Leaderboard

Leaderboard is a series of golf simulation video games that was developed by Bruce and Roger Carver, and published by Access Software.

Summary


Leaderboard, the first game in the series, was released in 1986 and included four different water-based courses. It was well received, being rated as 97% overall by Zzap 64 magazine and being prized with their "Gold Award". It was also highly rated by other magazines, with Your Sinclair rating it 9 out of 10, Sinclair User giving it five stars, and Crash rating it 80%.

Leaderboard Tournament, released the same year, was a series of expansion disks each containing four new courses.

The second game in the series was Leaderboard Executive, which was released in 1987 and contained new landscape and course features, such as trees and bunkers. Despite these additions, the game was less well received than its predecessor, being given an overall rating of 72% by Zzap 64 magazine.

World Class Leaderboard was the last game in the series and included four courses; Cypress Creek, Doral Country Club, St Andrews, and the fictional Gauntlet Country Club. Three course expansion disks were later released. Special features included in this final version included a course overview (overhead view), the punch shot, a printable score card, and a course editor which allowed changes to be made to the existing courses. It was considered a vast improvement on Executive, being given a 94% overall rating by Zzap 64 magazine, and 9 out of 10 by Your Sinclair.

Gameplay
The game may be played with 1-4 players, each competing to get the ball into the hold with the minimum number of strokes.

There are three difficulty levels. The Novice gives a direct hit without other factors, Amateur allows the ball to deviate if you don't make a perfect hit, and Professional factors wind to the trajectory.

The ball is struck to various distances, according to the table below: