Tag Archives: Commodore 64

Leader Board golf computer game by Access

The Incredibly Convenient Little Islands of Leader Board Golf

Leader Board golf, created by Bruce and Roger Carver of Access Software, is one of the premiere computer golf games of all time. Sure, golf on the computer would advance vastly in the years since Leader Board‘s release in 1986… the Carver brothers themselves would continue to revolutionize computer links with, well, Links in 1990.

But Leader Board continues to fascinate. It had an amazing feel on the Commodore 64… the ball flew through the air and bounced onto the fairways (or bunkers, drat them!) with a kind of uncanny realism for the time, and the swing of the golfer seems as smooth and human as the titular prince in Broderbund’s Prince of Persia. But of all the endearing qualities of Leader Board, my favourite has to be the weird glitch that happens when you stroke a ball that lands at the edge of the many water hazards in the game. Instead of plunking you in the water and adding a stroke to your score, when the graphics are redrawn to your new position on the fairway, suddenly you find that your ball has miraculously landed on one tiny little island in the water! When I played with friends, when this happened we would invariably let out with a “Whew! Good thing the ball just happened to land on that tiny island!”

The incredibly convenient little islands of Leader Board golf. Totally ridiculous… but also immensely charming. This video is my ode to one of the goofiest, and greatest, game glitches of all time. Of course, since I’m playing golf, I let off a few choice words at the end, so you’ll have to click on the “link” in the embed to watch it.