Golf Sim Clubhouse Forum

Diary Entry #1

As a newbie and liking to ramble on about my fav games, thought I would put all my ramblings in one thread.
I will add a post here and there to this thread of my PGA 2000 impressions as my experience with the game increases.
You can consider this thread my PGA 2000 diary.
Seasoned PGA players may find how a newbie like myself perceives this game in 2020 of some interest.
For other newbies who may come across this game and/or thread for the first time, it may help determine if the game is worth investigating further.

I'm going to start with a quick overview and will add to the thread over time.

I think you first need some perspective as to how good PGA 2000 was and where it sat in the golf sim market.
Back when PGA 2000 was released, I was a Microsoft Links junky and have been for 2 decades.
Back in 2000, we had what I remember as the BIG 3 in golf games, Microsoft Links, PGA 2000 and Golden Bear Challenge. Tiger Woods wasn't at this point considered a serious golf sim so didn't make the cut with most serious golf simmers.

All 3 games had very active communities. All 3 games were heavily supported by their communities.

Today, the Links community imo remains the most active. Is this because Links was the best golf sim of the 3? I believe the answer is no.

The Sierra PGA games ended with the 2000 version as the developer's moved to Tiger Woods. Links however, continued on for a few more years with Links 2001 and Links 2003.
I would suggest PGA 2000 lost many players who were simply searching for the latest current golf game. People always want and go too, "new."
These players would've either moved to Links or later on, to Tiger Woods.

This left the PGA 2000 player base with a distinct disadvantage and it's player numbers were always going to naturally fall as the game had no new versions in the pipeline.
It could never be taken as a reflection of the quality of the PGA 2000 game itself. It was simply a reflection of human tendencies with people seeking new/current.

20 years on and looking for a high quality golf game, here I am, exploring a game I knew had a huge following at one time. A game I know would only have had such a following if it had many positive attributes. A game that must've been good.

I'm now discovering these aspects and finding great enjoyment with PGA 2000 at this early stage.

Next time, I'm going to add 3 PGA 2000 features that immediately stood out to me as being a cut above the other golf games.

Viper!
Sounds interesting. Looking forward to this continued diary. WARNING WARNING love your Lost in Space robot.

SteveHorn wrote:Viper!
WARNING WARNING love your Lost in Space robot.

Who doesn't love the robot! Robot was great!

Diary Entry #2

It did not take long to find some standout features of PGA 2000. I found 3 in particular that really are at the very least, equal to the best there is in any other golf game.
I believe certainly one of the 3 areas I will outline, PGA 2000 clearly leaves all the other golf games for dead.

Diary entry #2 will be discussing exactly this dominant feature. The feature I believe is the best of it's kind in any golf sim I've ever played. What feature am I talking about? I'm talking about the PGA 2000 Season/Tournament mode.

Being an old game, no, PGA 2000 isn't ever going to live on strong through online play but heck, what a magnificent offline alternative it provides.

To think the preceding offering to PGA 2000 (PGA 99) had no season feature. What the development team introduced in PGA 2000 on their first effort is truly exceptional.
What they pulled off is far beyond any offering that has been created for any other golf game since.
The competition have had nearly 2 decades to better the PGA 2000 season mode. No one even came close. Some of the modern games don't have a season mode at all.

There are games that do offer a season type mode but I have not found one that is anywhere near as flexible and without silly restrictions as PGA 2000.
Then there are games that offer career modes where you have to play through a set format, often with great restrictions and very little flexibility or user control.

Every golf game should have at least a customizable season mode as far as I'm concerned. A career mode is an altogether different feature and is fine as a secondary feature but not as an "only" or "primary" feature.
I have always believed the most important feature for offline play is to allow a user to set up tournaments to play against the AI themselves or just against the AI scoring. You can do both in PGA 2000.

The PGA 2000 season mode is simple, highly flexible and complete. You can create tournaments exactly how you want them to be.

I haven't tested this yet but it certainly appears you can have complete control over AI scoring ability even down to a tournament by tournament basis. This means you can set your tournaments up so no matter how easy or hard a course, you will always be in the running for that tournament win.
You can control the scores the AI shoot on harder or easier courses. While you struggle on the tough courses, the AI will too. You won't have tournaments using tough courses that you never have a chance of winning because you struggle to break par every round while the AI leader finishes the tournament at 20 under. You can make the AI scoring to be as challenging or as easy as you wish and have the leader struggle to break par on the tough courses as you do.

Season mode has all the features required for a huge amount of customization. Below are some screenshots.


How many events do you want? You can choose, no restrictions.
Want to add another course and tournament after you already started your season? No problem, can be done without having to restart a season from scratch.
Below is the round options screen. Of course you have complete control over the normal stuff like course conditions, displaying crowds etc.
Eligibility options, yes, you can set those too.
Want cuts? Screenshot speaks for itself. You have some logical choices.
AI. You can create an entire field of any number of competitors you wish.
Adjust names, abilities, how they dress, male or female, left handed or right handed etc. It's all there and much more.
(Excuse appearance of golfer animation. Screenshot taken on my Win 10 machine. Golfer does not display correctly on Win 10)
What I have shown here is only a snippet of what you can do with the season mode. The menus are logically laid out, simple to use and allow a massive amount of customization.

