I was going to write up an elegant summary of the game but honestly it doesn't need it. The game is easily the best golf sim I've played. The fact it has an unblievable course creator just puts it over the top. It's intuitive, fun and beautiful. You can play your course as your build it to ensure its exactly what you wanted. From placing objects such as buildings, trees, signs to sculpting a simple sand trap, you'll be in love with the ease at which it's all done.

Ontop of that the game is gorgeous to look at, runs great and simply the best representation of golf you can find on PC. With an interesting multiplayer aspect you can challenge your friends or take on their ghost ball of their best score.

So if you like golf, or golf creation and horribly written reviews, you should get this game.

From what I have played so far, this might be one of the best golf games ever made and it is nice to finally see a game like this on Steam.

The golf course creation tool is amazing. You are able to create and customize your own golf course - It can be fully randomly generated or you can hand craft all of the holes, bunkers, trees, hills, anything you could think of, and you can share it to the public.

As it is currently Early Access some game modes are not available as of yet, such as Tour's and Tournaments (These have a coming soon sign). Stat tracking is also on the way.

As far as I can see, there is no online multiplayer, however you do get to play against other players ghosts and The Golf Club supports local Multiplayer.

Graphics wise - Very good, very nice looking game.

Audio is also nice and the commentary that is in the game is a little different from games such as EA's Tiger Woods games, and that is a nice change.

What an utter disappointment for a game with so much potential and practically zero competition on the PC market. Very limited PC graphics optimization and horrible performance issues prevent me from recommending this game in its current state. With wonky putting, an unreliable swing mechanic, and lackluster ball physics (seriously the same bounce on every terrain except sand), you'd best save your money until this is patched.

On the plus side the sound design is top notch and the course creator is a great feature, however its certainly not enough to justify buying a game that feels like its still in beta.

Usually when I look at a game, if it has mixed or below reviews I steer clear. Luckily I got The Golf Club before it got too negative, because I personally have never had any issues with the performance of the game. I don't doubt those who say they have, but I have had nothing but fun playing this game.

On the hardware side, my PC has an i5, and a GTX760, and the game runs very smoothly, with the exception of the rare course with massive amounts of trees.

As far as content, well, you play golf. Some people appear unhappy that there is no career mode, and while that would be cool, it wasn't part of the game I bought, and my family enjoys just sitting down for a round of golf when we get together. I guess a lot of people are looking for a replacement for their previous favorite golf sims, and they find The Golf Club lacking, but if all you want is to play a round of golf when you feel like a round of golf, then this fits the bill nicely.

I have never played a game as much as I have with The Golf Club. The Greg Norman Course designer is incredibly powerful, easy to use, and will have you creating fantastic courses in no time. The actual golf is great, relying on skill and not special pants you can buy that help you hit it 20 yards further. The career mode in the game is the only downside of the game, but if you head on over to TGCTours.com, you can play a REAL career mode with real players (check it out)!

The community on the HB Forums and TGCTours.com is incredibly active, helpful and fun, which further makes this game a complete joy to play. HB Studios is always making tweaks, and adding new features and themes for courses to help improve the game even more.

100% recommended to any golf fans and aspiring course designers.

Update to the Updates: As of May 2015 they have made it so that in order to access some of features you have to buy a "DLC" which gives you access to the season pass features. So those of us that thought we spend $20 on a golf game just found out that we have to spend more money to get the other half of the game. On top of which the game still has a lot of development left despite the current release status. I felt this information was foremost to what I had to say about the game play that I experienced.

Don't get me wrong. With the demise of the Tiger Woods Golf franchise us fairway junkies have been waiting for a game to come along and give us our knee pant, 9 iron fix. This game will be that, one day. Right now the game is being updated side by side with the console build of the game. Very little effort has been put into the controls for mouse users. So you either need to play with a Xbox controller for the PC or struggle to figure out the who what where when and why of how the game registers your mouse movement. There seems to be no ability to control roughly how hard you whack the ball, I still haven't seen much influence from using the fade and draw features. It makes it hard to not want to break your digital club around the electronic trees surounding you on the course. That all being said the game is still in early stages, one day the game might be the next great golf game for both PC and console. One day. Right now they are putting too much into social features like friends lists and competative play, meanwhile very little into the ability to teach players how to use their control systems to get precise shots. I'm no stranger to golf games but I'm having a very hard time being consistant with this game.

Edit/Update: I've had the chance to play a few rounds with an XBox controller, and I've found the controls equally as hard to master. I think the problem still lies in not having a meter system either in game or at least as part of a learning feature that help you adjust to the control scheme.

As for the rest of the game. A lot has been put into implementing the social features. The game has single, tournament and tour features. I really like the choice of play variety. However unless you happen to bring 3 other golfers in your bag at the bottom with the loose tees good luck. There is no match making feature that I've come across. So if you don't have other players to play with you wind up being matched with imaginary ghost players who represent some of the best players that have played that course. Talk about frustration. As I have said the controls will drive you batty, but it's worse when an imaginary player with a -7 is driving them right to the green, taunting you while you try to work your way out of the sand. The feature was so annoying the do now have a way to turn it off. So obviously this game does want to promote social play. But for those of us who don't have golf loving gaming buddies it would be nice to have a match feature to meet up with other single players for some rounds.

I have not used the course making feature, but I've read that it too can be very difficult to use. However there are many well made player designed courses, that is a great feature of the game.

While they are constantly improving the social features of the game, the frustration of the controls combined with the under developed ability to actually use the full social interface make all the implemented features still seem far off. I will revisit this game soon hopefuly after some more updates to see what they have done.

