Article Updated: January 23, 2023 at 10:36 AM.
Here is the Gamer Ability Ultimate Preview for EA Sports PGA Tour 2023: Road to the Masters. This article includes everything we know so far on the new PGA Tour golf video game from release date, all courses, playable pros, gameplay features, game modes, online multiplayer, career mode, controls, settings, and so much more! If you would rather watch a video version of this preview, checkout my full ultimate preview video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emu6Ip5H1Ho
Official Release Date, Platforms, and Early Access Details:
EA Sports PGA Tour Road to the Masters is set to launch on March 24, 2023. Digital deluxe edition owners and EA Play Pro members will get 3 days early access to the game starting on March 21, 2023. EA Play members will be able to play a 10-hour free trial starting on March 21, 2023 as well. The standard edition will cost $69.99 and the digital deluxe version is priced at $84.99. All digital pre-orders will include these bonuses: THE PLAYERS Championship Gear, The Grand Slam Gear Bundle (Gear items celebrating The Majors), and a Scotty Cameron Putter. All digital deluxe owners will also receive the following in addition to the pre-order bonuses: 3 days early access, exclusive early access to Augusta National, 1,500 Premium PGA TOUR POINTS, PGA TOUR XP Bundle, and Augusta National Amen Corner Gear.
Official Courses and Course Details
The Game will include 30 total courses at launch. This includes 28 official courses and 2 fantasy courses.
Here are all the official courses that will be available at launch: Augusta National, St. Andrews Old Course, Pebble Beach, The Country Club – Brookline, Southern Hills, TPC Sawgrass, Evian Resort, East Lake, Wilmington country club, TPC Boston, TPC Southwind, Teeth of the Dog golf course, TPC Scottsdale, Tara Iti, Whistling Straits, The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, Chambers Bay, Wolf Creek, Liberty National, Bay Hill, Riviera Country Club, PGA West, Quail Hallow, Torrey Pines, Banff Springs, Top of the Rock – Par 3 course, Bandon Dunes , and Harbour Town Golf Links.
The final 2 courses available at launch are fantasy courses and the specifics on these 2 courses have not been announced yet. Each course has been specifically designed to play like they do in real life, with different characteristics from surface firmness, grass length and more.
The EA Deep Dive blog post on the game stated this about the courses: “No two courses are identical, so shots on every course will behave differently based on the speed and firmness of the fairway, fringe and green, as well as the firmness and length of the first cut and second cut. On every golf course in the game, you can set speed and firmness of the terrain to either slow, average, fast, or tournament. Other courses will have terrains where you’ll be able to control length and firmness with three options: short, medium, and long.”
Here is a screenshot that shows everything you can customize prior to each round!
Playable PGA TOUR Pros:
Game is set to have approximately 16 pros at launch and here are all the known pros in the game as of January 22, 2023:
- Scottie Scheffler
- Cameron Champ
- Xander Schauffele
- Sung-jae Im
- Nelly Korda
- Lexi Thompson
- Jordan Spieth
- Tony Finau
- Hideki Matsuyama
- Danielle Kang
- Patrick Cantlay
The swing of each pro has been scanned in the game, and they used ShotLink and Trackman data to make each pro hit just like they do in real life. This includes distances, rollouts, trajectories, and more. The developers utilized ShotLink and Trackman data in all aspects of the game in an effort to emulate an authentic golf gameplay experience.
Gameplay Features: Swing and Control Mechanics
The game will only launch with analog swing input and 3-click swing will not be in the game on launch day. However, 3-click swing is planned to be added as a free post launch update to the game. It is not yet known how soon after the game launches that this update will occur.
The analog swing mechanics in the game include three components.
- Backswing length: How far the golfer takes club back as you pull down on the analog stick
- Forward Swing Speed: How fast you push up with your swing stick to get the accurate/desired tempo
- Swing plane: How straight the player pulls back and pushed forward the analog stick.
Putting also requires all three aspects as well, which is different from the PGA 2K golf series. Tempo does not matter in the PGA 2K23 golf game when putting, and only backswing length and swing plane are considered in 2K23. However, tempo is included as a component to every putt in EA Sports PGA TOUR Road to the Masters.
