The
Golden Tee series began as a project at Incredible Technologies to create a large scale
golf simulator for sizable family entertainment centers. The idea was scrapped, but not before programmer Larry Hodgson had already written software to create virtual golf courses. Rather than discard his work, Hodgson retooled the concept to develop a golf game for regular
arcade cabinets. He worked with co-designer Jim Zielinski, who initially rendered the courses using
Deluxe Paint. Instead of a regular
joystick and buttons for controls, they used a trackball, which Incredible Technologies had previously used for
Capcom Bowling. The 1995 ''
Peter Jacobson's Golden Tee 3D Golf'' (featuring
Peter Jacobsen) was the first in the series to support online networked play. Rather than being networked to each other, the cabinets were all linked to a central computer which compared scores for tournament play. The first test tournament, held on 24 game cabinets in the
Chicago area from November 24 to December 17, 1995, awarded real money to the winners, including a $1,000 grand prize. The first "real world" tournament was held mid-June to July 7, 1996, on 145 cabinets across six states, and was considered a major success. By the end of 1996, 1,250 cabinets were installed across 32 states. The tournament gave rise to a large competitive play scene for the franchise. Ryan Bourgeois has won the US national championship three times. Since
Golden Tee 3D, Incredible Technologies has released a new entry in the series to arcades every year. Versions of the game have also been published for the
original PlayStation,
Microsoft Windows,
iOS and
Android. A plug-n-play
dedicated console version has also been released. On May 16, 2022,
Golden Tee PGA Tour 2022 was released. Later that year on October 24,
Clubhouse Edition was released that was once the Home Edition. A standard model and a deluxe model was available. The standard was just the base and the deluxe came with the base, the TV (55") and the blue light marquee making it the same look as the commercial version. A compilation of several earlier series entries,
Golden Tee Arcade Classics, was released in July 2025. == See also ==