A Round With the Golden Bear

Golf, which only a few die-hards would ever really class among spectator sports, has gotten a lot more interesting with Accolade’s new “Signature Edition” of “Jack Nicklaus Golf & Course Design.”

This simulation is a great improvement over the company’s earlier Nicklaus programs, which were pretty much aced out a while back with the introduction of Origin’s skillful, beautiful and wildly successful “Links” series. This is no breakthrough game as “Links” was.

But “Signature Edition Nicklaus” is a worthy update, and it could spark a great new round of game-designing competition.

The game features graphic representations of two real courses: Sherman Country Club in Thousand Oaks and English Turn Golf Club in New Orleans. You play them by yourself or with other players that you can create or that the computer creates. You select your clubs, judge the wind and, using the keyboard, take your best shots. The program lets you play each hole from any spot along the way. The gamemakers promise new courses in the future.

The graphics of “Signature Edition Nicklaus” are still not quite as good-looking as in “Links,” but they are more than acceptable.

And on the plus side, the “Nicklaus” program draws and paints each scene much, much faster.

But what is really fun--and in many ways even more challenging--is the course-design part of the program. It’s a simple landscape architecture program that lets you layout, landscape and build your own golf courses. The game provides the raw land, but you add everything else. And then you can play your own course.

Nicklaus

Rating: ****

IBM & compatibles; 640K; VGA. List: $69.95

Computer games are rated on a five-star system, from one star for poor to five for excellent.