Few sports labour under as much socio-political baggage as golf. It is a game popularised by royalty, spread by Empire, and moderated by prejudice (exhibit 1/59,674: Lord Moncrieff who, in 1902 decreed that women should only be allowed to play providing they not hit the ball further than 70 yards in order to remain graceful to onlookers).
Everybody's Golf, a series that, at 20, is almost as old as the PlayStation on which it debuted, has always offered a sharp antidote to all the stuffy clubhouse elitism. The series remains not only one of the most poised and rewarding of video game golfing interpretations, but also one of the most accessible and openhearted. That democratising vision is even proudly baked into its title.
Two decades on and, with this, the most lavish and fleshed version of the game yet, developer Clap Hanz's egalitarian remodelling of golf is complete. The game opens with a supremely flexible character creator that allows you to role-play as everything from a podgy businesswoman to a foppish toddler to a cross-dressing dwarf. Clothes, haircuts, accessories, facial hair and even animations are hurled at you as prizes for each successful tournament, and can be arranged in endless humorous configurations, with no restrictions according to age, size or gender. Clubhouse dress codes are obliterated. Everybody's welcome.
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