Great golf game, up to a point.

[HTS MrHumphries]

Played through my first season and after some initial struggles to make cuts (haven't played a golf game for years) I finished the year 1st in the Fed Ex rankings and 2nd in the World Rankings (I think, it could have been the other way round).
I thoroughly enjoyed it but it was getting a little easy in the latter half of the season so i thought I'd raise the AI difficulty level from 70 to 90.
Little did I know at the time but raising the skill level only increases the skill level of your AI playing partner, it has no impact on the rest of the field.
So now I have the ridiculous situation of my playing partner Tony Finau shooting around 16 under per round whilst the best rest of the field finish around 10- after all 4 rounds..
I'm basically stuck playing against one opponent.
How does something as basic not get flagged during past play testing?

[HK714]

Easy fix, don't play with an AI partner.

[dalgo]

I played my first PGA season with the AI set at the default of 50. Then I put it up to 100 for the second season, which had a marked effect on the rest of the field.

The result was that the leading AI player in each tournament improved by an average 7.5 shots, so close to 2 shots per round. It wasn't consistent across all tournaments, sometimes it was less than that, sometimes more, but that was the average.

However, that does not include the player you are paired with. As noted they get a huge boost. In one tournament Jason Day started with two 57's when paired with me. It was great to watch!

I still managed to win the odd tournament though, but did get a lot of 2nd placings.

Remember that you can always change your own difficulty level rather than that of your opponents. I worked my way thru Arcade, Pro, Tour and then Simulation. I found that too tough so I dialed it back and now play on Custom.

[Brilliant Pebbles]

Thats bizarre, I have never played with an A.I partner due to time constraints, how that got past QA is beyond me.

I always hoped they would add an option to play with A.I only during a playoff but nevertheless ..

[HTS MrHumphries]

Originally posted by HK714:

Easy fix, don't play with an AI partner.

That doesn't fix the main issue, which is the rest of the field is nowhere near my level.
The only competition is the AI partner.

[HTS MrHumphries]

Originally posted by dalgo:

I played my first PGA season with the AI set at the default of 50. Then I put it up to 100 for the second season, which had a marked effect on the rest of the field.

The result was that the leading AI player in each tournament improved by an average 7.5 shots, so close to 2 shots per round. It wasn't consistent across all tournaments, sometimes it was less than that, sometimes more, but that was the average.

However, that does not include the player you are paired with. As noted they get a huge boost. In one tournament Jason Day started with two 57's when paired with me. It was great to watch!

I still managed to win the odd tournament though, but did get a lot of 2nd placings.

Remember that you can always change your own difficulty level rather than that of your opponents. I worked my way thru Arcade, Pro, Tour and then Simulation. I found that too tough so I dialed it back and now play on Custom.

So you're saying the rest of the field improves but not to the level of the AI partner after raising the skill level?
I didn't notice any improvement from the rest of the field (which I was still way ahead of) but maybe i was too shocked by my AI partners ridiculous scoring to notice any improvement.
I'll bump up the skill level more and remove the playing partner to see if the competition level is raised.
*A shame because playing with the AI partner makes me it feel more like I'm involved in an actual tournament.

[THARN]

if they only had an online lobby//// match making is just PATHETIC...ive played once in over a year onlline ... they do this because they dont want people playing this version when the next installment comes out

[The Spirit of Jazz]

The rest of the field will never be at your level. I play on AI difficulty 100 and usually finish a 4 round tournament leading by 20+ shots. The AI is nowhere near as good as it needs to be for how easy the game is.

PGA Tour 2k21/2k23 are much better golf games.

[lawjax]

I echo the sentiments of Jazz; at the highest difficulty setting of the game the best players of a single player round should be shooting upwards of -14 consistently to keep up with you throughout any given event, with total event scores themselves being in the range of -49 to as low as -60. Really, the AI could shoot -70 for an event on some courses, such as Bandon Dunes, and still lose to a player consistently. It would have been a touch of fun game design to have a "superhuman" difficulty level where the AI played like that.

As for the 2K series being better, that's a matter of opinion. Those games play differently and have their own mechanics, which can still be abused and taken advantage of by an experienced player. The only real difference is that the AI's ceiling for success is notably higher throughout an event, and you will likely lose often if you do not know what you are doing when playing on the highest course difficulties, where the greens are glass and any incline will send your ball rolling 1 million yards away from the pin.