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Professional Arcade Golf Gaming Revealed

Posted by simoniker on from the dangerous-trackball-wrist-injuries dept.

Thanks to Sunspot/Chicago Tribune for their article discussing the lives of the top Golden Tee Golf arcade game players, and charting the enduring popularity of the trackball-based golf title, which "players [have] spent $400 million playing" over the past few years. Graig Kinzler, the only current pro Golden Tee Golf player, "says he made about $70,000 last year playing Golden Tee, more than $47,000 in officially sanctioned online tournaments and the rest in live tournaments", and even "works with a sports psychologist to hone his Golden Tee game." The sport is also more expensive than might be reckoned for the hardcore devotee: "20 games a week at $3-$4 per game... is customary - so much so that most of the top players have their own [cabinets] at home."

2 of 24 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Ownership Fee? by BigumD · · Score: 3, Informative

    You have to pay for your online tournament and league games. 75 cents for online league and $1.25 for online tournament.

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  2. More on the GT Phenomenon by BigumD · · Score: 3, Informative
    I'm a pretty avid golden tee player as well. I also consider myself to be a pretty hardcore gamer. I love playing Console and classics, I dual boot linux on my powerbook, I am a card carrying geek :)


    Golden Tee has been around on one hardware platform going on 3 1/2 years now. That's pretty impressive, seeing that the arcade board is powered pretty much by a Voodoo 3000 card (no kidding- you can pull it out and replace it with any replacement PCI V3). The cash the game pulls in is amazing, but the cash it pays out is pretty amazing as well.


    Here is a list of the prizes of the monthly tournaments that are held online (The cabinets are all connected via dialup to a master server. Have been for about 4-5 years). There are also live tournies where a bunch of us dorks hide in a bar for 2 days and play ;) Anyone who's been to a LAN party knows what that's like, and this is just, if not more, fun. EVERYONE at these live tournies is sociable and outgoing. It's a blast.


    More info can be found at www.itsgames.com and www.goldenteeplayers.com

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