What began as a modest contest between eight Scottish golf professionals one October afternoon on the shores of the Firth of Clyde at Prestwick in the last century has today become the biggest and most important golf event in the world.
The British Open (known as The Open Championship outside the United States) is the oldest championship in the world and for the first twelve years of its existence remained at Prestwick. It was subsequently shared with Musselburgh and St Andrews on a rotating basis until being played at Muirfield in 1892. The Open first left Scotland in 1894 to be held at Sandwich in Kent, England. Other venues have since been added, but only St Andrews remains from the original trio. St Andrews has always been most closely associated with the British Open, but, in fact, it is now played among several different courses, still on a rotating basis. The last Open played at St Andrews was in 1995, won by John Daly of the U.S.
In the
mid-20th century, the British Open was
overshadowed by the sheer dominance of
commercialism and money involved in American
golf. It wasn't until Arnold Palmer began
competing at the
British Open in 1960 and drew the interest of
American golf fans, that it came to enjoy its
rightful place among the "Majors."
Since that time many of the more prominent
figures in golf have come to Britain to compete
at this great event. Some of the more notable
winners have been Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus,
Tom Watson and Lee Trevino.
Today, there are many championships and tournaments played around the world but only four are recognized as golf's majors: The Open Championship of Britain and the United States, The U.S. Masters Tournament and the US PGA Championship.
It reads like a who's who of golf, the Best players on the best courses, and may the best one win. British Open Golf, is the same way, Looking Glass has done a fantastic job capturing the essence of well a produced golf game.
First they got Jim McKay to do the announcing, and the opening sequence. They created a moving and touching opening sequence filled with all sorts of live action shots from the courses. Then they got a bunch pros, like Vijay Singh, Sandy Lyle, Ian Baker-Finch, Jeff Maggert, to name a few. Add in realistic course design and real world dynamics and you have yourself a great golf simulation.
They have done all of that and more, you can modify almost every attribute about the game you want to play on a sunny day, with a slight breeze, on fast greens, a wet fairway, with tournament pin placement, no problem. All you have to do is change the settings and hit the button its as good as done.
You have your choice of mode of play, tournament, stroke, match, best-ball, practice. You can play with a combination of pros and amateurs, humans and computers. Although the game isn't networkable so you all have to play from the same computer.
One of the nice design elements of this game is that everything is an option so you can set up the game just how you would like to play. Including the resolution, you can play with 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768.
The swing methodology is similar to other games, were you have a power bar, you click once at the apex of the swing and then another time at the ball. It takes a little getting used to, it seems a little more sensitive than most, but it is well worth the effort.
The AI technology for the crowds and the announcer is pretty good, the crowd knows when ooh and aah, and when to clap and cheer. And Jim always has a few choice words.
If you enjoy watching, playing golf, or if you have never played at all this is the perfect game. Because it captures the essence and emotion of the game.
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