Pebble Beach Golf Links - Golf Heaven Or Golf Hell?

As I set the weekly Saturn game challenge last Sunday over at the Saturn Junkyard Facebook page, I was feeling upbeat and positive. I was happy to be finally setting a challenge around a golf game... So many of our weekly challenges had been around driving games, that I felt a golf game would be providing those gamers who liked their sports at a gentler pace, something to get their (false) teeth into. And wasn't I the guy who had waxed lyrical about how playing Sega golf games had brought me to the point of purchasing a Saturn? Yes, this was going to be great!

Virtua Schlub: "The Holy Grail..."

The game had entered my head when the Yard's very own Virtua Schlub (Mr. Brian Vines) had posted a selfie of him holding the titular game with the esteemed caption: "The Holy Grail".

'Pebble Beach  Golf Links' was the Sega Sports title built around moustachioed golf-tubster Craig Stadler. The picture had encouraged fond reminiscence about the game, mostly centred around the inclusion and utterings of Craig himself, affectionately monikered "Old walrus chops".

The competition was set, and various members of the 'Yard pledged to engage with the challenge. I too relished the thought of honing my skills and improving my scores, as the week went on... But then something unexpected happened. As I played the game I found myself making terrible errors... over-hitting, under-hitting. Drives were veering to the left and right, falling short, landing in the rough or the bunker and failing to find their targets, occasionally ending up at the bottom of an impossibly high sand bank, or worse still, in the sea... Chip shots were flying back and forth over the hole and across to the rough on the opposite side of the green... and putts were either flying over the hole, falling drastically short, rolling off to the left or right, or most frustratingly coming to a stop and hovering on top of the hole, as if Clingfilm had been placed over it by mischievous pranksters...

People weren't posting their 18 hole scorecards, or engaging in the challenge as I'd expected. But some feedback from the challenge was coming in on the Facebook page nevertheless...

"I tried nine holes and I sucked. It uses so much memory" posted new member Jared Callister.

"Craig Stadler can go fuck himself! This game is so hard. I haven't raged over a game like this for quite some time... I'm so sorry Simon, but as much as I love golf and do play a bit in real life, I can't play this game. It's just too damn hard. I really want to love it, but I just can't..."  said Virtua Racing champion Dean Burgess.

But the most damning assessment came from the Schlub himself. The very man, who only days before, had hailed this game as the "Holy Grail" of Saturn sports games....

Waves hit the real Pebble Beach...

"Sorry Simon, I'm not sure if I can participate in this week's challenge. Pebble Beach makes me swear too much. The sand traps are like magnets and Craig Stadler can go fuck himself."

I looked back at the latest comment I myself had made about the game...

"Outside now Stadler you ****!"

Had this game really made me, a pacifist man of the cloth, want to fight, with a slightly portly, middle aged sports champion? What had caused each commenter to post with collective rage? How had a game that people remembered positively, soured so much with time? Had we all terribly misjudged the game? - Were our memories somehow... false?

"It's weird because I fondly remember this game, however, in hindsight, I think I used to play it with friends through the night on dope. The CPU player is a dick..." opined Junkyard stalwart Jon Lee.

Jesus! Was this game SO bad, that narcotics had to be employed to make it palatable??? Was "Pebble Beach Golf Links" the equivalent of being trapped for eternity in a pixelated, soft jazz soundtrack infused, garish slack wearing HELL???? I think we need to take a step back from the hysteria and find out...

Pebble Beach Golf Links was developed by T and E Soft and released for the Saturn in the US, on January 1st 1995, by Sega of America under the Sega Sports banner. Europe got it in August of the same year. The game was centred around the world famous Pebble Beach Golf Club  in California, (as the name suggests, it's the only course available in the game) and hosted by golfing icon and PGA Tour winner, Craig Stadler. With his thinning, sand coloured hair, paunch and huge moustache, he didn't have the razzamatazz, or the swagger of Tiger Woods- who EA would for years, use to promote their slew of golf videogames -  but perhaps that was the point.

As well as being a player in the Tournament Mode, Stadler offers the player advice on each hole in full video, guiding the player round the course in a gentle and soothing manner, pointing out the hazards and traps the player may fall prey to. The player can choose from a variety of modes - Practise Play, Stroke Play, Skins, Pebble Beach Open, Tournament Play - and the player can select their own clubs, if the default selection doesn't meet their needs. Play against Stadler and he'll comment on your shots... including the famously innuendo laden retort: "Do you think you can get it inside mine?"

The title screens and gameplay are accompanied by an inoffensive, but in no way endearing, soft jazz soundtrack, brought to us by composer Yumi Kinoshita. Players can pick from four real golfers to act as their avatar in the game, one of whom is women's golf professional Marnie McGuire. You also get to pick your caddy from a selection of real life actors (they may have been actual Pebble Beach caddies, I can't be arsed to find out) and they assist you with your club choice throughout the game, although you can override their choice if you feel a different club would be more beneficial. The rendering of the course seemed great in 1995, but looks pretty basic and pixelated at times, especially if your ball lands near a tree! As well as presenting as a tad ugly at some times, at others it can look quite beautiful, in a way that only true Saturn fans will be able to appreciate.