Gameplay Features: Arcade Elements and Difficulty Settings
The game will feature classic elements from previous games in the series with power boost during swing, post shot spin control, and heartbeat moments when shots are close. However, players can turn all these arcade settings off if they so choose. There are also a lot of gameplay difficulty customization options players can customize to their playstyle. Here is an image from EA’s deep dive on the game showing all difficulty settings and the 4 primary difficulty presets in the game:
Gameplay Features: Golfer Skills
There are 4 main skills that impact your golfer: Power, Accuracy, Control, and Recovery. The EA Deep Dive article described each skill as the following:
Gameplay Features: All Shot Types
The game will feature 20 total shot types. EA described shot types as the following in their deep dive, “There are 20 available shot types in the game and each one is intended to help you succeed when you face a specific, on-course challenge. Each shot type has its own unique profile producing shots with varying ball speeds, launch angles, spin rates, and shot dispersion that you would expect in real life. Each shot type profile is unique per club and per class of golfer trajectory (low, medium, and high), which result in over 1300 unique profiles available in EA SPORTS PGA TOUR.”
All shot types fall under one of four main categories: Driving, Approach, Short Game, or putting. All created golfers will start with eight basic shot types, and the other twelve shot types can be unlocked as gamers progress in the career mode. All shot types in the game are listed below:
Driving shot types included are: Standard Drive, Power Drive, and Stinger
Approach Shot types included are: Standard Approach, Power Approach, Punch, Knock Down, Finesse, and Hack
Short Game Shot Types included are: Pitch, Runner, Spinner, Flop, Long Flop, High Flop, Blast (Bunker only), and Pick (Bunker only).
Putting Shot Types included are: Standard Putt, Chip, and Texas Wedge.
Each shot type has a different tier/level based on the specific pro you are playing as or how far you have leveled up your my-player. The tier levels are Bronze, Silver, or gold. Gold tier shot types always perform at the skill level of your specific golfer, while bronze and silver tier shot types perform below that skill level of your golfer. Shot types are also restricted to only be used in certain scenarios. For example the Hack shot can only be used from the rough, and Blast or Pick shots can only be used from bunkers.
Career Mode Preview
The game will feature a career mode, where players start as an amateur and work there way to the Korn Ferry Tour and eventually to the PGA TOUR. When you are an amateur you can also be invited to a Major event. The career mode features all 4 official major tournaments in the PGA TOUR schedule including the Masters, the PGA Championship, the U.S. Open Championship, and The Open Championship. The game is also set to feature all major tournament course host from the 2021 season, 2022 season, and 2023 season with more of these courses coming as post launch DLC.
Players will improve their skills, and unlock and improve shot types in the career mode. There are a total of 20 shot types available in the game that you can unlock and progress from bronze tier, to silver, and then finally to the gold tier as mentioned previously.
The Ryder cup has also been mentioned as a post launch DLC. Not much else is known on how this will be implemented at this point in time.
Online Multiplayer Preview
The game will launch with multiple online and local multiplayer options. The game will include both online ranked and unranked matchmaking, online tournaments, and a multiplayer mode that supports up to 16 players playing at the same time. The game will also feature online tournaments with global leaderboards.
Post Launch Plans: Free Courses, Ryder Cup, and More
The game is planned to have DLC sometime in the future including new courses, the Ryder Cup, and more content. It is not yet known on whether the new content will be paid DLC or come as free updates. Multiple attendees of the EA PGA Tour Preview event have stated that the game developers explained during the event that new courses added to the game post launch are planned to be free for all users. Only time will tell if they remain true to those words and include all DLC courses free for all EA PGA Tour owners.
In-Game Currency and Monetization
The game will feature in game currency and monetization. But no specifics on the monetization features have been reported yet. We will likely not get this information until the game launches.
Bonus Features and Final Discussion
The developers stated in an interview with Dexerto that players will be able to play head-to-head versus AI in the game. A developer stated in this interview that players can turn on AI partners that actually play against you and its someone that is close to you on the leaderboard in career mode. Players will also be able to enable turn-based mechanic to see the AI shots during the grouping as well.
Crossplay has not been announced or mentioned in any of the Blog post and was not mentioned at the preview event. Therefore, it is not likely to be in the game at launch.
Online community ran country clubs or societies to run custom tournaments has not been announced as a feature in the game at this time.
There has been no mention of a golf ultimate team mode, and there is no mention of packs in the deluxe edition of the game. Therefore, we are not likely to see a golf ultimate team mode in EA Sports PGA Tour.
The game will be launching on March 24, 2023 on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Stay tuned to this website and the Gamer Ability YouTube channel to stay up-to-date on all things EA Sports PGA Tour 2023: Road to the Masters leading up to launch and for plenty of content when the game launches!
That is everything we know so far on the new EA Sports PGA Tour golf game. I will update this article overtime as we get more information! Stay tuned!
