PGA Tour Golf III

PGA Tour Golf III is a 1994 golf game for the Sega Mega Drive, released under the Electronic Arts banner. The PGA Tour Golf line was one of the publisher's longest-sustained sports series, and on sixteen-bit consoles it set the benchmark other golf games were measured against.

Unlike most sports, golf combines simple input with considerable depth. Practically the entire game happens on one power-and-accuracy bar: the player starts the swing, stops the marker at the chosen power, then stops it again at the point that determines how cleanly the ball is struck. Club selection, wind estimation and reading the slope of the green build up around that single action.

1994 found the Mega Drive at maturity. The console had been on sale for years, developers knew it thoroughly, and EA held an especially strong position on it thanks to its own cartridge technology. Sports games were the main reason many households bought the machine at all.

The record lists a top-down view, which in golf means the hole map used for planning before a stroke, complemented by the view from the ball towards the flag without which the terrain cannot be judged.

The numbering of the line also shows how sports series developed at the time. Each instalment brought new courses, an adjusted ball-flight model and better rendering of the green, while the fundamental controls stayed deliberately unchanged. A player never had to relearn the game and carried skill straight over from the previous entry.

Here on OldGame.cz, PGA Tour Golf III plays directly in the browser - just open the game page.