''Arnold Palmer Tournament Golf'' is a

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis. It was known as in Japan, bearing the name of

Naomichi Ozaki ) is a Japanese professional golfer. Professional career Ozaki was born in Tokushima Prefecture, Japan. He turned professional in 1977 and won 32 tournaments on the Japan Golf Tour between 1984 and 2005. He ranks fourth on the list of most ...

. It is one of the early Sega sports games where a celebrity athlete's name was added to the title when it was localized from Japan (the other two games being '' Tommy Lasorda Baseball'' and ''

Pat Riley Basketball ''Pat Riley Basketball'' is a video game which was released for the Sega Genesis, for the Mega Drive in Japan on March 2, 1990 under the title and Europe under the title ''World Cup Basketball''. It was released in 1990 in the United States. It w ...

'').Sega Genesis Sports Game Advertisement from 1989 - Fors Yard
Although

Arnold Palmer Arnold Daniel Palmer (September 10, 1929 – September 25, 2016) was an American professional golfer who is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most charismatic players in the sport's history. Dating back to 1955, he won numerous ev ...

is shown on the box cover and title screen, he is not referenced in the game itself.

Gameplay

The game features two game play modes: tournament and practice. Tournament mode consists of 12 rounds, each with 18 holes of golf. There are three different golf courses, one each in the United States, Japan, and Great Britain (although the background and the scenery does not vary). As the player progresses in the tournament mode, their skill level is increased allowing them to hit the ball farther with greater control. They can also upgrade their

golf clubs A golf club is a club used to hit a golf ball in a game of golf. Each club is composed of a shaft with a grip and a club head. Woods are mainly used for long-distance fairway or tee shots; irons, the most versatile class, are used for a variety ...

from the initial

black carbon Chemically, black carbon (BC) is a component of fine particulate matter (PM ≤ 2.5 µm in aerodynamic diameter). Black carbon consists of pure carbon in several linked forms. It is formed through the incomplete combustion of fossil fuel ...

club set, to

glass fiber Glass fiber ( or glass fibre) is a material consisting of numerous extremely fine fibers of glass. Glassmakers throughout history have experimented with glass fibers, but mass manufacture of glass fiber was only made possible with the inventio ...

and

ceramic A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain ...

clubs. This also increases the distance the player is able to hit the ball. ''Arnold Palmer Tournament Golf'' has no save feature, but instead provides a password after each round of the tournament that allows the player to pick up where they left off. In practice mode, one or two players can play a complete 18 rounds of golf on one of the three courses. Each player can set their skill level and use any of the three golf club sets available in the game. Before each turn, the player's caddy will give advice based on its skill level. At first, the caddy can only give the distance from the ball's current position to the tee. As the game progresses, more skilled caddies can give distances to various landmarks and information about how the ball is lying. The player then selects which club to use during the shot. After this, the player can adjust their golfer's stance in order to shank the ball in one particular direction based on the direction of the wind (all golfers in the game are right-handed). To control the swing, the player uses a power gauge to select the strength and height of the shot. When the player first presses the shot button, a marker starts to upwards to the top of the gauge. If the player hits the shot button again before it reaches the top (this controls how hard the shot will be), the marker will then move back down towards the starting position. The player then must hit the button a third time inside of a green area on the power gauge (this controls how high the shot will go in the air). If the player fails to hit the shot button a third time, the sequence will start over from the beginning. When the ball reaches the putting green, a close-up of the screen will appear. The game will first show the distance from the ball to the tee, and then show a simple diagram of the lie on the green. The player will then be able to select how hard to hit the ball and in what direction.

Connections to Sega franchises

Pressing the start button allows the player to change the music and also whether he hears a cheer from the gallery or not upon completing a hole. Opa-Opa, the player-character from the ''

Fantasy Zone is a 1986 arcade game by Sega, and the first game in the ''Fantasy Zone'' series. It was later ported to a wide variety of consoles, including the Master System. The player controls a sentient spaceship named Opa-Opa who fights an enemy inva ...

'' series, is the cursor in the pause menu. Also, a trick allows the player to play a secret ''Fantasy Zone'' level by hitting the ball 100 times on the first hole of any course without holing out, then entering up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, and A on the game over screen. The special level freezes after a certain number of enemies are killed. However, it is impossible to return to the golf game without resetting the system. In addition,

Alex Kidd is a platform video game series developed by Sega, and starring the titular Alex Kidd. Games The franchise includes seven titles. * ''Alex Kidd in Miracle World'' - 1986, Master System * '' Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars'' - 1986, Arcade, 1988 ...

makes appearances in the Tournament Mode after nine holes have been played in each round (called "Coffee Breaks").

External links

References

{{reflist 1989 video games Tournament Golf Golf video games Sega Genesis games Sega Genesis-only games Video games developed in Japan Sports video games set in the United States Video games set in England Video games set in Japan Palmer, Arnold Palmer, Arnold Palmer, Arnold