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It's a constant surprise to me how well golf games work on computer. You'd think the slow pace and highly physical nature of the sport just wouldn't make for a good computer game at all. But it nearly always seems to work well. Awesome Golf is the first golf game on the Lynx handheld and it's pretty good stuff.

The player can choose to play on either British, US and Japanese courses. As the player moves the cursor between windows choosing which one to play, the game tune changes subtly to reflect the country currently selected. Nice. There's also some cutesy speech during the game which is very entertaining.

Although there are some nice 3D views when the golfer takes a swing, the actual mechanics of the game are handled in 2D. Each shot begins with a plan view of the current green. The player can scroll about it using the cursor pad and even zoom in and out thanks to the marvel of the Lynx's sprite manipulating hardware.

Using a small cursor the player aims the shot, then chooses a club. Annoyingly there's no on-screen information to tell you the maximum range of each club so you have to keep referring to the instruction booklet. Taking a swing is achieved by the familiar hitting the button when a swiftly moving marker is over the shot power you want then hitting the button again to give the ball left or right snap.

While Awesome Golf doesn't exactly set a new standard for computer golf games, it's a classy addition to the genre and is a recommended to all sports-loving Lynx owners.