Three weeks ago, EA revealed that EA SPORTS Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR was to be removed from their EA Access subscription program. The news was a little surprising at the time, but like most removals and delistings, it seems like there was a perfectly good reason for this. EA no longer holds the licensing rights to golf’s biggest tournament, the PGA Tour. Instead, those rights have been acquired by HB Studios, the developer behind The Golf Club, and they plan to put them to full use with a new game mode for the latest instalment in that franchise, The Golf Club 2019.
HB Studios has created a PGA TOUR Career Mode that starts players at the Web.com Tour qualifying tournament. If players manage to finish in the top 75, they’ll gain entry to the tour and one of several ways to advance to the PGA Tour itself. For example, finishing in first place in three events will gain early promotion to the PGA Tour, as will finishing in the top 25 in six events. Once in the Tour, players will compete over 32 events for the FedExCup, as well as achieving sponsorship goals and completing other challenges.
The better a player’s performance, the more attention they’ll attract. Different sponsors will offer a variety of opportunities to represent their brand. Each sponsor has three levels to complete, each of which offer up to three challenges that must be completed to get that sponsor’s reward. Balancing these partnerships and their challenges will be important.
Rivalries can develop during a player’s time on the PGA Tour. This will then see players competing head-to-head to see who’s the better golfer in a number of categories: Number of Strokes, Front 9 Score, Back 9 Score, Birdies or Better, No Bogey Round, Best Hole and Worst Hole. Each category awards points, and the first player to reach 20 overall points is declared the winner of the rivalry.
It wouldn’t be the PGA Tour if players didn’t get a chance to play on the official tournament courses. TPC Summerlin, TPC Scottsdale Stadium Course, TPC Sawgrass’ THE PLAYERS Stadium Course, TPC Southwind, TPC Deere Run, and TPC Boston have all been confirmed to be included in the game. Of course, The Golf Club is also known for its course creation tool, so the mode will also include some of the “most well-crafted user generated courses”.
Take a look at the trailer announcing the mode’s inclusion in the game to get some idea of what to expect.
The Golf Club 2019 and its brand new officially licensed career mode will be released later this year.