High praise to the developers for getting things near perfect on their very first attempt.

I firmly believe for offline tournament play, there is nothing that comes close to PGA 2000.
I could play this mode for years. Without any doubt, it's exactly what I will do.

Viper!

I played numerous created seasons and loved it. I did end up creating a cut for most (NOT ALL) at 10 strokes back after round 2 and 7 shots back after round 3. This helped narrow the field down some.
Way to many were making the cut with only 1 at 10 shots after round 2. This did have an rare bad effect of to few but putting it at 70 players max and ties make the 3rd round cut for most not all tournys helped.
Also I created a updated PGA tour players list that is available on this site for download. Its probably 7 or 8 years old now but has many players that the stock wont have. Players from all over the world.

In all the years I have been playing I have never done a season mode. Back in the day there was a lot going on. I played in the tournaments using gameranger to verify scores. We had design contests, single holes and entire courses. There was course collaborations, Fabita Bay @ 9 mile drive and Mill Creek which I had the honor of designing the 15th hole. I will have to try the season mode, always wanted to just never had the time. Thanks for this diary.

Steve,

Thanks, yes have got all the player lists but here is how I have set mine.

I've been playing season mode in Links 2000 for 2 decades. I decided I wanted to be able to draw some comparisons with my finishes and stats from Links 2000 results against PGA 2000 results so used the Links 2000 format in PGA 2000.
This format is a 128 player field and a cut at 56 players. I follow hockey and love it so my entire 128 player field are named after Pittsburgh Penguins players past and present. I have to beat my fav hockey stars! lol

DC#1,

I love season mode because it always gives the game purpose. I play season after season. Each season I keep stats and try and beat past season results. I try for more wins, more top 10 finishes, try and beat my season scoring average, try and earn more money than any past season etc etc.
I'm always battling my personal bests. Always trying to create new records. It never gets old.

You can set it up however you want, any number of tournaments, can be as long or short as you like. No matter what course you play, you can set it up to be a challenge against the AI.

Below is the general method/rules I have used in Links 2000 to determine AI difficulty and will continue to use in PGA 2000.
I start with a standard AI difficulty for a course I have not played before. Then, depending on results, I do the following for that particular course next time I play it:

If I miss the cut, I make AI difficulty a little easier.
If I don't make top 10 3 tournaments in a row, I make AI easier.
If I win 3 tournaments in a row, I make AI harder.

This simple method has always given me challenge. I can always still miss a cut or finish outside top 10 or I can win a tournament depending on how well I play.
I always have to try and play well. Every round of every tournament counts towards setting my personal best season records. There is always reason to try and perform and never give up.

Viper!
Do you use a point system not just money won system? I had a simple point system that I created for my tour. Nothing like the ridiculous 1 the PGA use's. Mine is there are points awarded only if you finish in the top 10.
There are 3 categories possible for a tournament. Major, Elite and Standard tournament.
Major point system
1st 24 pts
2nd 17 pts
3rd 13 pts
4th 10 pts
5th 8 pts
6th 7pts
7th 6 pts
8th 5pts
9th 4 pts
10th 3pts
Elite point system = The Players, All WGC events, The Memorial and any others scheduled that you fill are a notch above most except the Majors.
1st 17 pts
2nd 12 pts
3rd 9 pts
4th 7pts
5th 6 pts
6th 5 pts
7th 4 pts
8th 3pts
9th 2 pts
10th 1pt
Standard point system = All other tournaments about 75 to 80 percent of a schedule of 45 or more in a season
1st 10 pts
2nd 7pts
3rd 5 pts
4th 4pts
5th + 6th 3pts
7th + 8th 2pts
9th + 10th 1pt
Of course ties all get the same amount of points. If 4 tied at 3rd place then they all get 3rd place pts and so on.

Steve,
No, I don't use a point system. I just keep results and stats, money earnings, wins and top 10's. End of a season I also work out my average finishing position. Things like this are something to beat next season and are good so even if you are having a poor tournament, you don't just give up because it's important to still get the best finish you can to not blow a particular stat.

The main thing I like to beat is my scoring average over an entire season. I keep a running tally each tournament showing me if I'm in front of or behind my best ever result. Then I look at wins, top 10's, tournament results for a specific course. I keep my finishing result for each course. From this, I can put together a list of the courses that I have had most success to least success in tournaments. When I play a course that I have not had great success, it's always fun to try and perform well there.

End of the day, I really keep things that allow me to try and compete against myself and past performances. Things that make every round I play important.

Should add regarding seasons as some here may play Tiger Woods games.

Tiger Woods 2003 and 2004 both have season/tournament modes. I think after this the later versions of the game don't. You just get a career mode.
That's the reason I'm sticking with these early versions atm for the season stuff. The TW season modes allow nothing like PGA 2000 flexibility or AI flexibility. The AI skill may not fit your skill level which immediately makes the modes useless as I don't think there is any way to change it. The best you can do is use an easier or harder swing level for yourself to make your scores more closely competitive against the AI. For my skill level, I found the AI scoring was ok so I'll stick with 2003 and 2004 for the time being. You could also use the old TW versions for seasons and use say TW2008 for it's career mode. I'll probably do that myself.