EA SPORTS™ PGA TOUR™ News

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Royal Liverpool Golf Club is now available to play in all game modes. In career mode, The Open Championship now alternates every season between Royal Liverpool and St Andrews. Menus, screens, and key art have also been updated to be styled in the Season 4 Open Championship theme. New Challenges will also be released after The Open Championship that recreate key moments from the event.

In addition to these seasonal updates, career mode has been updated to allow you to switch between Quick and Full rounds at the start of each round instead of only at the start of each tournament.

In online mode, matchmaking has been updated to allow additional players to join into a lobby for 60 seconds after initial matchmaking has completed. We’re expecting this change will make it much easier for matches to fill with players and should allow 16 player matches to occur more frequently.

Online mode will also be updated to rotate through new playlists, instead of always offering the current “Random, 9 Holes, Tour”. These playlists will each have a theme and feature a smaller set of random courses along with variations to the course conditions and wind settings. We’ll continue to experiment in this area to add variety and allow opportunities for you to tailor your style of play to match the courses and conditions in the current playlist.

The main menu has been updated with capabilities for displaying dynamic messages, which we'll use to improve our communication with you around important updates such as when patches or new content is released.

Lastly, we are in the final testing stage for two of the most highly requested features: one round tournaments for career mode and turn-based match play for online and private match modes. Both of these features will be included in the next major patch and we will provide more specifics on timing as we get closer to release.

Store & Content:

• New specs can be earned through weekly quests, weekly tournaments, and seasonal tournaments.
  
• Impact Series: Improves Power and Accuracy attributes.
  
• Pathfinder Series: Improves Control and Recovery attributes
  
• New cosmetics will be rotating through the store including:
  
• Callaway 2023 Open Championship Staff Bag.
  
• Scotty Cameron Newport Super Select 2.5 Putter.
  
• Lots of new Nike apparel including a bucket hat.
  

Online:

• Matchmaking has been updated to allow additional players to join into a lobby for 60 seconds after initial matchmaking has completed.
  
• Fix for showing an incorrect yardage on the pin because it wasn’t including elevation in the calculation. Note that this bug only occurred in Online and Private Match gameplay.
  
• Mitigate instances where opponent golfers appear and then quickly disappear.
  

Career:

• Players can now switch between Quick and Full rounds at the start of each round. Additionally, a pop-up has been added to notify you before settings are locked for each round.
  
• Fixed bug that was preventing players from changing their golf bag in the event info screen.
  
• Fixed the Withdraw option not working after requesting an Unplayable Lie.
  

Challenges:

• An indicator has been added to show progress for each challenge star.
  
• Fixed “Long Drive” challenges being inconsistently awarded.
  

Quests:

• An indicator has been added to show progress for each Quest objective.
  
• Fix for not being able to unlock Quests on a hole after using a number of mulligans. Now if mulligans are enabled, Quests will update after you advance to the next shot, instead of immediately updating when the ball stops. If mulligans are disabled, Quests continue to function normally by updating immediately after the ball stops.
  

Cameras:

• Fixed pre-shot cameras sometimes clipping or being occluded by large rocks.
  

Audio:

• Career: Fixed commentary line that mentions potential first win despite the golfer having previous tournament wins.
  
• Fix for main menu and gameplay music overlapping if an invite was accepted while loading into gameplay.
  

Courses:

• Global: Fixed the putting grid being obscured when using the low-view camera on the green.
  
• Global: Fixed tournament structure flags showing reversed logos on the back side of the flag.
  
• Augusta National: Replant Magnolia Lane with brighter flowers and darker soil.
  
• Banff Springs: Added collision to the structures next to the tee box on hole 13.
  
• Evian Resort: Fixed one of the online spectator cameras being obstructed by trees on hole 7.
  
• Kiawah Island: Fixed sand clipping through the retaining wall on hole 12.
  
• Kiawah Island: Update bunker texture on hole 7.
  