The gameplay is very easy to pick up... Having selected club, accounting for distance, wind-speed and ball-lie, the player is faced with classic 'swingometer' - a circular percentage meter, that represents back-swing and fore-swing. The player is required to hit the C button to start filling the meter up, to whatever percentage of the distance of the ball from the hole the shot requires. Each club can hit the ball a certain distance measured in yards, (except for the putter  who's distance is measured in feet). The player is then required to hit the C Button a second time to stop the filling of the meter, at which point the meter begins to empty. The player is required to press the C button for a third time to stop the meter as it empties on a certain point, coloured green. Pressing the button too early, or too late and missing said point, will result in the ball veering right or left. As your golfer swings his club and strikes the ball, with a very satisfying "thwack!" the landing  position of the ball in rough, sand or fairway, will be shown in a graphic in the bottom left hand corner of the screen.

The character models, rendered in FMV, look way better than the course - and in some way make up for that particular graphic flaw when looking at the game with 2018 eyes. There is a refreshing selection of sound effects throughout the game, with satisfying ball "thwacks", "putts" and "plops", plus the appreciative roar of the crowd (or gentle applause) depending on the excellence of your efforts...

Data on detailed scorecards can be pulled up easily with the X button, whereas more specific data such as greatest shot length or handicap, can be accessed in the 'Data' option of the selection screen. This can be a great way of assessing you progress and a great incentive for improving your game.

So what makes it such a hellish experience at times? After all, nothing expressed so far warrants the reactions reported at the start of the article! Play a few holes successfully and you might think it a fantastic golf sim... But this is part of the problem. Just when you think you've mastered the game, it will send your ball into the sand, the rough or even worse out of bounds... A perfect front nine, can be mercilessly killed off by an awkward back nine...

It's so easy to over-hit, under-hit, or over compensate and fall short. The game is in no way forgiving and it can punish you harshly for the slightest error in timing or aim. Drives can easily end up in the sea, or out of bounds on the course. You can end up chipping your ball back and forth over the green, in a vain attempt to get it near to the hole. Or  you can easily over-putt, to such an extent that your ball ends up further away from the hole after your shot, than when you started. Your CPU opponent will make errors, but will then annoyingly pull off a master stroke to immediately rectify their mistake, chipping in a marvellous shot from the rough, which plops neatly into the hole. You, on the other hand, thunder your ball over the hole from a three foot putt, because of a slight delayed reaction when triggering the stop command to the swingometer...

There also seems to be some inconsistency in the control system... I don't know if this is a case of a bad player blaming the game, but I swear that on one occasion the same command can send the ball flying over the green, when on the hole before it sent the ball sailing into the hole from the same distance.

Whilst you can have moments of glory on this game, achieving par shots or even birdies or the (very)occasional eagle, it's almost impossible to do this consistently over 18 holes (unless you spent hours - many wearingly frustrating hours -  mastering every nuance and subtlety of the command system.)

And the game can be long... if you watch Craig's commentary on every hole, or have other players in your game  - you have to watch every on of their annoyingly perfect shots- it can take hours to play through a game.

Perhaps the most revealing factor is that the publishers seemed to know that the game could be annoying... the inclusion of a soothing jazz soundtrack, the lulling voice of cuddly Uncle Craig guiding you round the course and even the enforced "Coffee Break" on completion of Hole 9 (showing a rather sappy video of the club house and it's surrounds, with rich white people lording it over the less fortunate peasantry... or that is what my rage filled eyes saw.) The enforced time-out did however give me chance to calm down, breathe and prevent my coronaries from bursting with frustration...

The Coffee Break: Enforced calming on the 9th Hole...

So why do we remember the game so rosily? Why were we all fooled into assessing it so favourably before playing it and hating it in 2018? Well I know exactly why I enjoyed videogame golf more in the 90s when I first played it... because I was playing against friends in my living room. I never played against "dick" CPU players who pulled off a birdie on every hole, I was playing against my mates, who were as bad as me at the game, usually with beers and usually in a mode that meant as soon as one person holed their ball, the game would move onto the next hole. This avoided embarrassment for the loser, who may have been about to fumble their way to a ridiculously over-par score on that very green...

Since then I've played many golf games with more forgiving mechanics, better graphics and a better overall feeling by hole 18... Most recently for me, and most often in recent times, has been the very playable golf mini-game in GTA 5... This too, has probably been a contributing factor in colouring my view of PBGL...

PBGL is NOT a bad game. But it can be an unforgiving game and achieving a satisfying round can be a very difficult task. The game will allow you moments of glory and satisfaction, but they are fleeting and can be few and far between... I WOULD recommend you try this game in Tournament Mode, just so you can hear Craig's comments and experience one of the best, or perhaps worst sports titles  you will find on this system!