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Leaderboard has had things all its own way in the golf simulation stakes up to now; such has been its success that World Tour Golf, from Electronic Arts, will stand or fall on how it compares to Leaderboard.

There are two parts to World Tour Golf. Firstly, it is a golf game using presentations of real courses, with an astonishing total of 25 to choose from on the disk version. Secondly, it contains a course construction set, which unlike the course editor in World Class Leaderboard, lets you design holes from scratch.

The existing courses for you to play range from well-known championship venues such as Augusta, St Andrews and St Georges, to be the more obscure, most of which are American as you would expect from the game's origins. There are also seven "fictional" courses devised by the programmers. All, naturally enough, include bunkers, water and lakes and trees where applicable. You get a full set of clubs: a driver, two woods, eight irons, wedge, sand wedge and putter.

On playing the holes, the program gives you a split screen view, with a bird's eye view of the entire hole on the left and the view from your position on the right.

Controlling your shots works on similar principles to Leaderboard. Using the joystick, you press the Fire button to call up the "swingometer", which is circular and divided up like a pie diagram. Firstly, you must click on fire again to define the length of your backswing, then click again as the dial moves down the swingometer to determine the direction of the shot. I found it slightly easier to master, if not as simply portrayed than Leaderboard's "snap line".

Putting is a more complicated affair. Hitting the ball is straightforward enough, using the swingometer again, but working out the slopes of the green and distances on the swingometer is tricky. There are keyboard options to hit particular distances, or to tap the ball, and especially useful option, the "gimme", which gives you a putt under three feet (sometimes!).

The construction set is an excellent addition which lets you draw your hole and add features such as hills, bunkers, water and trees wherever you like. These can then be saved to disk.

The graphics are good without being outstanding: your player is nicely animated and the holes clearly laid out. The greens look a bit primitive in close-up and the markers showing the degree of slope are not always easy to understand. The ball drops into the hole with a suitable thud, but depiction of this is sketchy.

World Tour also includes a number of finer details, such as handicapping, course conditions (are the greens wet?), and details on how good or poor your lie at each shot which will affect club selection.

Overall, it's an excellent alternative to Leaderboard, particularly if you want representations of actual courses, and the construction set on its own makes it worth a look.