• LACC: Move hole 1 tee box location to the practice putting green area near the right side of the clubhouse. Update crowd to the new location and remove golf carts that were previously located there.
  
• Lighthouse Pointe: Fix for tree hit box being too big on the left side of the tee shot for hole 1.
  
• Oak Hill: Fix for tree hit box being too big on the right side of hole 16 near the green.
  
• St Andrews: Fix for seeing buildings pop in and out when using the zoom camera to view the out of bounds area on the right side of hole 18.
  
• The Country Club: Added collision to grandstand on hole 2.
  
• Top of the Rock: Added collision to numerous rocks around the course.
  
• Torrey Pines: Fixed one of the online spectator cameras on holes 9 and 13 viewing the wrong hole.
  
• TPC Sawgrass: Fix floating tree on the right side of hole 15.
  
• TPC Scottsdale: Added collision to the wall on the right side of hole 4.
  
• Wilmington: Removed divots from the hole 17 tee box.
  
• Wolf Creek: Fixed a few shrubs floating above the terrain.
  

Hair:

• Improved hair style rendering in various lighting conditions.
  
• Ponytails now react when colliding with the golf club on a follow through instead of hair clipping through the club.
  
• Fixed Danielle Kang’s hair clipping with her ear and appearing to float above her back.
  
• Fixed the hair tie appearing unnaturally stretched while the golfer is moving.
  

Golfers:

• Updated Patrick Cantlay to have a black, generic bag.
  
• Danielle Kang now wears FootJoy Premiere shoes.
  
• Updated Xander Schauffele, Nelly Korda, and Dustin Johnson to use a white ball instead of gray.
  
• Fix for changing outfits in the event info screen causing Jessica Korda's legs to disappear.
  
• Updated Sungjae Im’s face to be less pale.
  

Outfits & Gear:

• Updated graphics coloring on the TaylorMade 2023 Summer Commemorative Staff Bag.
  
• Fix for the U.S. Open Logo appearing stretched on certain shirts.
  
• Fixed Jordan Speith’s UnderArmour shoes deforming incorrectly when swinging.
  
• Removed the Nike logo that was appearing on some non-Nike shirts in the Main Menu.
  
• Fixed a corrupted texture that appeared on the edge of the brim for a number of hats.
  
• Fixed low-resolution texture appearing on a number of club shafts.
  
• Fixed low-resolution logos appearing on a number of snapback rope hats.
  
• Fix for some gloves being colored differently depending on if they are worn on the right or left hand.
  
• Fixed the 5 not being visible on “TaylorMade TP5 PIX - Bacon and Eggs” golf ball.
  

UI:

• Career: Scaled some of the tournament names correctly so that the text correctly fits inside of the tournament outro leaderboard.
  
• Career: Fixed showing OWGR points instead of statistics when entering the leaderboard via the Statistics tile in the Korn Ferry Career Hub.
  
• Career: Removed “Continue Offline” button from network disconnection pop-up.
  
• Challenges: Fixed some of the challenge sequence descriptions being outside of the viewable screen area to the left.
  
• Equipment: Fix for bag indicator disappearing after using “Equip to All” button.
  
• Equipment: Fixed incorrect text on the “Equip to All” confirmation pop-up for certain items.
  
• Event Info Screen: Fixed navigating to Quests and back out causing a mismatch between the tab selected and which screen is displayed.
  
• Gameplay: Added a description to the bottom of the scorecard screen that explains the basic rules of the current format.
  
• Gameplay: Fixed the “THRU” text in the scorecard being off by one when playing in formats that use match play scoring.
  
• Gameplay: Updated the scorecard layout and design for 2v2 formats like Foursomes and Four-Ball.
  
• Gameplay: Fix for being able to view an empty Shot Types screen when playing offline.
  
• Gameplay: Fixed instances where players were able to continue playing Tournaments, Challenges, or Career mode after experiencing a network disconnection.
  
