Gamescom 2025 was my first hands-on with Under Par Golf Architect. A fully golf-centric tycoon simulator where you control all aspects of golf course management. As a huge golf fan, this was right up my street. It’s the perfect hybrid of golf sim and golf creation aspects, it irons out any doubts I had, you should putt this on your wishlist if you’re a golf fan, and you wood be doing yourself a disservice if you didn’t.
It feels apt that I’m writing this as the 2025 Tour Championship has concluded to wrap up the FedEx Cup. Whereas everyone was waiting for the monolithic presence of Scottie Scheffler or Rory McIlroy to take home the richest prize on the PGA Tour, it was a relative underdog in Tommy Fleetwood who comfortably prevailed.
In this scenario, EA Sports PGA Tour and 2K’s PGA Tour are Scottie and Rory, and Under Par Golf Architect is rightly Tommy.
Makes The Complexities of a Golf Complex Rather Simple
I love playing real golf, and I also can’t get enough of simulated golf, where I can immerse myself in a virtual world to pretend I’m actually good at golf and escape my real-world inadequacies and lack of talent. From the 00s Tiger Woods games to EA Sports PGA Tour and HB Studios’ decade-long golf-game efforts, I’ll play everything.
So it was intriguing to hear about Under Par Golf Architect. I can’t think of a dedicated golf sim game on this macro level since Sid Meier’s SimGolf in 2002. I had to see it for myself at Gamescom 2025. A private setup gave me a hands-on look and learning experience. Its premise is similar to any other ‘tycoon’ game: Micromanage every aspect of a golf course’s infrastructure.
You build a golf course in a plot of land, surround it with amenities to increase public satisfaction and optimize consumption of the facilities, appease your patrons, earn lots of money, and maximize customer enjoyment. You do this by tweaking the golf course to adhere to the golfer’s feedback, ensuring your workforce is on top of course maintenance, and various other factors. I visibly giggled every time I saw raccoons feeding on the course’s rubbish if left untidied for too long.
I quickly whipped up a nice little brute of a Par 3 surrounded by water, offering a horrendously undulating green. The controls were easy enough to execute my vision, and the hole design seemed funny to me. However, I quickly realized the novelty would soon be met with the hostility and incredulity of visitors—you need to be smart and channel your inner Pete Dye or Alister Mackenzie.
All The Tools to Help Caddy You Around
I exhaled a slight “ooo” when Broken Arms Games CEO Yves Hohler showed me what was essentially an AI data model you can use to test your golf holes. It takes into account High, Mid, Low, and Scratch Handicappers and simulates how they’d all play the hole. It gives you useful insight into where they’re landing their shots—or where the less-talented of us would inexplicably be spraying and praying our golf ball around the property.
This foresight and knowledge can help you make vital changes to the course. But don’t make the course too easy, or your more experienced golfers will scoff and leave in search of a challenge. On the contrary, you need to be mindful about not making every hole narrow, hazard-filled, and with green speeds even Augusta National would consider a glass-like menace.
Under Par is a single-player tycoon sim with multiple levels and biomes arriving at launch. I’ve been assured that the playing aspect was added in response to community feedback and is there if you fancy a quick knockabout. The business and simulation principles are where the game’s priorities lie. If you find PGA Tour 2K’s course creator to be a bit advanced, time-consuming, or cumbersome, I think you’ll really enjoy this.
A lot of love has gone into making Under Par Golf Architect. Time will tell if it’s a bona fide major winner, but I think it’s earned its tour card and is ready to see if its vision can become par for the course.
Even non-golf fans will find plenty to love about Under Park Golf Architect. The Insider Gaming forum is the perfect place to discuss your love of golf or other tycoon games, including the Two Point series or Jurassic World Evolution.
The IG team got exclusive looks at many titles during Gamescom 2025. Check out our other previews: Valor Mortis, Super Meat Boy 3D, Hell Let Loose Vietnam, Borderlands 4, Hollow Knight: Silksong, and G’AIM’E.
Andy is Insider Gaming's Senior Evergreen Editor and has been in the games journalism sphere in one way or another for over 7 years. His video game taste is as…
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