EA Sports PGA Tour review

The champion returns, making an uneasy early showing. 

From 1998 to 2013, Electronic Arts’ Tiger Woods series was the reigning champion of golf. Much of the franchise’s success was rooted in its sense of authenticity. Meticulous recreations of golfers, courses, and televised commentary provided as much realism as hardware allowed.

But the other part of the equation was ever more compelling: Tiger Woods brought in a multitude of optional components that made the game accessible and fun. You could change the trajectory of the ball in mid-air, tweak the layout of courses via “Tiger Proofing”, or switch between an analog stick-based swing system and a more inviting three-click system. Across its decade-and-a-half run, Tiger Woods could transform from staunch sim to spirited, Friday night fun with your buddies.

Picturesque and Plenty of Courses

Following an eight-year hiatus, after the mediocrely-received Rory McIlroy PGA Tour, the release of EA Sports PGA Tour still channels some of the spirit of the Tiger Woods series. Built on the Frostbite engine, the game boasts 28 actual courses as well as two fantasy ones at launch. Fastidiously built from helicopter imaging, the game purportedly provides precise flora positing and adjusts lighting based on the modeled time of day and biome categorization.

As such, Sawgrass’ signature Island Green looks sufficiently daunting, whereas the towering pines that came crashing down last weekend at Augusta National are probably still upright in this simulation. From the throngs of fans, golfer-to-hole perspective shots, and picturesque drone-eye view of greens, PGA Tour offers a visually impressive experience. Pros are instantly recognizable and transitional graphics rival a national TV broadcast. I do wish I could eavesdrop on what my player and caddy were yammering about on their way to the 17^th.

A Performance Mode, Please!

However, the exquisiteness comes with a cost. On PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S/X, the framerate is capped at thirty frames per second. On PC, there’s an option for 30/60/uncapped framerates. But even on high-end hardware, there’s the occasional stutter. Even worse, it tends to affect the end of your swing. While it’s not a complete deal-breaker, the instability isn’t something you want to see with your new $70 game.

On Steam Deck, it’s possible to drop all the sliders down for a moderately steady 30 FPS experience. But just like PGA 2K23, an insistence on a persistent internet connection provides you with minimal functionality when you aren’t connected to Wi-Fi.

Always Online is Always Annoying

Even when I did play PGA Tour with my persistently reliable home internet, the game sporadically complained about connection drops, adding unnecessary apprehension to each match. Unlike the days of yore, you don’t get to play PGA Tour as you like. Now, you’re at the mercy of publishers hellbent on requiring a persistent internet connection. That’s understandable for online tournaments, but not allowing offline individuals access to the career mode is an inexcusable error.

Unlike 2K23, PGA Tour’s swings only use analog stick input; there’s no traditional three-click system for players more interested in strategizing their away to each hole. While there are plenty of on-screen analytics that display power and precision, PGA Tour doesn’t arrive with any kind of dedicated tutorial. Given the eight-year lull after the last game, that’s a peculiar oversight.

Getting into the Swing of Things

Fortunately, swinging is somewhat intuitive with a back-and-forth motion imitating the motion of a real player. As such, the real hurdle is overcoming the small bit of lag and the fallible framerate. Once you master the fundamentals, PGA Tour extends a toolbox of twenty different shot types, with low-slung stingers able to slip under tree limbs while a powerful hack can help your escape from the deep rough. The short game provides a simulated trajectory, but you’ll have to do the math to adjust for distance, elevation, wind, and power.

Ball behavior is one of PGA Tour’s most touted features. Unfortunately, it seems as if developer EA Tiburon was a bit too eager to show it off. Occasionally, you’ll get a quirky bounce or roll that demonstrates that landing trajectories aren’t oversimplified. But more often, you’ll encounter some impossibly slippery greens as if fiction has been deemphasized.

Gaming’s Most Taciturn Coach?

While you might not receive any tutorials, PGA Tour ensures you’ll get plenty of practice. Challenges toss a succession of tests for you to perform, such as landing five consecutive shots on the green, repeatedly beating a par-5, or putting with consistency. Oddly, the game’s Coaching Academy mirrors these assessments as does attempting to recreate history in Championship Moments, or the game’s Sponsors component. Essentially, you’re facing nearly a thousand different challenges. Although that sounds plentiful, there’s no commentary or advice, so it’s only the lure of unlockables that will maintain momentum.

Undoubtedly, the showcase here is PGA Tour’s Career mode, which extends a role-playing-style journey. Success across a series of tournaments rewards players with attribute points that can be invested in your golfer. Here, the feeling of struggling to gain a global ranking gradually gives way to increases in power, accuracy, and putting ability. Likely, you’ll witness more growth in the simulation of experience than actual playing practice, especially when you can deliver drives like Tiger. Beyond the impression of growth, you’ll also earn virtual currency for use inside the in-game Shop. But since it’s 2023, you can also use real money for licensed clothing and gear. Yes, the practice is repugnant, especially for a full-priced release, but at least the cosmetic items don’t provide radically improve your stats. Instead, you get to adjust the attributes of a club or modify a shot type.

Play or Pass?

On the RPG side of things, the Career mode, where this is most prevalent, is excellent. It’s simply about doing the best you can at each of the tournaments through a PGA Tour season, all to improve your global ranking and to level up so that you can spend attribute points to improve your own golfer’s power, putting skill, short game, and various smaller areas that tie into these wider categories, for example, accuracy or control when using wedges and other short game clubs. It’s a system that really allows you to see improvement tournament after tournament, as at the start of your career you’ll be struggling to crack the top 250 in the rankings and to putt a ball accurately beyond seven feet, but by the time you reach Augusta a few months into the season, a 10-foot putt is easily doable and the top 150 or better will already be where you find yourself on the global rankings.

Know there are some oddities with the game’s recreation of a road to the Masters. Play stops at triple bogies, which is rather puzzling. In an attempt to keep the pace going, you can either play out the four-round competitions or tackle key moments, letting the same simulate the rest. While this hastens the feeling of development, it also can mean a setback when the random number generator is feeling cheeky. Although you can create female golfers, there’s no LPGA licensing.

Randomized Rivalries

Shrewdly, PGA Tour splits into online rivalries mode into two main areas: Competitive is for the serious types, while Social is for those just seeking a quick online match. At present, EA seems to be curated these modes, as expected options like stroke, match, or skins play aren’t user selectable. Instead, you’ll either take on a trio of holes at Augusta or tackle a randomized rivalry.

Elsewhere, Daily Tournaments renew every 24 hours, inciting contestants with the possibility of winning loot packs. For those who appreciate the thrill of putting something on the line, there are even high-stakes matches that can be entered with virtual tickets. Maybe I’m a miser but after paying for a premium-priced game, the last thing I’d want to do is shell out regularly to play it.

Please Stop Pushing GAAS

At launch, EA Sports PGA Tour is about 5 over par. Some of the issues are performance-related, with swinging compromised by sporadic hiccups. Other problems seem to be from the ‘Game as a Service’ oriented approach. Fundamental elements like a guided tutorial or being able to dedicate options are missing- hopefully, to be added later. Historically, the PGA Tour series was player-friendly, allowing players to enjoy the game their own way. Had EA pushed for more offline playability or an alternative control scheme, this year’s Tour could have been recommendable. But at present, it’s advised to play the waiting game and see if any improvements materialize.

EA Sports PGA Tour was played on PC
with review code provided by the publisher.