Play by Play - Mario Golf
By Brian • 2 February 2026
- Year
- 1999
- Platform
- Game Boy Color
- Notes
- Subpar, but in the good way.
I’ve never played golf. Miniature golf, sure, but not golf. I don’t watch golf on TV. I’m not really into golf. I’ve spent most of my life knocking golf as boring and stupid.
Golf video games? Also boring and stupid. I’ve told the story before about how I was at a sleepover and had a bad time because the other guys would not stop playing Golf on NES, and my pleas to do other, nerdier things went ignored. Clearly this game was not good for anybody.
I got into collecting NES games in high school, and found Golf at a Funcoland for probably 49 cents or a dollar, at most. I didn’t really care what games I bought, just that I kept amassing them, so Golf found its way into my collection. I decided to try it one day, probably out of a false sense of obligation to play and beat everything I owned. To my surprise, once I got the hang of it, I really liked it, and I found myself in this odd position of total disinterest in real life golf, but deep appreciation for a golf video game. I bet if I tried real golf, I would like it, too, but I already have too many hobbies, so forget it! I’ll just continue badmouthing it, like the disingenuous savage I am.
From the original Golf on NES, I moved to the more nuanced NES Open Tournament Golf, Wii Sports golf, Golf Story on Nintendo Switch, and now, Mario Golf on Game Boy Color, thanks to Nintendo Switch Online (or Nintendo Classics or whatever it is now). It’s not that many golf games in the big picture, but I love them all and have spent an unhealthy amount of time with each. Okay, okay, I was wrong about golf games being boring and stupid. Let’s talk about Mario Golf and how it has consumed my limited video game hours these last many weeks.
I started Mario Golf on a whim. I’d just finished Super Mario Bros. Wonder (which may or may not get a blog post of its own, depending on my output) and found myself with just a few minutes to play before bed one evening, and no games in-progress. I heard again and again what a great job Camelot did on Mario Golf, and that it was the inspiration for the ridiculously fun Golf Story (which made my Top 10 Games of 2021), so my curiosity got the better of me and I switched it on, intending to just give myself a little preview. I finally went to bed two hours later. Starting Mario Golf at that juncture was a mistake—I acknowledge that now. However, starting Mario Golf proved to be one of my better decisions in recent memory.
Character creation sticks to the basics: gender, name, dominant hand, and a handful of options for appearance. I also had the choice to play as Mario or Luigi, but with character creation as an option, I passed on my plumber buddies this time. I made a left-handed kid named Brian (how original) and explored the introductory area, Marion Golf Club, talking to the NPCs and getting a feel for the controls via the driving, approach, and putting ranges. I completed some challenges there and received experience points for my trouble. Oh! Experience points? You mean this is an RPG like Golf Story? Oh boy. I watched that XP rack up and knew I wasn’t going to be playing any other games for a while—you know how I am about these golf games, and once RPG elements intertwine with shooting a decent round of golf, there is no hope of another game intervening until I stand victorious at the top of the Video Golf Association™ rankings!
I tried a practice round at Marion Club, and between that and the aforementioned challenges on the range, I found the golfing mechanics are similar to those in NES Open Tournament Golf. To my further delight, the power meter moves a little slower, so I had no trouble keeping my shots powerful and accurate. It was like playing NES Open, but competently! I cruised through my practice round and felt capable enough to enter the club tournament, where I crushed the opposition, including Putts, the club champion. Absolutely no contest. Hm, maybe this quest won’t take as long as I thought, I said to myself with a level of confidence that only comes to me when I’m about to make a complete fool of myself.
After winning the club championship, I found Putts sulking in the club lounge, where he challenged me to a match game. I’m not big on match play, so I accepted with what turned out to be misplaced hesitation, as Putts didn’t stand a chance. Hm, maybe this whole match play thing isn’t as bad as I thought, I said to myself with the same level of confidence as above.
