[6] Approximately two-thirds of the game's instruction manual is devoted to the course designer, which also includes a built-in wizard program to aid the user.

[7] The player competes against various opponents throughout the game, including Jack Nicklaus, who is not a playable character.

[6] The game includes four multiplayer modes, via serial cable, modem, LAN, or the Internet.

[9] The DVD version includes 10 game modes and an ABC Sports video titled Toughest 18 Holes.

The team's goal was to develop a game which would recreate the experience of playing real golf, partially through graphics and sounds.

[12][13] Development was underway as of January 1995,[12] and the game was announced that month at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show.

[14] The game was developed for Microsoft Windows due to the operating system's increased prevalence.

Another factor was scheduling and the competitive market, prompting Accolade to release the game without 3D card support.

[21] That month, Accolade announced it would release the game on DVD in the summer, to take advantage of the format's increasing popularity.

[6] Computer Gaming World and GameSpot noted that self-made golf courses could take up to 10 megabytes of space, considered high at the time.

[36] Macworld's Michael Gowan wrote about the Macintosh version, "Featuring five courses, network play, a convincing physics model, and the ability to create your own courses from scratch, this golf simulation has only one bogey: the delay between swinging the club and the corresponding animation.

"[33] Dean Renninger of MacAddict stated that while some of the game's graphical details were good, they were "a far cry from photorealistic."