• Golfer Creation: Fix for being able to exit the golfer creation flow before completing it by quickly navigating in and out of an appearance category.
  
• Main Menu: Updated with capabilities for displaying full screen dynamic messages.
  
• Main Menu: Fix for switching tabs quickly after entering the main menu for the first time causing Scottie Scheffler to be displayed instead of the player’s created golfer.
  
• Main Menu: Fix for golf bag being visible in the main menu after a network disconnect in the select golfer screen.
  
• Main Menu: Removed redundant "Lost Connection" pop-up shown in the main menu if a network disconnect occurred during gameplay.
  
• Main Menu: Fix for seeing sub tabs that require connection remaining visible after a network disconnection.
  
• Outfits: Fixed being able to see an ''Equip to all" button when navigating to a category that doesn’t have any items in it.
  
• Private Match: Fix for still being able to send invites after leaving a session by starting an PS5 Activity.
  
• Quests: Fix for the quests screens being in an unresponsive state if the player viewed quests while a network disconnect occurred.
  
• Quick Play: Fix for no selection being focused when initially entering the Custom Hole Select screen.
  
• Quick Play: Fix for showing incorrect golfers in the event info screen if the player enters Quick Play directly after leaving a Private Match session.
  
• Rewards: Fixed "Equip" button not working on newly unlocked items.
  
• Rewards: Fixed the “Equip” screen having the bag selection and description panel misaligned.
  
• Rewards: Fix for seeing an empty screen if the player disconnects and reconnects to the network while viewing rewards.
  
• Settings: Fixed incorrect image being displayed if the Visual Quality setting was viewed while the game was still installing.
  
• Store: Added “Unisex” icon to store items to clarify which items can be shared between created golfers of different genders.
  
• Store: Updated to hide timers if items are available for more than 7 days.
  
• Store: Fixed icons for some Super Stroke grips that were being displayed backwards.
  
• Store: Fixed seeing duplicate clubs after using “Equip to all” on a newly purchased club shaft.
  
• Store: Fix for main menu tabs disappearing if the player starts a PS5 Activity while in the “Equip to all” screen.
  
• Tournaments: Fixed the reward pop-up sometimes showing the common gray reward pack when the player has earned a different reward pack.
  
• Tournaments: Fix for not being able to open and view the leaderboard for the first tournament viewed after entering Tournaments from the Main Menu.
  
• Tournaments: Fixed the reward tier icons appearing pixelated when viewed in the Event Info Screen.
  

Stability & Performance

• Fixed softlock that occurred if the player experienced a network disconnect in the event info screen and attempted to advance to gameplay.
  
• Fixed softlock that occurred if the player viewed the shot types screen after experiencing a network disconnect.
  
• Fix for losing all tab navigation if a network disconnect was experienced while in gameplay settings.
  
• Fix for accepting an invite or starting a PS5 Activity while in the event info screen causing unexpected behavior such as softlocks or incorrect settings for the next round.
  
• Memory optimizations for various course textures.
  
• Additional crash and stability-related fixes.
  

PC:

• Fix for pressing [`~] key resulting in losing all keyboard input.
  
• Added mouse support to the “Select Loft” screen.
  
• Controller disconnection pop-up was showing an Xbox button hint by default instead of a keyboard button.
  

Accessibility:

• Fixed menu narration incorrectly pronouncing wind directions due to misinterpreting abbreviations.
  

In anticipation of the U.S Women’s Open next week, updates have been made to support a series of challenges which will be released during the tournament.


Plus, we have fixed a bug that caused Career mode leaderboards to show “E” for every golfer during intro and outro sequences, regardless of their actual score. We understand and share in your frustration when an update introduces a new issue like this that wasn’t previously occurring. We remain committed to adding new features to EA SPORTS™ PGA TOUR™ like “Performance Mode”, but we will do our best to do so without compromising the quality of your current experience.


Gameplay:

• “Round Settings” have been added to the scorecard screen, so that settings such as wind speed and course conditions can be referenced while in gameplay.
  

