Golf It! Review Summary

Last updated: 2025-07-18
  • Highly entertaining multiplayer experience
  • Extensive community-created content
  • Superior mini-golf experience
  • Highly frustrating and unenjoyable
  • Poor and inconsistent controls
  • Inconsistent and buggy physics
Golf It! header

Emotions

What players like:

Common complaints:

Gameplay feedback:

Performance notes:

Recommendations:

Other player notes:

Review evidence

Why players say this

What players like

Highly entertaining multiplayer experience: Players consistently praise the game for its high entertainment value, especially when played with friends. The chaotic and competitive nature of multiplayer leads to frequent laughter, memorable moments, and a unique social experience, often humorously described as 'friendship-ruining'.

Extensive community-created content: The game's integration with the Steam Workshop and its active community are major strengths. The abundance of user-created maps, ranging from creative to chaotic, provides endless replayability and keeps the game fresh, significantly extending its lifespan.

Superior mini-golf experience: Many players consider this game to be the best mini-golf experience available, often comparing it favorably to 'Golf With Your Friends'. They highlight its unique putting mechanics, realistic physics, and overall superior quality as a golf game.

Humorously frustrating and chaotic: The game's design intentionally incorporates elements that lead to humorous frustration and competitive 'rage' among players, especially with features like ball collisions. This chaotic interaction is seen as a core part of the fun and entertainment.

Intuitive and deep controls: The game's controls, particularly the mouse-based putting mechanic, are praised for being intuitive, easy to learn, yet offering depth for skill expression and trick shots. The solid physics engine contributes to a satisfying and engaging gameplay experience.

Common complaints

Highly frustrating and unenjoyable: Many players find the game to be an overwhelmingly frustrating and unenjoyable experience, often leading to anger and even impacting friendships. This sentiment is exacerbated by comparisons to other mini-golf games, which are often preferred.

Poor and inconsistent controls: The game's controls, particularly for putting and shot power, are widely criticized as awkward, inconsistent, and difficult to master. This leads to a lack of precision and contributes significantly to player frustration.

Inconsistent and buggy physics: The game's physics, especially concerning ball behavior and interactions, are frequently described as inconsistent, unrealistic, and buggy. This unpredictability undermines fair play and adds to player frustration.

Multiplayer and solo play issues: The game struggles with a low player count, making it difficult to find online matches. This, combined with issues in setting up multiplayer games and a perceived lack of fun in solo play, severely limits its appeal.

Mediocre and limited maps: Players report that the official maps are mediocre, poorly designed, and lack variety, quickly leading to boredom. The game heavily relies on user-created maps, which can also be problematic due to 'troll' designs and bugs.

Gameplay and performance

Extensive Map Creation & Sharing: The game offers extensive map creation tools, allowing players to design and customize their own courses. These user-generated maps, along with official ones, are easily shared and accessed via the Steam Workshop, providing a vast and ever-growing library of content that significantly enhances replayability.

Arcade Mini-Golf Gameplay: This is an arcade-style mini-golf game, focusing on casual, fun gameplay rather than realistic simulation. The core mechanic involves hitting a ball into a hole using a unique mouse-based putting system, often on imaginative and obstacle-filled courses.

Strong Multiplayer Focus: The game strongly emphasizes multiplayer, supporting up to 8 players simultaneously, with some modes allowing even more. While a single-player option exists, the game's design and community feedback highlight its strength as a social experience.

Unique Mouse-Based Controls: The game features a unique and intuitive mouse-based control scheme for putting. Instead of a traditional power bar, shot strength is determined by the speed and distance of mouse movement, offering a more skill-based and precise hitting mechanic.

Toggleable Ball Collision: The game includes a toggleable collision feature, allowing players to either hit each other's balls for competitive or mischievous fun, or disable it for a more straightforward game. This adds a strategic and social layer to gameplay.

Inconsistent performance issues: Player experiences with performance are highly inconsistent. Some report stable FPS and smooth optimization, while others encounter significant stuttering, massive FPS drops, and even unplayable lag, particularly in VR or on devices like the Steam Deck.

Low system requirements: While many players report the game runs well on low-end PCs, there are specific instances where it fails on very old or minimal hardware (e.g., 2GB RAM, GT520). This suggests it's not universally compatible with all 'potato' PCs.

Minimal game-breaking bugs: Most players report that the game has few bugs, and those present are generally not game-breaking. This indicates a relatively stable experience in terms of software defects.

Fast loading times: Players appreciate the very short loading times, especially when starting a new match. This contributes to a smoother and more fluid gameplay experience.

Limited platform/controller support: The game lacks native support for Linux, which can be a barrier for some users. Additionally, controller support is reported as poor, impacting the experience for players who prefer gamepads.

Recommendations

Highly Recommended for Friends: The game is highly recommended, especially when played with friends, for a fun and social experience. Many players consider it a must-buy, particularly if on sale, and prefer it over other mini-golf games.

Strong Positive Player Ratings: Player ratings for the game are overwhelmingly positive, with many reviewers giving it high scores (e.g., 10/10, 9/10). This indicates a strong overall satisfaction with the game.

Good Value on Sale: The game is considered a good value, especially when purchased on sale. Many players recommend waiting for a discount to buy it.

Utilize Custom Workshop Maps: Players highly recommend exploring and playing custom maps available through the workshop, as they significantly enhance the game's replayability and content.

Best Enjoyed Casually: Players emphasize that the game is best enjoyed casually, focusing on fun rather than intense competition. It's recommended for those who can manage their frustration.

Other review notes

Compared to 'Golf With Your Friends': Many players compare this game to 'Golf With Your Friends', noting differences in price, size, and overall vibe. Some prefer 'Golf With Your Friends' or even real-life mini-golf, while others see this game as a viable alternative.

Requires patience and dedication: Mastering the game requires significant patience and dedication. Players need to invest time to improve their skills and technique.

Popularized by YouTubers: A significant portion of the player base, and the game's popularity, is attributed to specific YouTubers like Willyrex and Fargan, who likely promoted the game.

Suggestions for new features: Players have suggested new features like volleyball-related elements, drone assistance for shot correction, and adjustable ball weight for more precise control.

Suitable for all ages: The game is considered suitable for a wide range of ages, from children and teenagers to adults and even grandmas, indicating broad appeal.