From here, I ventured out from Marion Club into the overworld. Wait, there’s an overworld? Here, I discovered three more golf clubs (Palm Club, Dunes Club, and Links Club), as well as a number of smaller locales featuring golf challenges of one sort or another, like hitting a series of greens in high winds or within a time limit. Every one of these little mini-games dug itself into my obsessive-compulsive core. I couldn’t continue with my life until I beat them—I stayed up late so many nights because of these stupid mini-games. It’s just such a thrill to finally beat them. It reminded me of playing Super Smash Bros. Melee for the first time and trying to beat all the event matches and setting records on the sandbag and how I absolutely could not stop until I beat them. It’s funny how side content can capture my attention so completely. I guess it’s the same formula as sidequests in a traditional roleplaying game, which are equally compelling and distracting.
Moving on with the main quest, I found that much like Marion Club, I didn’t have any trouble at Palm Club, or in my match game with its (now former) champion, Grace. I was so full of myself at this point that I made the mistake of believing Mario Golf would be too easy. Then I visited Dunes Club and promptly ate dirt (or sand, I guess) for four consecutive tournaments. Dunes Club adds a lot more environmental hazards than than the previous two courses. You’d think sand traps might be the big irritant on a golf course named for sand dunes, but no, it’s cacti. Enormous, tree-sized cacti, always strategically placed directly in the way of my shots. For the first time, I had to depend on hooking my shots around obstacles to stay competitive. I also encountered a new type of terrain on this course: wasteland. Um, wasteland? Excuse me? This is a golf course. I bid you good day, sirs!
Anyway, after a lot of trial and error and getting hopelessly hung up in cactus forests, I won the tournament and left Dunes Club in a snooty, privileged huff, never to return. It was the first real challenge of the game (well, outside of some of the mini-games), and it forced me to question whether or not I was actually good at this, or if I had lucked my way through the game thus far. The intensity of the spike in difficulty shocked and insulted me.
Tracking sand all the way back to Marion Club (it gets everywhere, you know), I stormed the club lounge to confront Tiny, the Dunes Club champion, about the crappy conditions of his golf course. His response was to defeat me in four straight match games on my own turf. This dude Tiny is not like Putts or Grace. He’s got an extra 50 yards on his drive, doesn’t make dumb mistakes on his putts, and therefore can capitalize on any mistake I make. I improved with each attempt, but endured more and more defeats. I also leveled up a couple of times in the process, so I put those points into my drive. I wouldn’t be able to match Tiny’s power, but if I could get a little bit closer, I would have more margin for error. Finally, I got him. My greatest, most-short-lived victory yet!
Another couple of mini-games later, I approached my final challenge: the Links Club, where I had just as much trouble as I did at the Dunes Club. Instead of cacti barring my path at any given moment, water hazards and thick patches of heath resulted in far too many bogeys for me to be competitive. It just took a lot of practice for me to figure out this course. I also played this one while I was out sick with a stomach bug, so even if I had played well, I wouldn’t have good memories of my experience here. Four or five tournaments later, I finished in first place and the credits rolled. Hey, I won!
I probably should have stopped there, but I was too obsessed! I had to keep playing. I challenged former Links Club champion, Gene Yuss (oh man, I just got the joke there), to a match game. I knew he was going to be an even greater challenge than Tiny, and yet I persisted. I lost. A lot. Gene drives the ball as far as Tiny, he putts flawlessly, and he chips in his approach shots more often than not. He can almost always eagle a par 5. Really, the only times Gene ever messed up were on his drives, where he’d sometimes put it in the rough or in the trees. I really don’t remember how I beat him, but I did it late at night a couple of days before Christmas, and he really took it hard.
I also unlocked a Princess Peach’s Castle course, where the tournaments are against Mario and the whole Mushroom Kingdom gang. I lost that one badly a couple of times and decided I’d had enough fun with Mario Golf for now. But, I’ll be back one day to win that tournament and finish one last mini-game that gave me too many fits to continue.
That’s Mario Golf! A pleasant diversion turned to obsession real quick. Despite my many losses, I had too much fun with this one. That need for the thrill of victory kept me going through adversity. Well, at least until the post-credits unlockables, but that’s what replay value is for, right? I heard there’s a Game Boy Advance version of this, too. Oh no. I’ll save that for a few years down the road, perhaps, when I’m ready for a golf game to take over my life once again. Highly recommended for fans of golf video games or repetitive torture and misery.
Thanks for reading, and see you next mission!
