Golf Sim Clubhouse Forum

I was doing some Google searching on JNSE early last week (I think to see what versions of JNSE might have been published) and I came across the Moby Games site that had a page that listed all of the games in the Jack Nicklaus series. I noticed one version I had not heard of or seen before called "Jack Nicklaus Golf & Course Design: Signature Edition CD Compendium".

Thankfully the page also had a tab to click on some cover art and I noticed this version indicated it had 16 courses. I thought we had gotten gypped since I had only seen original versions of JNSE that came with English Turn and Sherwood, or Jack Nicklaus: The Tour Collection which had JNSE and the Signature Tour Vol. 1 (Muirfield and Muirfield Village) and Signature Tour Vol. 2 (2 design contest winner courses) at some point in stores. However, some cover art of the back of the packaging and the main page for this item shows it was published by Accolade's European division.

The main page also listed the additional courses on the CD. It turns out the additional 10 courses are ones from the course disks from Jack Nicklaus Greatest 18 Holes of Major Championship Golf. The courses are as follows:
Australian Golf Club (International Course Disk)
Baltusrol Golf Club (Greatest Courses of U.S. Open)
Crooked Stick Golf Club (Major Championship Courses of 1991)
Hazeltine National Golf Club (Major Championship Courses of 1991)
Kemper Lakes Golf Club (Major Championship Courses of 1989)
Medinah Country Club (Major Championship Courses of 1990)
Oak Hill Country Club (Major Championship Courses of 1989)
St. Creek Golf Club (International Course Disk)
St. Mellion Golf & Country Club (International Course Disk)
Royal Troon Golf Club (Major Championship Courses of 1989)

I did a search on this title and found a few copies on 1 French website and 2 German websites (one of them being German Amazon) and either the cost for shipping or the cost of the CD itself was cost prohibitive from the amount of enjoyment I thought I would receive. Thankfully I found a copy on a site called abandonware-france.org. It also came with a 17th course called Lorimar Resort. (I don't know where this course is located as it listed an architect I could not find on Google.) I thought finding a freebie was a big score!

While it sounds great that I found the "extra courses", in my research I had found all of the courses listed except Kemper Lakes (which I was looking for because at the time it hosted the PGA in 1989 it was the closest major to me in Wisconsin). Furthermore, when I played this course it had no files for 256 colors (or that didn't download as part of the abandonware) so it was like someone plugged the Greatest 18 version into a master copy of Jack Nicklaus Unlimited Golf & Design and just saved it in that format as it would be compatible with JNSE. In addition the course (and others I have played with the same issue) just looked like fancy links courses. (I did solve this problem by copying the missing files from another course that I thought would have a similar background for the holes.) Knowing designers disdain for Accolade original versions of courses I set the bar low and haven't been disappointed as a result. I've only gotten through about four of the courses so far (along with the extra Lorimar Resort course) so it will be interesting to check the others out.

I never realized there were that many versions. There was nothing that I recall that indicated I had the Tour Collection on the version that came with my computer but I must have had it because I had those courses. At some point I'm going to buy a physical copy of JNSE off ebay just for nostalgia reasons, now I'll have to watch for which version to get. I say that about a lot of things though, like getting a computer similar to the Aptiva we had back then, and getting the old Intellivision console we had, but I still haven't gotten any of them. Part of me feels like it wouldn't be quite the same since it won't be the actual ones I had, the other part just doesn't have time.

If you want to upload those additional courses from the Compendium, we can host them here. No rush though. I haven't heard anything from Fred and haven't asked either because I've been crazy busy with work lately (in a good way though) and wouldn't have had time to do anything with it even if he did have it ready. So unfortunately it will be a while before we have a site for JNSE yet.

Thanks for the response Brian.

From what I can find on eBay, Amazon, etc. it looks like the game was sold individually with the design program, English Turn and Sherwood to play back in 1992. Within the first year or two Signature Tour Vol. 1 (Muirfield and Muirfield Village) and Signature Tour Vol. 2 (Bayou Trace and Desert Lakes - 1993 Design contest winners) were released separately for purchase. (All of these were originally on 3 1/2" disk.)

The copyright on the box of the CD version of JNSE that I own is 1995 (I probably purchased it around 1999). I think not long after that the folks at Electronic Arts (which I think purchased the sports titles of older Accolade releases) decided "Hey maybe we can squeeze a little more money out of this if we re-released this" and released Jack Nicklaus: The Tour Collection under the brand "Accolade Sport" that contained all six courses and the design feature. (I had seen it in the stores when it was originally out but since I had the main game already I wasn't sure if I would get my money's worth buying this.)

I don't think JN Greatest 18 ever got released in Europe which is why this Compendium version combining courses from JN Greatest 18 and JNSE was released to sort of "catch up" with everything that had been released in North America.

As for what gets put on this site, my personal opinion is that we should have as many different courses as possible but they should be of reasonable quality. Frankly of the courses I've played I do not have a high opinion of most of them. I will say that I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that it appears they simply plugged the JN Greatest 18 courses into Jack Nicklaus Unlimited Golf & Design (JNUG) as JNUG courses are compatible with JNSE. I will continue to play Kemper Lakes (I sent this one to Fred who plans to spruce it up) because I haven't found that course elsewhere and maybe Hazeltine as that one was pretty good after I go through the courses once. (I did play Medinah #3 twice because I had forgotten I played it once.) Other than Kemper Lakes I have found other versions that were done through the design tool that are better than the versions in the Compendium (the only thing that might have me come back to the Compendium courses is if I feel the designer made courses are too difficult - I had some pretty high scores on a designer Medinah #3 and St. Mellion).

I have been making a few requests of Fred for courses I was looking for. He is fulfilling my request for a Shoal Creek course which is the last one from the JN Greatest 18 disks where I do not have a JNSE version. I plan to make this my last request until he gets everything together for putting things on this website. When I last talked to him about it a while back, he said we would have a very nice catalog of courses out there but he was re-playing courses as he was cataloging them which slowed the process of organizing everything. I gave him a hint today of when I hope this might be available (after Labor Day when the PGA Tour season is over and I don't know what we'll be playing for the PwP Tour) but haven't heard back yet.