February 2015 update: I finally uninstalled the game. The last updates have seemed to revert the controls back to being wonky and unpredictable. Which is a shame because right before that I was finally have to have a full round with a negative score. The controls seemed to be getting better. That has seemed to change. I'll check back maybe in the spring or summer to see if after a few more updates if the game has made any improvements.

I've been waiting for a decent PC golf game since TW08. This is almost that game.
Pros: Beautiful scenery, fairly natural swing control, solid in-game physics, wide variety of available courses, and a course editor that is a lot of fun.
Cons: Charging extra for a Season (Career) Mode is lame at best, any joy created by Season Mode is removed by fact that the software engineers chose to cheat the game horribly so their software would not "lose" - no regional Pro-Am EVER had a an entire top 10 at -11 in a single 18 hole round! Makes it tough to care about playing through it.
Overall, I would give the game as it stands right now, 3/6/16, a B-. I will continue to play the game in other modes, but I am done with Seasons until the programmers stop cheating. Save yourself $9.99 and skip skip it.

added 3/7/16: Apparently the last update weighted all AI scores in all single player competitive events to the realm of absolutely stupid. The last 18 hole event I managed to finish had the ENTIRE TOP 30 IN THE LOW 50s! Until it is fixed, the only single player mode worth playing is single course, NO AI.

http://youtu.be/_ENz1NK4tQM

It's been quite some time since golf fans have been spoiled for choice. EA has dominated one of the worlds most regal games for more than a decade and those who play games on a PC in particular have been left with little to no choice in how they hit the links. Enter The Golf Club, a new Golf simulator from HB studios that doesn't boast PGA licensing or tons of product placement, but it does offer a massive game changing feature that is sure to land in the fairway with most virtual golfers: a course editor. Instead of shelling out absurd sums of money for new courses players now have access to a surprisingly robust course creation tool with Greg Norman's name slapped across it. So does The Golf Club burst on the scene like Tiger Woods circa 1997 or does it choke like Sergio Garcia on Sunday at a major?

Without PGA licensing, The Golf Club feels more like a virtual golf outing with friends than a tense and competitive sports simulation. There isn't a character creator, no RPG like leveling or character progression, no unlockables nor upgrades. The Golf Club also doesn't offer any alternative modes like challenges or mini games. You simply pick a course or a tournament and hit the links. Asynchronous play is generally the preferred play mode if you don't have good buddies available for eighteen since it allows brisk competitive play. Your competitors strokes are shown as you take your own and minimal load times keep the pace up and reduces the tedium present in other golf titles. A generic announcer provides the only semblance of professional golf tournament ambiance since galleries of spectators, scoreboards and tournament sponsor signs are all absent from the game's courses. The announcer does a decent job of reacting to your shots and making accurate assessments of the conditions on the course, but his personality is on par with a rusty, dinged-up pitching wedge. It's a shame that HB studios didn't utilize the freedom of not being a PGA licensed product to offer some more festive commentary a la Gary McCord at the 1994 Masters Tournament.

The Golf Club's bare bones feature set and lack of atmosphere and ambiance are not it's most prominent offense however, its the fact that the actual golf mechanics feel woefully underdeveloped. The game seems to favor a grip it and rip it mentality as any attempt I made to be clever with my shots ended in utter disaster with the exception of the instances in which the game decided to make some sort of idiotic club selection—teeing off on a par five with an 8-iron for instance. Speaking of club selection a clunky interface makes proper club selection tedious. Players must enter the scout camera mode to see where their ball may end up with a solid shot and if players wish to see where a different club might place the ball, the scout mode needs to be exited and a new club selection needs to be made. Spinning the ball or controlling draw or fade is slightly awkward with a shot modifier that needs to be dialed in before making a stroke. There is also very little feedback when trying to control the strength of your shots. Taking a few yards off of a stroke becomes an exercise in frustration since the difference between 70% and 100% power is a millimeter of travel on the analog stick and there are no meters or other visual indicators to allow players to get a feel for it. If there is another way to modify the strength of your shots I could not find it and a tutorial was not provided. The game's bare bones approach also means that you are stuck with a fixed club selection so don't expect to carry a hybrid or a long iron in place of your five wood.

Thankfully, the course editor in The Golf Club does not disappoint. Offering desert, links, alpine, rural and autum tile sets and a wide array of props, the course editor easily allows players to build realistic courses with few limitations. A number of sliders that populate the world with vegetation, water and hills automates some of the more tedious aspects of design. Bridges, wildlife, structures and props allow you to breathe life into each hole and imbue your course with some personality. Editing can be done hole by hole or freely across the entire course. Coupled with the game's mostly pleasing visuals it's exciting to turn your vision into a virtual reality and then share it with the world. It's just a shame that the frame rate can be slower than the senior tour—even on powerful hardware.

The Golf Club brings to mind all of those 1990's home designer software packages available in most electronics stores. Teeing off in The Golf Club is underwhelming but creating courses is any golf fan's dream. The actual golf is a bit clunky and in need of a swing coach with it's poor feedback, lack of club selection, and cumbersome UI. The lack of atmosphere and character progression do little to incentivize actually playing the game. While The Golf Club hasn't quite passed Q School, it's not entirely irredeemable. With so few choices for PC gamers, The Golf Club is worth considering for serious golf fans, those on consoles have a little more to consider but the course creator is quite compelling. In the end, The Golf Club logs a bogey on the score card.

An excellent golf game, even at early access version 0.1.

The course editor is fully available, even though it's quite difficult to actually play your own course right now.

Overall an excellent golf videogame, as it is right now, it's a fully featured, complete game. A very promising early access.

No multiplayer, not optimized for pc, no real golf rules, no career mode, it's missing the essentials. No three click, no multiple pin positions, no multiple tee boxes. If you're interested in a golf game look at Perfect Golf.