This site is dedicated to golf simulations and golf course design. It started as a place to share my golf design work for these simulations and as a way to use my experience to help others through tutorials. The pages primarily feature the three series of games I'm most familiar with. Below I've written a brief description of each. Game specific headings are color coded throughout the site to make them easier to find. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions feel free to e-mail me.
CPG is a promising new game by Custom Play Games. The company's goal is to make a realistic and customizable golf simulation. Unlike most games the developers continue to actively develop and release updates after the game is released. They also listen to and incorporate suggestions from the community. The game has a comprehensive yet fairly easy to use course designer and is capable of using both 2D and 3D objects. The first version was released in 2005. The second version, CPG 2, was released in May 2008.
The most recent version is CPG 2010, released in July 2009. This latest version now features a mouse swing that I feel is on par with PGA 2000's mouse swing. It also does something PGA 2000 doesn't, a more realistic wind speed that is progressively faster the higher you hit your ball. As the game continues to develop it is matching PGA 2000 in a lot of areas and exceeding it in a few. With modern 3D graphics it provides a real future for golf simulations.
In 1998 Headgate introduced a new way to play golf on the computer in their new game FPS: Golf. Instead of clicking a meter you move the mouse back and forward to simulate the golf swing. The result was a much more realistic feeling swing.
The 1999 version was called PGA Championship Golf 1999. It was the first game to offer the designer a full land plot. Instead of designing each hole in a separate window you now work on the entire course all in the same window. The big benefit of this is that it allows players to see other holes on the course while playing and makes them feel like they are playing on a whole course instead of individual holes.
The last version of the game was PGA 2000. After 2000 Headgate changed publishers from Sierra to EA and started making the Tiger Woods series of golf games for EA. While some who played PGA 2000 have switched to the TW games I feel that PGA 2000 is still a better simulation of golf then the current TW games.
JNSE came out in 1992 and was one of the first games to offer the ability to design courses. It was a very good game for its time. It's showing its age now but it's still fun to play once in a while for old times' sake. There have been many newer versions since then, the latest being Jack Nicklaus 6: Golden Bear Challenge. I did not keep up with this series of games though because I preferred the mouse swing of the PGA series over clicking.