Courses:

• Global: Reduce popping of bushes and tall grass during hole flyovers on a number of courses.
  
• Banff Springs: Reduce shadow popping during hole flyovers.
  
• LACC: Add grandstand behind hole 2 green and remove grandstand behind hole 11 green.
  
• LACC: Fix for missing stairs on the greenside grandstand at hole 14.
  
• LACC: Removed green awnings from the clubhouse.
  
• LACC: Removed all visible mow lines.
  
• LACC: Fix LACC flag on the right side of hole 1 not reacting to wind.
  
• LACC: Fix tree branches clipping through the concrete pillar underneath the bridge at hole 9.
  
• LACC: Replace USGA tee markers with U.S. Open tee markers.
  
• Oak Hill: Fix for shadow popping in bunkers.
  

Golfers:

• Update Jessika Korda’s round 2 and 3 outfits.
  

Branding:

• Fix for the "Dominican Open" tournament in Career mode showing "The Players" branding.
  
• Update logo on U.S. Open ball marker to be more clearly visible.
  
• Update caddie bibs to use the latest U.S. Open logo.
  
• Update images in the store on some gear to use the latest U.S. Open logo.
  

UI:

• Event Info Screen now displays Gameplay Style and Swing Mechanic for the upcoming round.
  
• Equipment: Backing out of the select loft screen will now display specs for the selected type of club instead of always displaying specs for fairway woods.
  
• Quests: Fix for "Quest Complete" popup showing unlocalized text for items.
  

General Stability:

• Fix for a number of crashes and softlocks related to network disconnects in a variety of areas of the game.
  
• Improvements to crash reporting metrics.
  
• Additional crash and stability-related fixes.
  

Misc:

• Visual improvements to some hairstyles, fixing instances where lighting was unintentionally reflecting off head texture which caused hair to look thinner than intended.
  
• Fix for rare occurrences where button spamming after restarting a match or requesting an unplayable lie would cause the golfer to move to an incorrect location on the course.
  

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Welcome to the U.S. Open Championship!

The Los Angeles Country Club is available to play in all game modes. In career mode, the U.S. Open Championship now alternates every season between The Los Angeles Country Club and The Country Club. Menus, screens, and key art have also been updated to be styled in the Season 3 U.S. Open Championship theme. New Challenges will also be released live during the U.S. Open Championship that recreate key moments.

In addition to these seasonal updates, this patch includes many quality of life updates and stability fixes. One of the most visible changes is an update to the Swing Meter visuals. It now has an all new “notchless” design along with improved visibility in bright skies. We hope you like the new look.

The Aiming Arc has been updated to change color and show an effect if the ball is expected to collide with an object before it reaches its apex. This is intended to better indicate when you are aimed at obvious obstructions like bunker lips directly in front of you or trees that are out of view.

Lastly, we appreciate your patience as we continue to work hard behind the scenes to deliver a 60 FPS performance mode for consoles, additional event length options for career mode, and turn-based online gameplay.

Store & Content:

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 added to the store to rotate throughout the season:

• Patrick Cantlay
  
• Tony Finau
  
• Jessica Korda
  
• Lexi Thompson
  

Additional cosmetic content will be added to the store later this week.


Gameplay Indicators:

New "Swing Meter Style" visual setting replaces "Club Trail" setting. Options for using previous swing meter visuals and enabling/disabling club trails are included.

• Updated aiming arc to add an effect and change color if the ball is projected to collide before it reaches its apex. This is intended to better indicate when aimed at obvious obstructions like bunker lips directly in front of the golfer or trees that are out of view.
  
• Related to these changes are visual improvements to the putt read line, aiming arc, and online ball trails.
  
• Fixed flat edges sometimes being displayed on 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.
  

Gameplay Physics:

• Course-specific ball flight physics has been updated and altitude information has been added to the course select screen. Note that the ball typically flies further and with a slightly lower trajectory when playing at high altitude courses like Banff Springs.
  
