This Retro Rocks Review is all about a game that, in my personal opinion, revolutionised the great game of golf in video game form, the same way FIFA has done for soccer and so on and so on.
The year was 1986.
The young Internut (AKA me) was right into my golf and right into my gaming. I had the Commodore 64, which was cool as, but also had a tape deck, which was lame as.
That’s right… I had to load games via a cassette tape… and it took a bloody AGE!
Up until 1986, golf hadn’t really had much of a go when it came to video games. It speaks volumes but this…
This was about the best of the bunch leading up to 1986. Well, it was the best of my bunch, seeing I never had a Nintendo. 1984’s Golf on the Nintendo did actually look pretty good.
In any case, you can imagine the sheer delight and joy on this little Internut’s face when the local rag newspaper (yes, the newspaper), featured a review about a new golf game for the Commodore 64 that had them raving! Raving I tells ya!
I went to the old man and did what every gamer has probably done at some stage… I played to Dad’s love of golf and literally begged him to get it for me.
I cut out the article, Dad pocketed it and said he would head to the computer store in question (Bruining Headlam – a trip down memory lane for those in Perth) and have a look.
Now, I love my Dad – he’s a bloody legend – but he has been known to not follow through on promises. He’s worked for himself pretty much his whole life and as such, much of his working pursuits usually got the front seat in his day-to-day.
So, you can imagine the sheer shock and delight on my 12 year old face when Dad proudly walked through the back door with a brand new copy of Access Software’s Leaderboard.
I was beside myself.
However, that besideness myselfness was short lived… the game was so advanced for its time that it only came on 5 1/4inch floppy disk… it could not be published on cassette.
And here’s me without a bloody disc drive.
After about 15 minutes of misery and wallowing in my own sadness, Dad asked me to get something for work from off his front seat.
I walked out… and there is was, in all its glory… a brand spanking new Commodore 64 disc drive.
I can’t express how happy I was to you, except to say this… I repeatedly ran up and down our passageway, jumping as bloody high as I could. It would have easily made those compilations of kids losing their shit when they get a Nintendo for Christmas, had the reaction actually been filmed and it actually being a Nintendo.
It remains, to this day, one of my very best gaming memories, if not the best… the absolute joy.
As for the game itself, well, it was a masterpiece. Like I said, for its time, it was literally a game changer!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xmg98cuBViU
Even better, two or so years later the same company released World Class Leaderboard, which was infinitely better again! It had a bloody course editor, which blew my tiny little mind.
In my mind, no golf game has really captured the magic, for its time, the way this game did. I’ve played most of the Tiger Woods series and dabbled in The Golf Club (of late), and they seem to lack that little bit of soul… maybe that’s just me?
Seeing golf is such a niche game (just ask Pete), I’m sure we’ll never get a FIFA style treatment of the grand old game… although one can always hope!
Written by: @dantheinternut
