Kirby’s Dream Course (1995)
I know you all think of me as a sporting God, and I can’t deny that. But golf is the one big cheese jolly boy’s club that they’ve never allowed me into. A good walk spoiled? Maybe that’s golf for regular people. But for me, it doesn’t just spoil my walk. My whole day, week, millennium, goes down the drain. I’m telling you, I have never been so angry at anything in my whole life than I have been at golf.
Taking inspiration from Happy Gilmore, and probably many others like him, I was able to launch my pitchers and putters farther than I could hit the bloody ball with them. I have been told that I once almost took out a groundsman with my flung sand wedge. You had to watch your heads when Burkey took to the course; I wasn’t shouting “Fore!” to warn people of beautifully struck balls, put it that way.
Actually, truth be told, I’ve never played a full round of golf on a regulation size course. Do you honestly think they’d have me? Pitch and putt and Crazy Golf are about my limit. And since I can’t pitch a golf ball off the ground without smacking my own shins first, what makes you think I could properly use a driver?
Hit the thing 350 yards down the fairway? Around the trees and hills? Are you mad?! Well, maybe I was mad, because I recently went to a driving range, optimistic and upbeat (like many millions of naïve would-be golfers) that I was going to succeed at this most manly endeavour.
I confidently strode to the enclosed cubicle and took one of about 900 balls from my full-to-bursting bucket. My eyes narrowed to slits, and my heartbeat slowed right down as I sharply exhaled, focusing fully on the task at hand. A sudden hush enveloped the driving range, almost as if the dew-laden dusk was beginning to swallow the noise around me.
All eyes were on me, and the range was at my mercy. No problem. With a commanding grip of my rented driver in one hand, I heroically placed the first lucky ball down onto the tee and adjusted my gait. Like all the great golfing pros, I took some practice swings, but did I really need them?
I knew, almost from the moment I gripped the driver and cast a momentary look at the balls I would be striking, I knew that each one I blessed with my club would run that gorgeous pantheon between pace, power and placement. Therefore I had nothing to worry about, as I finally stepped into position, arched my shoulders, pulled my rippling arms back and followed through.
In truth, I already knew what was going to happen next. But I was still fairly surprised when I smashed the ball full force, only for it to rebound off the ceiling and nearly brain-damage three or four players alongside me. With any luck, the other players would have just heard me perform a minor miracle; seemingly hitting a ball seven times in a single stroke.
The next ball I hit thankfully did cross the threshold and made it to the grass, but only just; I hammered the damn thing with all my might (which is considerable, please believe me). I was expecting to hear that wonderful, dull ‘thunk’ sound that true golfers live for. It’s the sound that confirms that you haven’t just shanked the thing in front of everybody and made yourself look like a pilchard.
Shanked it I did, and a pilchard I looked, as Ball #2 sort of miserably dribbled over the edge. Never destined to hit any of the targets hundreds of yards away, and certainly not set to trouble the sleep of any budding professionals alongside me. I need hardly tell you that Ball #3, #4, #5, #6 and #8 suffered the same fate – I accidentally dropped #7 off the edge before I could hit it, where it ended up going a yard or two further than my previous efforts.
For just a fleeting few seconds before I started though, I thought that this would finally be the turning point where I could pick up a golf club and hit a ball, without the ball going haywire, my temper going haywire, or my playing partner going haywire. Alas, it’s like that Talking Heads song – same as it ever was.
When my massive bucket ran out of balls, I was unique among the rest of the players in that I was actually relieved, feeling lucky to have gotten out of there with my life and most of my face left intact.
As for the other players, now left dead or dying in various contorted states, I can only say that they knew the risks when I took the driver in my hand and they came within 100 metres of me. Golf is a dangerous game, didn’t you know? I could only go home defeated and deflated once again, knowing that the gentlemanly game was forever going to elude me.
But my silly knack for optimism was once again renewed when I heard of Kirby’s Dream Course, a Kirby golf game for the Super Nintendo and re-released for the SNES Classic, featuring the little pink blob himself as your golf ball. And no visible golf clubs to throw into the skies either, which was important for me.
In my language, the word ‘golf’ means face-smashingly difficult – but the word ‘Kirby’ means incredibly easy, so surely I could get to grips with this one. Surely I could plough on through this game, and end up with a scorecard that didn’t resemble basketball scores. How hard could it really be?
Need I even ask? Obviously, I found this game about as easy to deal with as wearing those silly golf jumpers. At least when I get onto the pitch-and -putt course or play Crazy Golf against the missus, maybe one out of every twenty strokes of mine is a peach.
It’s those rare, fleeting diamonds in the rough (little golf pun for you there) that root the golfing addiction in your head that keeps you coming back for more, just to see if you can recapture that magic more consistently.
But I can’t say I ever once felt in control of Kirby’s Dream Course, nor did I ever get a real handle on what to do. More to the point however, I know I’m not alone in this. This is not a well made game. It has a steep difficulty curve, which is fine, but just when you think you have it figured out, the rules change and suddenly you’re left looking foolish.
The best is when you run out of strokes, which happens depressingly quickly, and then Kirby gets tired and calls it a day. It’s Game Over, you have wasted your time and money, and you will never be seen on this particular course again. Which, come to think of it, probably makes it the most realistic golfing simulator of all time, at least as far as I’m concerned.
But have you stopped to consider that sitting down and playing golf on your old Super Nintendo is a bit, shall we say, depressing? A work colleague once told me of their college days spent playing 8-player Tiger Woods PGA for PlayStation 2 with seven pals. They’d sit and wait patiently for their turn, probably wearing their golf jumpers. And I’m not saying whether they did or didn’t practice their golf swings in between turns.
Just hearing the depressing image of this made me want to take up a hard drug habit that very night, or go and gamble my life savings at the casino - anything to redress that equilibrium and bring some fun back to my life. Listen, the Golf game on Wii Sports ensured that you will never have to touch another golf game ever again.
Until then, I think I’d genuinely have more fun going out there slicing balls and throwing my golf sticks at low-flying birds. I couldn’t stand a realistic golf sim like Tiger Woods PGA, let alone a spiteful, short-lived dash of colour with Kirby bolted onto the front.
But I may be writing Kirby’s Dream Course off too soon. You see, a Super Nintendo cartridge is a far larger object than a golf ball. If I were to swing a Callaway driver at the cartridge with all my might, which I would sorely love to, surely even I, the world’s worst golfer, could get it further than three feet…?
5 September 2025