• Minor improvements to ball rolling physics, fixing some unnatural movement that could occur when slowly rolling down steep slopes.
  

Gameplay Animation:

• Fix instances where swinging while the golfer is moving to address the ball would result in a frozen swing animation.
  
• Fix instances where the golfer could get stuck in a continuous shuffle.
  

Gameplay Cameras:

• Update address camera obstruction logic to move to the next highest available camera instead of always moving to the highest camera.
  
• Fix drop ball camera positioning for left-handed golfers.
  

Gameplay HUD:

• Only show drop-down text such as "For eagle to win hole" when the golfer is on the green or within 50 yards of the hole.
  
• Update drop-down text to say “…to win match” instead of “...to tie hole” in cases where tying the hole will win the match.
  
• Fix for the ball flight graph not being updated when ball flight is skipped.
  

Gameplay Misc:

• Improve AI golfer’s ability to make short putts.
  
• Fix for rare occurrences that could incorrectly place the golfer under tournament structures for their next shot.
  
• Fix for ball being visible in practice state after a hole flyover is viewed while the golfer is in practice state.
  

Career:

• Fix for a crash that could occur after completing the last hole in a playoff.
  
• Updated David Lingmerth to have Sweden instead of USA flag.
  

Online:

• Permanently disable golfer reaction NIS in online gameplay in order to speed up play for all players.
  
• Fix for softlock during online gameplay if player expires their hole timer while using “Fast Play” setting.
  
• Fix for incorrect order of players in online in-game scoreboard after a player quits or disconnects during a round.
  

Challenges:

• Fix for crowd members obstructing the golfer in the first shot of some challenges.
  
• 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.
  
• Fix for putting grid setting not updating when changed during active gameplay.
  

Audio:

• Numerous fixes and improvements for commentary during rounds that use Match Play scoring.
  
• Reworked St. Andrews ambience, added additional bird and background sounds.
  
• Fix for crowd sometimes not applauding short putts.
  
• Fix for commentary mentioning "beautiful afternoon" when using “Morning” time of day.
  

Courses:

• Global: Update a number of courses to use course-specific or tournament-specific tee markers depending on the context for the round.
  
• Chambers Bay: Fix for ocean texture flickering.
  
• Chambers Bay: Remove misplaced terrain decal on right side of hole 17.
  
• East Lake: Fix for a structure handrail being visible behind the 9th green when structures are disabled.
  
• Lighthouse Pointe: Fix for some online spectator cameras being obstructed by trees on holes 10 and 16.
  
• Oak Hill: Fix tee marker placement.
  
• Pebble Beach: Add collision to bushes on the right side of hole 3.
  
• Pebble Beach: Remove long grass that was encroaching on hole 8 tee box.
  
• Pebble Beach: Fix unnatural seagull movement on hole 7.
  
• Pebble Beach: Fix for incorrect color on some tournament structures such as holes 5 and 6.
  
• Teeth of the Dog: Fix blurry hole images shown in hole preview screen.
  
• TPC Scottsdale: Fix for the caddie being visible while playing holes 17 and 18.
  
• TPC Scottsdale: Add collision to a variety of cacti.
  
• Quail Hollow: Fix for some crowd members clipping through each other in the tournament structures on the 15th hole.
  
• Wilmington Country Club: Fix incorrect tree hitbox on hole 3.
  

Golfers:

• Updated Scottie Scheffler’s head model.
  
• Dustin Johnson updated to use Taylormade glove.
  
• Xander Schauffele updated to use Callaway glove.
  
• Update Jessica Korda’s outfits and logos.
  

Outfits & Gear:

• Fix texture clipping on EA SPORTS V-Neck polos.
  
• Fix some instances where the golfer’s hand was clipping through the glove.
  
• Fix for golfer hair clipping with hat for few seconds when entering gameplay using low visual settings.
  
• Brighten texture on “EA SPORTS - White” ball.
  

