EA Sports has provided virtual golfers with Season 3 of PGA Tour Road to the Masters in preparation for the US Open this weekend. With Patch Notes 4.0 comes a monstrous number of changes and improvements to the game.
Most notable were the improvements carried out on the swinging mechanics and aesthetics. The other significant change was that EA added another golf course to the game. Here I’ll be listing all of the changes made that make EA Sports PGA Tour feel almost like a brand new golfing title.
EA Sports PGA Tour Gameplay Update Table of Contents
Road to the Masters General Updates Table of Contents:
- General Updates
- Online
- Challenges
- Settings
- Audio Improvements
- All Courses Updated in PGA Tour
- EA Sports PGA Tour Pro Golfers Update
- Outfits & Gear
- General Stability Issues Looked At & Amended
- Big Branding Changes
- User Interface
- PC Support
- Store & Content
Gameplay Indicators
- New notchless Swing Meter style & visual that replaces the old style (can be reverted in the menu)
- Improvements made to ball visibility while flying in bright skies
- An update was made to the aiming arc that indicates collision and obstacles in the path of the arc of the ball
Gameplay Physics
- Course-specific ball flight physics improved
- Minor improvements made to ball rolling physics
Gameplay Animation
- Fixes made to frozen swing animation in ball address mode
- In some cases where the golfer got stuck in a continuous shuffle was fixed
Gameplay Cameras:
- They’ve addressed the camera obstruction and issues
- Fix drop ball camera positioning for left-handed golfers
Gameplay HUD
- Fixes made to in-game drop-down text when displaying the incorrect message
- The ball flight graph not being updated when the ball flight is skipped has been fixed
Gameplay Misc
- Improved AI golfer’s ability to make short putts
- Fixed for rare occurrences that could incorrectly place the golfer under tournament structures for their next shot
- Fixed for the ball being visible in practice state after a hole flyover is viewed while the golfer is in practice state
General Updates Made to Road to the Masters
With the general updates made in PGA Tour come most of the big and noticeable changes. There were improvements made to the visuals, different game modes, golf courses, and more.
Here are the major improvements and fixes made to EA Sports PGA Tour:
General Updates
- Visual improvements made (aiming arc, online ball trails, and putt read line),
- Fixes were made to the flat edges sometimes being displayed on the shot dispersion indicator when aimed on extremely sloped terrain,
- Fixed big hit moments sometimes showing incorrect ball tracer lines near where the ball is hit,
- Course-specific ball flight physics has been updated and altitude information has been added to the course select screen,
- Bug fixes and fixes to crashing issue in Career was carried out, and
- David Lingmerth’s flag changes from the USA flag to the Sweden flag.
Online
- They have permanently disabled golfer reaction NIS in online gameplay in order to speed up play for all players (very in favor of this change, makes a lot more time for golfing),
- Fixed the softlock issue during online gameplay if player expires their hole timer while using the “Fast Play” setting, and
- Fixed incorrect order of players in the online in-game scoreboard after a player quits or disconnects during a round.
Challenges
- Crowd members obstructing the golfer in the first shot of some challenges have been addressed, and
- Added animation to challenge banner shown after holing out.
Settings
- Fix for some visual settings not being saved persistently unless the save button was pressed multiple times, and
- Fix for putting grid settings not updating when changed during active gameplay.
Audio Improvements
- Many commentary improvements were made,
- St. Andrews’s ambiance has been enhanced by adding additional bird and background sounds, and
- A fix to the crowd sometimes not applauding short putts was made.
All Courses Updated in PGA Tour
Course-specific and tournament-specific items, visuals, and course obstructions at certain holes have been updated in the game. Here is a list of the golf courses updated on the Road to the Masters:
- Chambers Bay
- East Lake
- Lighthouse Pointe
- Oak Hill: Fix tee marker placement
- Pebble Beach: Add collision to bushes on the right side of hole 3
- Teeth of the Dog
- TPC Scottsdale
- Quail Hollow
- Wilmington Country Club
EA Sports PGA Tour Pro Golfers Update
It’s rather disappointing that the golfers’ update has still not included any new names. You have to ask the question will we ever see. However, it’s great to see the updates made to the existing pros in the game.
Related: All EA Sports PGA Tour – Road to the Masters Pro Golfers Listed
Here are the updates that were made to the pro golfers in EA Sports PGA Tour:
- Scottie Scheffler’s head model,
- Dustin Johnson’s batting gloves were updated to Taylormade gloves,
- Xander Schauffele’s batting gloves were updated to use Callaway gloves, and
- Jessica Korda’s outfits and logos were all updated to current.
Outfits & Gear
- Fixed texture clipping on EA SPORTS V-Neck polos,
- Fixed some instances where the golfer’s hand was clipping through the glove, and
- Fixed golfer hair clipping with a hat for a few seconds when entering gameplay using low visual settings, and
- EA has brightened the texture on the “EA SPORTS – White” ball making the branding more visible.
General Stability Issues Looked At & Amended
- Softlock caused by exiting gameplay quickly after entering a round and softlock occurring if the “Sharing Options” popup and “hold to skip” in specific instances have been fixed.
- [PS5 only fix for starting an activity from within the EIS resulting in being unable to enter Quick Play without restarting the game.
Big Branding Changes Made
- Structures,
- Outfits,
- Wipes, etc.,
- The game has been updated to use the latest U.S. Open logo,
- Updated The Open logo on pin flags. Ensure the loading screen for Augusta National always shows the Masters Trophy instead of the seasonal trophy,
- Wells Fargo Championship updated to use a one-color white logo, and
- The FedEx St. Jude Championship was updated to use a one-color white logo.
User Interface
The UI received some of the most improvements and changes with EA’s Patch Note 4.0. These include updates to the different game mode settings, challenges, outfits, managing golfers’ options, and plenty more. Updates were made to the following for a better UI experience:
- Career,
- Challenges,
- Equipment,
- Leaderboards,
- Manage Golfers (Unable to delete multiple golfers without leaving and reentering the screen to refresh the list of golfers),
- Online Mode,
- Outfits,
- Private Match,
- Quick Play,
- Setting changes error in-game seen to,
- Store (Visual improvements made when visiting the store),
- Tooltips got a full redesign and update of gameplay onboarding tooltips, and
- Tournaments: Update rewards pop-up to display a score of 0 as “E”.
PC Support
- Fixed double input being recorded on store pages when using mouse input to dismiss an error popup,
- Fixed players being able to access locked challenge tiles by using mouse input to click the “Select” button prompt, and
- Fixes to various screens and gameplay HUD elements to scale correctly and achieve better support for wide-screen monitors were carried out.
Store & Content
Happy to see some of the store changes made and new Signature Series specs added from other pros. Additionally happy that EA will continue to add more throughout.
- New specs can be earned through weekly quests, weekly tournaments, and seasonal tournaments,
- Command Series: Improves Power and Control attributes,
- Escape Series: Improves Accuracy and Recovery attributes,
- New Signature Series specs of Patrick Cantlay, Tony Finau, Jessica Korda, and Lexi Thompson, and
- Most excited about the additional cosmetic content that has been added and will be added to the store.
For a list and detailed description of all the errors addressed, issues solved, and extra content added to EA Sports PGA Tour Road to the Masters, you can check out their Patch Note 4.0 Season 3 update on: EA.com
Going to put the PS5 on now and test out the new “notchless” Swing Meter and eager to test out the new golf course added to the game. Have a look at all of the golf courses that you can play on in EA Sports PGA Tour.
