EA Sports PGA Tour Release Date and Details Unveiled

EA has announced that EA Sports PGA Tour will be released on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC on March 24, 2023, with pre-ordering available as of today.

EA emphasizes this will be the exclusive home of the majors, allowing you to play the Masters tournament, the PGA Championship, the US Open Championship, and The Open while chasing the FedEx Cup throughout the season. Thanks to a partnership with the LPGA, you’ll also be able to compete for the Amundi Evian Championship, one of LPGA’s five major championships.

EA Sports PGA Tour Release Date & Details

The game will have 30 courses at launch, including such classics as Augusta, St. Andrews, and Pebble Beach. Utilizing the latest Frostbite engine, developers claim to have recreated the layouts of these courses in painstaking detail courtesy of drone technology, low-flying LIDAR helicopters, and on-course visits. It was apparently impressive enough to earn the coveted seal of approval from the caretakers of the courses when they played a virtual round.

However, as of now there is no word on whether or not you’ll be able to create other courses in the game or if you’ll be left with only the ones EA provides.

It was revealed that there will be an impressive number of ways to strike the ball, as you can select from 20 different types of shot that all have their distinct characteristics. With the game’s Pure Strike mechanics being tracked by PGA Tour ShotLink and Trackman data, your swing dynamics aim to be as realistic as possible. This means that the terrain of your lie and the course conditions will play just as important a role as being good on the sticks. Speaking of which, it was revealed that you’ll only be able to use the analog stick to swing the club, though there was some talk from the development team of adding a 3-click option post-launch.

Along with the ability to create your own golfer, you’ll also have the option to use real golfers from the PGA Tour (minus Tiger of course, who’s exclusive to PGA Tour 2K), with the likes of Jordan Spieth, Tony Finau and Patrick Cantlay announced as those included at launch. EA was fortunate to be able to scan real golfers during the pandemic thanks to being included in the PGA bubble.

You’ll have the opportunity to further customize the look of your golfer with the help of 40 brands for apparel and equipment. It looks as if a golfer’s skills will be divided into five main categories: power, driving approach, short game, and putting. Over the course of your career, you’ll be able to unlock skill points that you can use to improve your prowess within these categories. You can choose whether you want to begin your career as an amateur or jump right into being a professional where you’ll compete for FedEx Cup points in tournaments and major events over the course of a season.

EA promises that there will be regularly updated challenges that people will be able to play to earn rewards. Because of the partnership with ShotLink, the game can actually scrape the data from real events to have you trying to recreate great shots from events in real life right after they have happened.

Online play will have competitive and casual matchmaking. These elements are expected to be updated with playlists that will vary the formats throughout the game’s cycle. There will even be online tournaments where you can play rounds to post a final score and hope that it holds up against everyone else that’s posting their own. Supporting up to 16 golfers all playing a round simultaneously, there looks to be plenty of chaotic fun to be had from hitting the links with others.

For now, that’s all we have as no hands-on time came with this event. That said, we’ll be sure to track EA Sports PGA Tour all the way up (and through) its March 24 release date.