Table Golf Association Board Game Review

Table Golf Association Board Game Review

Table Golf Association (TGA) Board Game
Grade: A
Teachers’ Comments: A fun game that nicely intersects with my two obsessions: golf and tabletop games.

Company Website

Current Kickstarter

When I’m not playing golf for recreation, I’m playing what are known as “hobby” tabletop games, RPGs and tabletop miniature wargames. It is a niche hobbies, but some of the games, such as Dungeons and Dragons, Catan, Magic: The Gathering, Ticket To Ride and Warhammer 40k have leaked into the general consciousness.

I played my first such game in 1974: a game from the Avalon Hill Game Company called “Panzer Leader.”

TGA falls into a category of tabletop games known as “dexterity games.” Rather than strategizing about moving pieces or playing cards, “dexterity games” ask a player to flick, poke, or otherwise dexteriously manipulate objects to best their opponents.

Tiddlywinks is a tabletop dexterity game. So are Crokinole, Carroms, pick-up-sticks and Jenga. Some more “hobby” level dexterity games are Pitch Car, Rhino Hero and Kabuto Sumo (although a great many argue that Crokinole also is a hobby level game).

In the case of Table Golf Association, players must use their fingers and occasionally other digits to flick a small puck down a fairway constructed from hex tiles. Players can construct their own imaginative holes, use the pre-designed ones in the rules book or model one after a real world design.

Table Golf Association’s “Pro Edition” has a twenty-five, five-inch, double-sided illustrated wood hex tiles. The printing on the tiles is colorful and — importantly — smooth. I had fun just laying out tiles to see what kind of designs I could create. The tiles represent tee boxes, clear fairways, bunkers, slopes water and trees.

Everything about the Pro Edition is very high quality.

After constructing golf holes, players use their fingers to flick a small plastic puck with a ball bearing in the center across the board. If a shot lands in the rough, the player makes their next shot with their non-dominant hand. Shots in the sand must be extricated with the thumb of the non-dominant hand. Shots from the trees are limited by the rules as to how far the ball can travel forward.

A weather die and spinner can be used to more realistically model golf shots. There also are ways to simulate a draw or fade.

TGA also has “Pro” cards, which add some character to the game and allow players to break the rules in specific ways. In the gaming world, these are known as “asymetric powers.”

From a gamer perspective, there are some things I wish the game included. First is some sort of way to “gamify” the construction of the course – to make that experience part of the game. The second is a level up or legacy mode as with some golf video games, where winning a hole confers various benefits, such as mulligan tokens, or sponsorship and apparel cards. I have some ideas about these, but won’t bore my golf readers.

What my golf readers need to know is that Table Golf Association is quite a bit of fun. With a group of players — even those who are not golfers — the game is a hoot and really easy to get into, with jeers for poor shots, and cheers for good ones.

Recommended.