Recent versions of Tiger Woods Golf for arcade cabinet a good idea?

[stpcore]

I posted this last week in another area of the forum and since I didn't get any replies I thought this may be a more appropriate place to post.

So now onto my idea.  I really enjoy playing PGA Golf Team Challenge which essentially is an older version of Tiger Woods golf.  The last release was in 2006 and this golf series stopped releasing updates for arcades around that same time.  So I was thinking that it may be interesting to get a more recent version of Tiger Woods Golf and install it to a tower computer and run it in an arcade cabinet (stand up or pedestal style).  I'm thinking it would be great to take advantage of updated graphics, players, courses etc. and still have it played with a trackball.

I did some research on the current PC releases of Tiger Woods golf and the reviews are not the greatest.  It seems like the releases from 2006 - 2008 where the most popular in the franchise and can still be played using a trackball.  It seems the newer versions are online flash versions that were ported over for PC and they don't seem to get the positive reviews that the 2006-2008 releases had received.

I really would like the arcade feel of a few simple buttons and trackball.  Everyone likes to slam a trackball as hard as they can for driving distance but from what I gather a trackball is extremely difficult to use for both accuracy and distance on the newer releases.  This would be a bummer.

I guess I'm wondering if anyone has tried to play a newer version of Tiger Woods golf using an arcade style control panel with any success?  Has anyone put a newer version in a cabinet?  I would also be curious to know what release (year) of Tiger Woods would be the best to play via arcade style.  I still LOVE my PGA Tour Golf Team Challenge and will continue to play that for a long time but I wouldn't mind having a more recent version of the game that plays like an arcade game as well.

If anyone has anything to contribute here that would be great.  I wouldn't mind starting another project and documenting the progress if I think any of this would be worth it.  I would love to have a PGA Tour Golf 2013 cabinet to keep up with the Golden Tees of the world!

[codeena]

Hey stpcore,

I haven't tried a newer version since the cab I use for trackball golf games is pretty dated. I do have Tiger Woods 2006 but even that didn't run well. I will give the cab another try soon since I haven't played it in awhile and I'll report any possibly useful news to you.

I did want to ask if you tried Links 2003. Links is still my favorite golf franchise even though it is older. 2003 added the ability to use the trackball either up/down or left/right to perform your back swing and follow through. Plus, you have the option of clicking the mouse button at impact for even more of a challenge. I enjoyed Links 2003 over Tiger Woods in my cab.

Good luck and I hope you start this golf project. BTW, I think I saw an empty PGA Golf cab on Ebay recently around my area (NW Burbs, IL).

[paigeoliver]

I am not sure if any PC Golf game is going to give you that trackball slamming action that you want, since they were designed to be controlled by a mouse that runs out of pad in 2".

[stpcore]

That was my main concern.  That's too bad as it would be fun to have some trackball slamming action with current versions of a nice golf game.  Thanks for your input on this!

[PL1]

I am not sure if any PC Golf game is going to give you that trackball slamming action that you want, since they were designed to be controlled by a mouse that runs out of pad in 2".

Would dialing down the trackball sensitivity make a difference?      


Scott

[stpcore]

I've read of people playing the older versions (2006, 2007, etc.) with nice response but I wasn't sure about the current versions.  Not sure if dialing down the sensitivity would work but it may be worth a shot?

[fighterfanatic]

Did this! Loaded PGA Tour 2012, works decent enough after some tweaks (trackball, button & mouse mappings, etc).  Ultimately, this came about from the cabinets I had (2 x PGA TOUR GOLF 2004 cabs, original trackball and all), so it only made sense to have a current golf sim in there.

Try it out, it can be done. I'm not a big GoldenTee/golf/trackball guy, but FWIW the folks that I built it for are, and they were more than happy with the results.

[stpcore]

That's encouraging!  I have a gutted PGA Tour Golf cabinet that I was thinking about converting to PGA 2012.  If you have any tips you can pass along please feel free to do so! 

[fighterfanatic]

It was pretty straight forward to build as a MAME/PC game unit.  I added some sticks and buttons for standard 2P MAME fair, and a few extra buttons to specifically support the the PC version of PGA (mouse right/left/spacebar mappings), hooked everything up to a minipac which has support for the trackball.

For PGA Tour, we found that the best setup was to use the 1P and 2P joysticks for club selection and golfer placement/angle. The mouse and dedicated spacebar button mapping were placed dead center up top a good ways away from the trackball to be used in their default way in the game.

Load up the game on your PC and take a quick inventory of the interface and I'm sure everything will be pretty obvious as to what you need.  Any trouble give me a shout.

[wcndave]

I know this post is pretty old, but here goes...  did this play like an arcade game, ie easy for a few friends to play, or does it require an investment in gameplay and lots of practice?

Thanks, Dave