Par Excellence

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A great many computer games seem to lose touch with reality.

I am tempted to suggest that Holed Out has avoided this denegration - but only tempted because the over-simplification of golfing's handicap system into four playing levels is a fault I would have thought quite easily corrected.

The individual holes on each course are explicitly diagrammed with well-scaled features and hazards, but I would like to have seen more variation in height and density of the tree elements which are dotted around the course, and on occasion fill the screen with nowhere to go from here.

The choice of ten irons - 1 to 9 - and wedge, and woods 1, 3 and 5 proved to be perceptively accurate allowing for wind and lie and I suspect the fairway gradients are there too, undisclosed.

On the greens the slops are honestly indicated, and a gentle reminder that a 250 yards drive appears the same as a 12 inch putt (using 1.25 per cent power). It all takes experience.

A good game though, with more than passing reference to the ancient game as long as one can keep one's balls dry.

William Miller