Golf Games for Android, From St Andrews to Mars

The golf game we would put on an Android phone first costs 99 cents. OK Golf from Playdigious is a single purchase, Google Play shows no adverts and no in-app purchases on it, and the store tags it as an offline game. It is ₹49.99 in India and ₦240 in Nigeria.

Flick Golf Extreme and Coffee Golf cost nothing and carry the same Offline tag, with adverts. Golf Clash and PGA TOUR Golf Shootout have the real courses and are free too, but both listings say they need a connection.

Eleven of the sixteen games here are free with adverts and in-app purchases, and the other five are sold once. Google Play rates all sixteen Everyone in the US. “Tagged offline” below means Google Play attaches its Offline tag to the listing, and where the developer says it in the description, we say that.

Closest to real golf

Golf Clash, PGA TOUR Golf Shootout and Golf Rival are free, online and built around collecting and upgrading clubs.

Golf Clash is now published by Electronic Arts. The listing names Pebble Beach, East Lake and St Andrews Links among its courses, and offers one-against-one matches and solo Quick 9 tournaments. It requires an internet connection, so it will not play offline.

PGA TOUR Golf Shootout, from Concrete Software, calls itself the only officially licensed PGA TOUR golf game. It has TPC Sawgrass and TPC Scottsdale among more than 120 holes, 88 clubs to collect and a single-player mode, and it also needs a connection.

Golf Rival from Zynga is real-time duels across more than 600 courses. It does not state its connection needs, but it is built on live matches. Google Play’s rating details say the purchases in all three include random items.

For the way shots behave, Golf Dreams from Golf Dreams AB is the nearest to real golf of the offline-tagged games, with wind, lie, spin, draws and fades. Its description is mostly about matches against other people, so try it with your connection off before relying on the tag.

Big Tournament Golf ACA NEOGEO is SNK’s own re-release of its 1996 Neo Geo golf game, with six golfers, stroke play and two-player match play. Anyone looking for Neo Turf Masters should look here: no game of that name turns up on Google Play, and Nintendo’s store address for the same release still has neo-turf-masters in it. The listing recommends Android 14 or later, so check your phone before paying. It does not state a connection.

Mini golf, with or without other people

OK Golf has no clubs to choose. “It’s not real golf, but it’s OK!” is how the listing opens, which is fair. You aim, drag and release, on small courses modelled on famous golfing places, and the listing promises that one payment covers every course added later.

Alone, take Vista Golf from Shallot Games, with three new 18-hole courses each week and an endless mode. My Golf 3D from iWare Designs has 36 holes across four settings, and you can practise alone, play computer opponents or pass the phone between up to four people. Google Play tags both as offline.

With friends, take Golf Battle from Miniclip, mini golf for up to six people at once on more than 120 courses. It needs the internet, and its purchases include random items too.

Mini Golf 3D City Stars Arcade does not turn up under that name. The closest listing is Mini Golf 3D Multiplayer Rival from Mobile Sports Time, which describes itself as a multiplayer and offline game in one.

Golf that barely counts as golf

Desert Golfing from Captain Games is one endless 2D desert, and its whole listing is a four-line poem under the summary “Golfing in an Endless Desert”. Golf On Mars is the same idea from the same maker and has more to say for itself: the listing puts the number of holes at roughly 25,770,000,000 and adds that this is not a realistic simulation. Google Play tags both as offline.

Golf Peaks, from Afterburn, is a puzzle more than a sport. Each stage hands you a set of cards that stand for strokes, and you choose which to play and in which direction. There are more than 120 levels, and the listing says no understanding of golf is required. It does not state a connection.

Flick Golf Extreme from Full Fat is arcade golf in which you tee off from the Grand Canyon, icebergs and helicopters. Coffee Golf from Shallot Games is one new course a day, five holes to sink in any order in as few strokes as you can, small by design. Google Play tags both as offline.

In Noodlecake’s Super Flappy Golf you flap a bird to the hole across 40 courses, and the description says single player works offline. Golf Blitz is four players racing to the hole in real time, and requires a network connection. Noodlecake describes it as the race mode of its Super Stickman Golf series turned into a game of its own. Super Stickman Golf 3 has gone from Google Play, though the first two games in the series are still listed.

The five you pay for once

Google Play shows neither “Contains ads” nor “In-app purchases” on any of these, so they are the ones with no adverts.

The listings for OK Golf, Desert Golfing and Golf Peaks also say they are free with a Google Play Pass subscription.

Other sports and driving games have their own pages: NFL football games for Android and offline car racing games.