Mimic McIlroy in free golf sim OGC Open

Being highly impressionable, most years at around this time I get a powerful urge to play a PC golf game. This weekend when the compulsion hit I went in search of something unfamiliar, old-fashioned, affordable, and Augusta endowed, and, on finding nothing that ticked all four boxes, ended up settling for OGC Open, a free online golf sim that ticks three.

You need to register to start playing, but registration is simple and doesn’t seem to trigger an avalanche of junk mail. Very limited at the start, course choices quickly expand as you complete practice rounds and tournaments, and level-up.

While there’s no option to compete against AI golfers, playing with pals or strangers is possible, and, by entering tournaments, solitary players can inject a little extra significance into their sessions.

Shot execution is traditional, the first mouse click starting the swing, the second determining power, and the third accuracy. I’ve not experimented with shot shaping yet, but hitting draws and fades does look to be possible.

Although putting is fairly intuitive, there doesn’t seem to be a way to inspect green contours while contemplating approach shots, so players familiar with dancefloors have a distinct advantage. Old hands also benefit from a character levelling system that not only hands out shot power and accuracy boosts to the persistent in the form of ‘training’ tokens, but also distributes in-game currency that can be spent on performance-enhancing equipment and consumables.

Fortunately, if you’re playing practice rounds alone, or with friends of a similar level, the game’s grindy trappings are largely irrelevant. To folk like me, OGC Open is simply a convenient, wallet-kind golf sim with endearingly dated visuals and just about enough realism to evoke.