Collection essentials #200: Jack Nicklaus Golf (SNES)

Another nostalgia title, one of the first games I ever played. This one’s only here for nostalgia, it’s not the best golf game on the console and not really worth trying for the first time with a slew of far better golf video games to choose from.

Remember, our Super Nintendo originally belonged to my dad, not me. He’s a huge golf fan, and a huge Jack Nicklaus fan, so Jack Nicklaus Golf was an obvious purchase. Pictured is the original cartridge and manual from my childhood. For at least a few years of my childhood (not sure how many), my dad started a tradition of us going head-to-head in this game every New Year’s Day, and he’d keep a record of our scores on a paper that he displayed on the side of our filing cabinet, if I remember right. I think he won most, if not every time. But he stands no chance when we play in my adulthood! Mwahaha!

Anyways, Jack Nicklaus Golf is a fairly basic golf game that I’d call “serviceable”, but not much else. There are only two courses to choose from, plus the option to make a set of 18 holes with any combination of courses in the game in whatever order you pick. There are hardly any modes in the game, no tournament or campaign to conquer. There’s not much music, and none at all when you’re actually playing. The biggest problem with this game is the loading times. Whenever you’re shooting from a new area, you have to wait way longer than you should have to in order for the game to load. Also, there’s an option to enter a password to continue your game…but there’s literally no way in the game to get a password to use there, making it completely useless. Another thing that could be considered a flaw is that the game doesn’t account for ball speed when it’s going past the hole, even when the flag is out. So if you’re, like, 80 feet from the hole, as long as you putt in a straight line, that’s no problem, just clobber the ball straight forward and it’ll go in! I say “could be considered” because I find it kind of amusing, but it’s certainly not realistic.

While Jack Nicklaus Golf doesn’t really offer anything special to make it worth playing for the average person, it’s not bad to have as a nostalgia title as it is perfectly playable, so if I’m with my dad we still enjoy giving it a little whirl every now and then for old times’ sake. While it’s only a “nostalgiassential”, it’s earned its place on the list all the same.