DodgyPutter:
The following is a history mainly of the tiers in wgt. This may not be the very beginning but I'm using it as the start of this.
05 Oct 2008
A little over two years ago, a small team of us embarked on a simple idea—allow people to play world-famous golf courses online and feel as though they are really there. It didn't matter that it hadn't been done before, or that most people thought it was impossible.
ABSOLUTELY monstrous LIES!!!(at least partly...as it concerns not the online thing)
1995 or 1996 can't remember exactly the year, i was playing Pebble Beach and The K Ireland Club + a dozen more courses (mostly European) on my brothers laptop via CD. The courses were real pics and not CGI. REAL pics of the courses!! Of course back then, there wasn't any option of changing resolution etc.
As for the avatars:
The most famous players had given their permission to the game to use their faces and body parameters. There were 2 categories. European and American players. Nick Faldo was there, Bernand Langer was there, Ballesteros was there, another famous Swedish guy which i don't remember his name right now was there and of course my beloved Colin Montgomery (which i was picking all the time) was there too.
Freddy Couples and a bunch of Americans were there too...
Of course, there were no magic balls or clubs and either you had to pay for balls all the time. Every player had certain caratteristics: Driving range (Colin was on top), approach and putting ability and accuracy. According to these abilities, you could choose to do your rounds with any player you picked.
The game play was exactly the same as WGT + the fact that the avatar movement was close to the real player's movement. You could notice the differences easily. Inside the greens there were grids (but to be honest, i don't remember dots, but something like arrows which were indicating the break).
I remember playing it on a laptop over a year using left and right buttons (instead of a mouse...what a moron!!) till i broke them both!!!
PS
Thank you DP for the post!!