I’m sitting here trying to work out why PGA Tour 2K23 is the greatest video game of all time.
Rationally, objectively and empirically it cannot be. It lacks the emotional gut punch of Final Fantasy VII, the engineering creativity of Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, the immersive storytelling of Red Dead Redemption or the existential horror of The Evil Within, but I really did have fun writing that sentence and hope in some way AI algorithms make it the headline for this game on Metacritic.
There’s nothing new. You’re still hitting a ball into a hole before others do. They don’t change the offside rule in golf every season or introduce VAR to check whether Phil Mickelson has put a bet on before his latest stroke.
Of course, it now has all those grinding rewards that sports games feel are indispensable, complete with repugnant attempts to lure me into them quicker by squeezing vile microtransactions from me – but those are easily ignored by putting my credit cards in the microwave.
I have always loved golf games. In the 90s, pals and I played PGA on the Mega Drive into the smallest of wee hours, Mario Golf never left my Game Boy Colour and Everybody’s Golf was just joy.
I fell out of love with golf games, though, when they started buggering about with the control system. I found attempts to replicate a swing on a joypad by flicking up and down with the thumbstick utterly left-handist. There was also the trackball madness of Golden Tee Golf which still sucks me in after four pints in a pub like an idiot who has just had four pints in a pub. The nadir of this was my 2010 Christmas Day with Tiger Woods – the one time my wife revealed she DOES listen to my whines by giving me his golf game on the Wii. You could use the controller to do real golf swings! I thought THAT was going to be the greatest game ever! The next thing I knew, my lower back felt like it was being stabbed by Santa’s angry elves. That game went in the bin next to whatever it was my kids had already broken by Boxing Day.
I nearly got pulled back in by Mario Golf: Super Rush, but the trailer made it look like playing golf on cocaine. I did that on a stag weekend in the 90s and it was the most stupid meeting of things since fish and gravy, or Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.
But I saw PGA Tour 2K23 while trapped on the sofa with a man-cold looking for comfort. And within minutes it was Friends Reunited all over again.
I hate playing real life golf. I don’t have the patience. There are too many things that can go wrong. Too many things to calculate before you even take a shot. Distance, wind, bounce, green speed, correct clothes. Golf video games do all that for you and OH MY GOD I HAVE JUST WORKED OUT WHY THIS IS THE BEST GAME EVER!
Do you know what the biggest problems with video games are when you are a dad in his 50s?
Responsibility. The very thing that once made games great. SimCity allowed us to develop urban infrastructure aged eight. Championship Manager gave teenagers responsibility for football teams. The Last of Us had us making decisions for an entire civilisation.
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That’s fine when you are younger. When you are actively trying to experience the things in life you are not old or qualified enough to do. But as a father of three in my 50s, I have had enough responsibility to last me a lifetime. I am sick of it. I want to surrender myself to a higher power, or even just an alpha human to tell me what to do. I want to be looked after. I am sick of looking after people and things. And most video games make you do that.
Except golf games. They look after you. They automatically select the best club. They never lose your ball. Each shot is lined up straight down the middle as a default. All you have to do is click a button three times like Dorothy clicking her heels and you feel completely at home. It’s the simplicity of being a child again. Tap something three times. Look at the pretty pictures. It wraps you in swaddling clothes. It almost returns you to the womb.
Unlike many video games at my age, there is no frustration. No boredom. No feeling I am wasting my time. I’m out and about in the fresh air. I am seeing the world. Even failure doesn’t seem so bad in this game. I failed to earn a spot on the Korn Ferry Tour. That’s fine with me. I don’t even like Korn.
I cannot think of anything in 45 years as a gamer I have found as easy and satisfying as pinging a ball 300 yards down a fairway. It’s comforting and rewarding. Like pulling a weed from the ground, making it through a traffic light before it switches to red, or getting a pair of trousers to fit you in Hollister. It’s like squeezing a stress ball. It’s the same panacea as a good soup. A reminder of something ever rarer as we progress through life: that occasionally things can still be wonderfully perfectly simple and undemanding.