EA SPORTS PGA TOUR will have 28 real-life and 2 fantasy courses for a total of 30 beautiful golf courses at launch. And on each of these courses comes a variety of gameplay and visual features that result in 30 unique experiences to play. Check out the Course Deep Dive below and read on to learn more.
Each course is designed in stunning quality with Frostbite, so you can immerse yourself in golf’s finer details more than ever before. And to achieve the most true-to-life course visuals we meticulously mapped Augusta National, the home of the Masters, and other courses, with state-of-the-art technologies like photogrammetry scanning, drone technology, and survey-grade GPS.
EA also led custom LiDAR helicopter flights over each course in the game, scanning at lower altitudes with slower speeds to achieve more data-point density and a higher level of realism than scans from publicly available sources. Using these technologies, which are actually designed to discover underground gold mines and oil reserves to achieve pinpoint accuracy down to the blade of grass for many courses in-game. Each course’s scan has been transferred into EA SPORTS PGA TOUR to be developed and tuned for the most accurate depiction of them possible.
And EA didn’t just scan the greens, the terrain map also created precise renderings of clubhouses, vegetation, bridges, tee markers, rock formations, water, and more on-course elements.
To achieve the highest granularity possible, they also took the time to visit these prestigious courses to fully understand how the course plays in real life. From walking the holes to surveying course superintendents, the unique conditions at each golf course were mapped and recorded in these in-person visits over the years.
EA was able to even record the distinct cuts of grass and how the ball behaves on them along with upcoming changes they’re making for future seasons to capture a full picture of these courses and how each of them plays now and in the future.
So whether it’s The Old Course at St. Andrews or The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, you’ll be able to see and feel the distinct differences between playing on these courses just like you would if you were there in real life.
Inspired by classic American landscape artists, we set out to create the most beautiful courses in-game with lighting that changes the look of a course based on the time of day. The goal was to create discreet times of day that showed off each course or hole in its absolute best light.
In game, EA represents those as 3 different “tee” times, morning, mid-day, and late afternoon, across 4 unique “Biomes”. Each of the 4 biomes, Humid subtropical, Mediterranean, Oceanic, and Desert, has varying lighting conditions, levels of contrast, clouds, atmospheric haze, etc, to give each course a unique look based on its location and the time of day that you are playing.
But stunning visuals are only one part of making a course feel like it does in real life. To make each course not only appear but feel accurate to real life, Pure Strike gameplay’s Course Dynamics impact the way the ball behaves on every green in the game.
Each course is tuned to behave just the way it does in real life which impacts the height of a ball’s bounce, the speed of its roll, the impact on ball spin, and the launch of the ball which vary from course to course.
Each course has its own subtleties including everything from the speed and firmness of the fairway to the firmness and length of the first cut. The ball reacts to these subtleties to result in a variety of ball behaviors that change on each course. So you’ll see the ball roll differently on the firm and fast fairways at St. Andrews in comparison to those of Harbour Town.
The ball will behave differently across different terrains like pine straws, firm fairways, soft fairways, and more. So you can expect to see the ball bounce differently on softer terrains in comparison to hard ones, just like you’d see in real life.
But you’ll also be able to feel how your ball behaves differently in the air as well since ball behavior and course dynamics are also impacted by altitude so courses above sea level will see balls go further than those on the coast.
The Tee is Yours on 30 Prestigious Courses:
- Augusta National
- St Andrews
- Pebble Beach
- The Country Club
- Southern Hills
- TPC Sawgrass
- East Lake
- Wilmington Country Club
- TPC Boston
- TPC Southwind
- TPC Scottsdale
- Whistling Straits
- PGA West
- Quail Hollow
- Torrey Pines
- Kiawah Island Ocean Course
- Chambers Bay
- Banff Springs
- Wolf Creek
- Bay Hill
- Liberty National
- Harbour Town
- Riviera Country Club
- Tara Iti
- Top of the Rock
- Bandon Dunes
- Evian Resort
- Teeth of the Dog
- Wetlands (fantasy course)
- Lighthouse Pointe (fantasy course)
And there are more courses waiting for you after launch with the 2023 major courses including Oak Hill, Los Angeles Country Club, Royal Liverpool as well as Olympia Fields as a part of the FedExCup series and Marco Simone for the Ryder Cup releasing in the future.
Platforms: Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S
