World Class Leader Board was often referred to as simply Leader Board. This is an early golfing game that was actually a predecessor to the Links series, which was very long running. Both games were developed by Access Software Incorporated, and World Class Leader Board was also published by this company. It was released for play in the late eighties and was ported to almost every major format available at the time, including the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amiga and Apple II.
It was also available on the home system running MS-DOS. Aside from an actual golf game, World Class Leader Board also features a construction set and a greens and course editor.
World Class Leader Board offers some simulated play of real golf courses, such as St. Andrews. There are also a number of fictitious links to try out. If those are not satisfactory to you, as mentioned above, you can tweak courses already created to make them more to your liking or you can build your own from scratch. The available courses are interesting and varied and offer a range of obstacles, such as bunkers, sand traps and water hazards. The sizes and shapes of the greens are
all different. The mainstays, as far as game play, include snap, power, and accurately judging wind speed and direction to help control your shot. These are also affected by the difficulty settings that the user selects for the game. Wind conditions are not a factor in the easier settings, and the golfer will only have to aim and shoot. Harder settings, however, will take more factors into consideration, making it more complex.
One of the coolest things about World Class Leader Board, especially for the time of its initial release, was its use of sound to add depth to the game. There are real voiced sound bytes from announcers that add a bit of sarcasm or perspective to your shots. Things such as: “No doubt about it, he’s deep in the sandtrap;” or “Looks like he hit the tree, Jim;” are clever and fun…and true…if that is what you are hearing. The running commentary on all of your shots is a nice added element.
Overall World Class Leader Board definitely deserves some props for being a forerunner to a mountain of good golfing games, most notably the Links series. It has some nice variations and will provide an ample amount of fun for the classic sports gamer.
