Lee Trevino's Fighting Golf: Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge

The arcade hit comes home! Join golf legend Lee Carvallo, and his rivals Gracie Driver, Big Raining and Miracle Monroe, for the ultimate golfing challenge on your Nintendo Entertainment System!

It's 18 holes of golfing fun as Lee Carvallo personally gives you advice on each course. Select your golf club, and guide your swing. Show off your putting and golfing skills as you play for the Tournament title in both the United States and Japan! Keep track of your progress with the included score cards and scoring pencil!

Try three different game modes - Stroke Play, Nassau Game, and Practice. Choose between four unique characters, all with their own special strengths and weaknesses regarding distance and accuracy. Play with up to four friends in challenge mode!

It's the most realistic golf simulation 1988 has to offer. Keep track of wind speed which will affect where your ball lands. Watch out for water, sand bunkers and rough greens on thirty-six unique courses. Hit high, hit low. Hit with backspin. Hit a draw, fade or straight ball. Hit a power drive, but don't go out of bounds! If you fall behind, declare "Press" on the last hole for a double or nothing gamble! Hone your putting skills to challenge the scores of Lee Carvallo himself!

Note: This is the 1988 NES version, not the infamous fully-voiced CD-ROM version released at Christmas 1995.

• NES hack programming by Rani Baker (https://twitter.com/destroyed4com4t)
• Graphic design and concept by Garrett Gilchrist (https://twitter.com/TygerbugGarrett)


• Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge

The arcade hit comes home! Join golf legend Lee Carvallo, and his rivals Gracie Driver, Big Raining and Miracle Monroe, for the ultimate golfing challenge on your Nintendo Entertainment System!

It's 18 holes of golfing fun as Lee Carvallo personally gives you advice on each course. Select your golf club, and guide your swing. Show off your putting and golfing skills as you play for the Tournament title in both the United States and Japan! Keep track of your progress with the included score cards and scoring pencil!

Try three different game modes - Stroke Play, Nassau Game, and Practice. Choose between four unique characters, all with their own special strengths and weaknesses regarding distance and accuracy. Play with up to four friends in challenge mode!

It's the most realistic golf simulation 1988 has to offer. Keep track of wind speed which will affect where your ball lands. Watch out for water, sand bunkers and rough greens on thirty-six unique courses. Hit high, hit low. Hit with backspin. Hit a draw, fade or straight ball. Hit a power drive, but don't go out of bounds! If you fall behind, declare "Press" on the last hole for a double or nothing gamble! Hone your putting skills to challenge the scores of Lee Carvallo himself!

Note: This is the 1988 NES version, not the infamous fully-voiced CD-ROM version released at Christmas 1995.

• NES hack programming by Rani Baker (destroyed4com4t)
• Graphic design and concept by Garrett Gilchrist (TygerbugGarrett)

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• The Simpsons

On The Simpsons, Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge is not selling well and Bart is unfortunate to receive it instead of Bonestorm (a Mortal Kombat stand-in). The game has digitized voice and probably Mortal Kombat-type graphics, but also clunky number-pad controls like the Intellivision and Colecovision. Maybe a Jaguar or 3DO type game. CD-i, even.

An early script for The Simpsons "Marge Be Not Proud" (1995) shows that Lee Carvallo is a parody of Lee Trevino, Dallas-born golf star. He is playable as "Super Mex" in Lee Trevino's Fighting Golf for NES, arcades, C64 and Tiger Handheld. This was a precursor in some ways to SNK's popular Neo Turf Masters.

This version of Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge features a new title screen, Simpsons font, and text changes for character names.

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• How to Play

• Type of Swing
Guide for hitting the ball: Distance and direction of the ball are set at the position stopped in the swing gauge.

1) Back swing starts by pressing the A Button.
2) The top position of the swing is set by pressing the A Button again. It is related to flight distance, and the shorter the blue part on the gauge, the longer the flight distance will be.
3) To set the position of impact and to decide a direction, press the A Button again.

• Hitting a Draw, Fade, or Straight Ball
Various directions are set by the position of impact on the swing gauge:
Straight Ball: Stop it on the arrow.
Draw Ball: Stop it to the right of the arrow.
Fade Ball: Stop it to the left of the arrow.

• Hitting a High or Low Ball
To hit a high ball, press the top of the Control Pad. To hit a low ball, press the bottom of the Control Pad.

• Applying Backspin
A backspin ball does not move much from the position where it drops on the ground. When the player hits the balL he can apply backspin by pressing the A Button, and at the same time pressing either the left or right of the Control Pad. The shorter the time gap between pressing the A Button and the Control Pad, the stronger the backspin will be.

Note: The backspin won't be applied easily when hitting a wood (lW-4W) or long iron (ll-31).

• Choosing the Direction of the Shot
To see the cursor for direction of the shot. press the B Button. Move the cursor to choose a direction by pressing the Control Pad left. right, up, or down. To see the complete hole. press the A Button once. Then, to see the Putting Green, press the A Button again. Then, to see the various direction selections, press the A Button again.

• Selecting the Club
Press the B Button to see the selection of clubs. The sign of the club flashes. Use the Control Pad to choose a club. Press the B Button. and the Swing Gauge shows up.

• Manipulating the Club on the Putting Green

Press the B Button to determine the direction of the ball. The player can't select a club - only the putter can be used on the putting green.
1) Press the A Button once to start the back swing.
2) Press the A Button again to determine the strength of the putt.

The hash marks on the putting green show the direction and height of the grass. The ball goes in the direction of the point of the mark. The bigger the mark, the more the ball is affected. (Note: The influence of grass on the American course is stronger than on the Japanese course.)

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• Hacking Notes

Garrett Gilchrist's design for the title screen included some differences including a 20-tile car.

When recreating the design, NES hacker Rani Baker found that the "Fighting Golf" game's title screen was coded very strangely. Graphics are separated into 16x16 tiles, and consecutive tiles are separated by sixteen lines of code. For example, the tiles indicated at 019E22, 019F22, and 01A022 would be three of the four tiles in a single block. The number of 16x16 tiles available was also limited. Confusing stuff, and some minor design changes were made under these constraints. A fade-in effect was also removed, which would have been difficult to recreate.

Due to similar tile limitations the names of player characters "Gracie Driver" and "Big Raining" (all characters are subtle Simpsons references) were also abbreviated on the selection screen's background, but appear in full once you move the cursor. Hack programming was by Rani Baker.

The game itself is unchanged otherwise, and it offers more complexity and control than the original Golf on NES. Although I doubt that would have convinced a kid at Christmas 1995 who wanted a violent fighting game like Bonestorm.

Garrett Gilchrist created the box art for the game, inking the front cover. Back cover Lee Carvallo art is official art from The Simpsons Tapped Out.


Database match: Lee Trevino's Fighting Golf (USA)
Database: No-Intro: Nintendo Entertainment System (v. 20210216-231042)
File SHA-1: 8BFB8264E8AF94364E89B3B4C52F09B87D6DCBFC
File CRC32: E55284DA
ROM SHA-1: 85A115E87951B11A8A8DD48643D8CB3E57E3C1BF
ROM CRC32: 88E1A5F4