If you want to play golf on macOS there are only a few options. For real golf, WGT Golf is a free to play game that has been in early access for a few years with mixed reactions. There’s maybe one or two older games that are not compatible with modern Macs. Mini golf games are much more abundant, the most popular being, Golf With Your Friends and Golf It! Having played both I slightly prefer Golf It!, I think it has better courses. Golf It! is a fun rage inducing time killer with thousands of homemade maps in the Steam Workshop. Though as good as it is I don’t find it as satisfying as a proper golf game. Too often it feels like hit and hope.
Of course you could go for the surreal choice of What The Golf? Besides some other puzzlers, gimmicks, and platformer inspired golf games, that’s what you get. Leaving us with Easy Come Easy Golf. Seemingly the only fully released game on macOS simulating regular boring old golf (admittedly still with one gimmick).
That gimmick is using a different player character for every hole on a course. At first that sounded a little off putting but it adds some tactical thinking for who to pair with each hole because every character has their own strengths and weaknesses. Such as power, accuracy and ability in the rain, bunkers, or rough.
The characters are largely cartoonish stereotypes and I quickly found myself picking favourites. Getting into their celebrations and tantrums on the green. They can supposedly upgrade to level 40. I’ve only got one of them at 30 so far. It takes time to gather XP.
As a character levels up their driving power increases, which over time alters how I approached courses. Being able to take a new route to the green can make eagles a more common occurrence. Even the elusive albatross becomes realistic. Though I haven’t got one yet.
When I started unlocking the expert players there was a small increase in difficulty. Overall I haven’t found much challenge from the NPC opponents. I’m really playing against myself to keep improving my record stats. If I wanted a good versus match I’d use the local or online multiplayer.
The courses get progressively more difficult. Course 9 has one of the toughest holes which offers a dangerous short cut. I found the greens on course 8 to be some of the hardest. Course 10 is surprisingly easy relative to those around it. Kinda like a breather before hitting the genuinely difficult final course 11.
There are variable settings for each course that alter difficulty. Tee off position, size of the hole, and the super relaxing vacuum hole. In that one, so long as you land the ball within three feet of the hole it will be sucked down by a vortex. However, hit the vortex too fast and it can launch the ball to a far worse position. Any stats achieved on a vacuum hole are not recorded, so it can’t be used to improve your number of eagles for example. That’s not the case for using the ‘large hole’, which is the best option for chasing albatross.
Due to all the options and levelling up, anybody can advance through the game. The only tricky bit could be defeating opponents to unlock the next course and/or recruit them to your roster. That said, provided you are able to do a birdie on every hole, you will succeed and unlock everything. If you can at best manage a par on each hole, you will still get far into the game.
I’ve found the controls are comfy and intuitive enough. Went for using the thumb stick and really like it. There is also a triple tap option. The ball physics feel good. I think there are some random factors in there as it very occasionally goes wrong unexpectedly. This is probably for the best to avoid the game becoming completely mechanical. There does seem to be a tendency for the ball to travel differently over water and certain bunkers. Some bunkers feel like magnets and I’ve had to mentally note the ones that I repeatedly get trapped in, in order to compensate. Regardless of the maths, I’m good with it. It almost always feels fair and any negativity I have about the game doesn’t amount to much. After all, I’ve spent 120 hours on it, and still enjoy jumping into the weekly online tournament.
There’s more stuff in the game but I’ve gone on too long already. Easy Come Easy Golf is only in Apple Arcade (unless you want the Switch version), and frankly worth the price of a couple of months subscription alone. As far as I’m concerned it’s the best golf game on macOS from an admittedly small pool. It can be grindy and it is on the easy side but it’s fun and keeps me coming back.
Available from Apple Arcade, and console stores (Switch).
mishmash 