General Stability:

• Fix for softlock caused by exiting gameplay quickly after entering a round.
  
• Fix for softlock occurring if the “Sharing Options” popup is viewed while a round is being completed.
  
• Fix for softlock when “hold to skip” is used during TPC Scottsdale hole 16 NIS.
  
• [PS5] Fix for starting an activity from within the EIS resulting in being unable to enter Quick Play without restarting the game.
  

Branding:

• Structures, outfits, wipes, etc. update 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 one-color white logo.
  
• FedEx St. Jude Championship updated to use one-color white logo.
  

UI:

• Career: Update all in-game leaderboards to show “E” in the “Total” column for any golfer that has not teed off yet.
  
• Career: Fix for navigating to “FedExCup Rankings” when the player attempts to directly open “Statistics” or “Official World Golf Ranking”.
  
• Career: Fix for “Season Timeline” overlapping in gameplay if the quest tab is accessed from the scorecard screen after viewing quests from “Season Summary” in the Career Hub.
  
• Challenges: Fix for text overlapping the golfer in some preview rewards screens.
  
• Equipment: Add “Change Club” button to the first driver slot.
  
• Equipment: Fix for the “Equip to all” button applying blueprints to incorrect clubs in non-default bags in some circumstances.
  
• Equipment: Fix for the equip confirmation pop-up having a non-functional "No" button.
  
• Equipment: Fix text overlap that occurs when using “Copy Bag”.
  
• Leaderboards: Removed "Sort" and "My Position" from all leaderboards.
  
• Leaderboards: Removed “View Profile” button when viewing an empty leaderboard.
  
• Manage Golfers: Unable to delete multiple golfers without leaving and reentering the screen to refresh the list of golfers.
  
• Online: The "Players in session” counter now shows “1” instead of “0” when a player is in an online lobby prior to matchmaking.
  
• Online: Fix for "Add Players" button being shown when 4 players are in a lobby.
  
• Outfits: Remove "Equip to all" button when a "None" node is selected.
  
• Outfits: Fix for incorrect outfit sometimes being displayed after quickly navigating between outfits.
  
• Outfits: Fix for the wrong item being selected after using "Equip to all" twice on the same item.
  
• Outfits: Update outfits screen to more consistently display the item description area when navigating through nodes.
  
• Outfits: Remove icon transparency on non-equipped clothing categories.
  
• Outfits: Fix text overlap that occurs when using “Copy Outfit”.
  
• Private Match: Fix for “Start Round” button still being displayed after a player left and there is only one player remaining in the EIS.
  
• Quick Play: Fix for custom holes that were previously selected continuing to persist even though a non-custom hole select option was most recently selected.
  
• Quick Play: Fix for the "Go To Mode Select" button not working when focused on a nameplate.
  
• Settings: Fix for gameplay style text incorrectly changing to “Custom” when Swing or Putt Mechanic is changed in Tournaments or Online mode.
  
• Store: Add timer to indicate when pages will be updated with new content.
  
• Store: Remove the 'Rotate Camera' button hint when attempting to equip a newly purchased VFX item.
  
• Store: Add text description to body of “Insufficient Funds” pop-up message.
  
• Store: Item names are now centered.
  
• Tooltips: Full redesign and update of gameplay onboarding tooltips.
  
• Tooltips: Fix tooltips being displayed during a hole flyover or “Unplayable Lie” screen.
  
• Tooltips: Fix for gameplay tooltips being displayed on the scorecard screen if the screen is opened during the intro NIS.
  
• Tooltips: Update references of "Competitive" to "Online".
  
• Tournaments: Update rewards pop-up to display a score of 0 as “E”.
  

PC Support:

• Fix for double input being recorded on store pages when using mouse input to dismiss an error popup.
  
• Fix for players being able to access locked challenge tiles by using mouse input to click the "Select" button prompt.
  
• Fixes to various screens and gameplay HUD elements in order to scale correctly and better support wide screen monitors.