DOS Days

DOS Days

PGA Tour Golf

Released: 1990
Published by: Electronic Arts
Developed by: Sterling Silver Software
Credits: Lee Actor, Dennis Koble, Don Traeger, Happy Keller, Jon Horsley, Wilfredo J. Aguilar, Nic Tenbroek, Jim Rushing, Jesse Taylor.

System Requirements

System Requirements	8088 or 8086 and compatibles. 512K RAM required. Hercules monochrome/CGA/EGA/VGA/Tandy & PCjr graphics supported. Audio support for PC speaker, Ad Lib, Roland MT-32 (or LAPC-I) or Tandy/PCjr.
Original Media	Two 5.25" 360 KB (DD) disks (Program Disk and Course Disk), one 3.5" 720 KB (DD) disk, or one 5.25" 1.2 MB (HD) disk.
Installed Size (MB)	541 KB or 1.68 MB with the extra courses.

Introduction

PGA Tour Golf was a colourful, accurate and yet easy to get into 3D golf game released in 1990. It got excellent reviews from the gaming press at the time.

Despite the fact it went head to head with Access Software's Links: The Challenge of Golf which was very impressive and technically superior, there really wasn't anything else like it for DOS that could run on an XT or 286 computer.

The courses included in the game were TPC Avenel, TPC Sawgrass, Sterling Shores and PGA West Stadium. The Tournament mode itself puts you up against 60 PGA professionals in three 18-hole rounds.

Electronic Arts released a Tournament Course Disk in 1992 which added TPC Southwind, TPC Eagle Trace, and TPC Scottsdale. This course disk was also bundled with the original game in a special "Platinum Edition" released in 1994.

Advertisement (June 1992)

From where can it be run?

From the original floppy disks or from hard disk.

For hard disk installation, there is no install program - the manual instructs you to create a subdirectory on your C: drive called GOLF. Then insert the Program disk and copy its contents into C:\GOLF and then do the same for the Course Disk. If the game is on 3.5" disk or high-density 5.25" disk only one disk needs to be copied.

Copy Protection

Following the title screen, a yardage marker will appear at the bottom of the screen, and you will be prompted to select the correct yardage for the hole listed. The game came with a reference card which contains scorecards with yardage markers for three Tournament Players Club (TPC) courses. Note the number that corresponds to the course, hole and tees (blue, white or red) shown on your screen.

How to Setup

There is no Setup utility for PGA Tour Golf. The main executable file, GOLF.EXE does however support the following command-line arguments:

c - Run the game in CGA mode
t - Run the game in Tandy graphics mode
h - Run the game in Hercules mode
e - Run the game in EGA mode
v - Run the game in VGA mode

For audio, the game auto-detects what you have installed. If you have more than one, it will select the first it finds, in this order:

1) MIDI board, including Roland MT-32
2) Ad Lib board
3) CMS board
4) Tandy
5) PC speaker

If you want to run the game with an Ad Lib board, you need to firstly run Ad Lib's sound.com driver before running the game.

The game doesn't require any extended memory (XMS) or expanded memory (EMS) drivers to be loaded.

Tournament Course Disk

To add the courses to your installed game, it depends on whether you have the original floppy disk (see below for the original disk's contents). If you don't you probably only have the following files in your game folder:

Filename	Size (in bytes)
16.HUF	151,915
256.HUF	160,869
CRSE.HUF	96,971
CRSF.HUF	97,166
CRSG.HUF	96,363
CRSI.HUF	96,937
INSTALL.EXE	12,622

If you have the Tournament Course Disk files in a directory somewhere (i.e. not on a floppy disk with the volume label "PGA_COURSES"), the INSTALL.EXE program will tell you PGA Tour Golf is not installed, and will abort. To get this to work you have to get these files onto a floppy disk (or an image if you're using a Gotek).

If you still have issues, there are ZIP files containing the full game as well as the additional courses elsewhere on the internet.

The files that get added after you have installed the Tournament Course Disk are:

Filename	Size (in bytes)
EAGLE.16	121,344
EAGLE.256	242,688
EAGLE.CRS	35,468
SOUTHWIN.16	121,344
SOUTHWIN.256	242,688
SOUTHWIN.CRS	39,620
TPCSCOTT.16	121,344
TPCSCOTT.256	242,688
TPCSCOTT.CRS	39,620

Problems

Issue:
Cause:
Resolution:

To Quit the Game

Pressing ESC takes you back one "layer" in the game, so if you are currently on a course it will take you back to the Pro Shop or the PGA TOUR Tent. If you're in the shop or the tent pressing ESC will take you back to DOS.

Supporting Documents

Here are the original documents that came with the game:

User Manual

Additional Files, Drivers and Utilities

This section includes any additional files, updated drivers (original and third-party) or utilities that help make the game a better experience.

Tandy 3-voice patch - Forces Tandy 3-voice sound on a non-Tandy/PCjr machine. This of course is to be used with a Tandy compatible sound adapter on your regular IBM PC/XT/AT.

Save Games

Save game files exist in the game directory and have a .PLR file extension. They are 78 bytes long and not user-editable.

Versions of the game known to exist

Version	Date	Comments
?	1990	A Maxell-branded demo of the game, bundled with Maxell blank floppy disks. Aside from the loading screen and the other intro screen advertising what the full game provides, the game is largely the same - only the final moments from the Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass are available to play on this demo - you select Tournament mode from the menu to start. The demo's readme.txt file is here. See screenshots below for images from this demo.
1.0	Oct 1990	First full release

Floppy Disk Contents - Maxell Demo Version

Disk 1 of 1 (720 KB 3.5" DD floppy diskette):

.              <DIR>            05-05-2021 12:17
..             <DIR>            05-05-2021 12:17
CMS      DRV              4,855 19-09-1989  3:20
GFLY     MUS              3,256 10-02-1990 10:56
GOLF     EXE            109,234 24-08-1990 10:40
GR1      EGA             61,144 13-03-1990 13:41
GR2      EGA             23,994 17-04-1990 16:15
GR3      EGA             40,915 21-03-1990  0:55
GR5      EGA             10,248 20-08-1990 23:06
PRINTME  BAT                565 27-08-1990 17:29
READ01                      417 27-08-1990  9:29
READ02                      447 27-08-1990 17:00
READ03                      868 27-08-1990 10:18
READ04                      959 27-08-1990  8:58
READ05                    1,261 27-08-1990 14:44
READ06                    1,055 27-08-1990 14:47
READ07                      927 27-08-1990 10:19
READ08                    1,150 24-08-1990 16:17
READ09                    1,435 27-08-1990 14:54
READ10                    1,119 27-08-1990  9:04
READ11                    1,124 27-08-1990 10:20
READ12                    1,130 27-08-1990  9:05
READ13                      975 27-08-1990 17:02
README   BAT                266 24-08-1990 17:54
README   TXT             12,855 27-08-1990 17:04
SAWGR2   CRS              8,736 21-08-1990  0:24
SAWGRASS EGA              9,426 25-03-1990  2:09
TR2      EGA             29,557 29-03-1990  1:01
   26 File(s)           327,918 Bytes.

Floppy Disk Contents - Full Version (with Copy Protection)