EA Sports PGA Tour’s best mode pulled me back into my golfing game obsession

It’s been ten years since Augusta played National Golf Course in a video game and eight years since we saw St. Andrews on a console. Just going back to these places will be enough for most interested fans EA Sports PGA Tour – especially after Jon Rahm’s win at The Masters Tournament last weekend. But the game, now on PlayStation 5, Windows PC and Xbox Series X, does play a little differently. So they should allow for some time to familiarize themselves before feasting on the buffet of 30 “bucket list” destinations.

The best way to do this? Honestly, it’s the Challenges mode. Golf doesn’t really need to be reduced to bite-sized video game challenges – it is bite-sized challenges, 18 of which form a round. But the Challenges mode soon became EA Sports PGA tour‘s signature feature for me, at least in the first week, for how it familiarized me with the tasks these courses will expect later in my (very deep) career mode. I wasn’t prepared to appreciate or enjoy this live-service vehicle as much as I did, but without a video game practice facility or tutorial, I absolutely depended on it to, as they say, get back in the mood.

Challenges take players to one of the game’s 30 courses and give them three tasks to complete, mimicking some real-life feats – for example, Lexi Thompson at the 2019 LPGA Championship or Francesco Molinari doing recovery after recovery recovers at The Masters in the same year. Each challenge awards three stars, those stars award XP and reward points, and the two together help your created golfer progress or give them cool new skills and cosmetics. (While the latter are unlocked through a prominent in-game store menu, it’s important to note that nothing that affects a created golfer’s game or improves his game can be purchased for a real-money equivalent. That’s all for cosmetics .)

Grid view

You also don’t have to complete all three obligations of a challenge in the same playthrough; this is what I meant by challenges that support repeated attempts. For example, if a challenge is to make green-in-regulation on all four holes (that is, land on the green in par minus two strokes) and make a birdie on two of them, you can focus on making it in one times playing the greens and getting the birdies in another.

This is not to say that the challenges are not demanding. It took me a few hours to clean up the Thursday and Friday moments of this year’s Masters. Part of that was my unfamiliarity with the controls of this game after eight years since the last EA Sports golf game. But part of it was also because the surfaces and ball placements are more lifelike and therefore more difficult to play – which is, after all, supposed to be the point of a simulation.

The No. 15 green at Augusta National – I’m sorry to keep referring back to this course, but I feel like a lot of people are playing it now – is a notorious real-life challenge for tour pros. It’s certainly within range for an eagle shot. In previous games I never had to worry about overshooting this green or rolling my recovery well into the water hazard. Now I do, which makes the decision to lie down on 15 and take a shorter approach to the green much more meaningful. Now I know a little more about what went through Chip Beck’s head at the 1993 Masters.

EA Sports PGA Tour is as lavishly illustrated as ever; it’s the strongest feature yet of a golf simulation that takes a lot of play and repetition to really understand. Again, the best way to see the 30 courses on the disc is in the bite-sized play offered by the Challenges mode. For some courses, like Pebble Beach, or Augusta, or TPC Sawgrass, I have a thing for waiting to play my first full round there until it’s an event on my created player’s career calendar. Of course I want them to go in prepared and not embarrass themselves, so these warmups are a nice way to keep that personal tradition intact while still bringing a talented virtual golfer to the tee.

Image: EA Orlando/Electronic Arts

The functions that serve that golfer are a bit uneven. While there are plenty of cosmetics and unlockables (and the promise of more) to equip them, the character creator himself is very rigid. Different genders and many ethnicities are represented, but don’t expect them to look much like you as the faces are from standard templates. This has been a long-running weakness of EA Sports titles, especially when compared to their contemporaries. In Career, however, there’s the chance to play in AI pairings, which, while a bit time consuming, is there for those who prefer full, immersive sports experiences (like me). And for those who really want to sink into a compelling career, you can start all the way back as an amateur – including in the newly established (2019) Augusta National Women’s Amateur. These are experiences I look forward to recreating over the next few dozen hours (if not 100) that I can devote to the game.

For many the selling point of EA Sports PGA Tour is simply the ability to play these courses in a video game; it sounds like a low standard, but it takes a lot of effort to faithfully reproduce them, and the developers at EA Sports still exceeded my expectations. The broadcast supporting these visits is crisp and thoughtful, with little details like the walk across the Sarazen Bridge at that number 15 hole that is now causing me so much trouble. However, returning players and new players should be aware that they will have to spend a lot of time on their game before they have the confidence to take on the likes of Pebble Beach or Whistling Straits. But that’s part and parcel of golf’s challenge and appeal.

EA Sports PGA Tour launched on April 7 on PlayStation 5, Windows PC and Xbox Series X. The game was reviewed on PlayStation 5 using a pre-release download code from Electronic Arts. Vox Media has partnerships. These do not affect editorial content, although Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased through affiliate links. You can find additional information on Polygon’s Ethics Policy here.