody Golf courses take up, for starters.
I don't like Golf, but video game Golf can at least go wild and wacky and bend physics for the sake of a good time. And if it does try to stick to real-world physics (sadly, most of them do), then at least the courses - real or imagined - take up significantly less space than their real-world counterparts.
Golden Tee Live is the arcade smash hit of the Golden Tee Golf series - I think. It's hard for a non-Arcade Golfer to pull apart which line is which. The 1001 list wants us to play the game that brought the Internet and online leaderboards to Golfing arcade cabinets in airports, released in 2005, if that helps you narrow it down.
Frustrations
Unfortunately, several obstacles stand in my way of playing this title. Self-isolation demands I don't go out to closed airports, pubs, and arcades, and fifteen years of sequels and updates have resulted in different Golf games grabbing all the quarters. The latest iteration of the series, Golden Tee 2020 is available to be purchased for home use... in a dedicated setup with its own elaborate peripheral and (optional) TV stand, for a minimum purchase price of $3,895. I shit you not.
So I won't be doing that for the sake of a blog nobody cares about. Luckily, there is a mobile phone app, Golden Tee, which will serve as the closest version I can get to the arcade machine.
As you can imagine, a free mobile phone game is one giant advert filled with smaller adverts with a game stuck on top, and the tutorial makes that clear by making sure we understand how to customise our golfer after every swing of the club.
Those swings take place by swiping down to pull your club back, however far you want, and then swiping up to waft it forward, or whatever the correct term is, thwacking the ball and watching it sail down the course.
You don't even need to be seamless about it. The longer your swipe the more hoof you'll put into the shot, and I'd assume the straighter your swipes are, the more accurate your shot, but I didn't stick around to check.
The arcade machine we ought to be playing used a trackball for player inputs. So far as I can tell, that trackball, and the fact that you can compete against players across the globe, is the only reason to play Golden Tee Live. It's as though the actual golf bit doesn't matter.
I don't know of the differences between this mobile phone game and the arcade game, but I can't imagine there's a whole lot of difference. Maybe the cosmetic stuff. The rest - the 'sport' - is surely the same. Select your club, ball, and tee, whack it on the green stuff as few times as possible into the hole.
What can be said? It feels like I'm playing golf, though I've never played golf to know for sure. It might be better for me to say 'it feels like there's a physics simulation to represent the feeling of golf here', but that's an awful sentence to say.
I played a game about golf and it felt like golf. There. That ought to do it.
Final Word
Golden Tee Live (I assume, having never played it) does what it sets out to do. It's golf. It requires a passing knowledge of clubs and when to use them, it requires some degree of skill to get the most out of your digital toolset, and, apparently, when you're full of alcohol or stuck in an airport or both, it can be a great use of your time.
I wouldn't know. I don't like golf.
Don't play Golden Tee on a mobile phone unless you can ignore all the mobile phone game guff that comes along with it. Stupid cosmetics, balls that break the laws of physics, magical clubs, Lord knows what else. It's a money-making platform. Don't fall for them.
But if you desperately want to play golf, sure, this is a golf game, knock yourself out.
Fun Facts
$4,490 for the Home Edition with all the bells and whistles, including a TV stand and lighted marquee. Tempted?
Golden Tee Live, developed by Incredible Technologies, first released in 2005
Version played: Golden Tee, Android, 2017, via emulation.