YMMV / Golf Story

• Best Level Ever: Bermuda Isles. Yes, it can be That One Level due to the course taking place on islands and thus stroke penalties for shooting into the water can become common. However, with the Skim Woods, you can have fun taking some killer water-skipping shortcuts that can significantly reduce your score.
• Game-Breaker: The Skimming Woods. Sure, they give you a low loft compared to other clubs, but that allows you to take water-skipping shortcuts that aren't possible with other clubs. It's rather fitting that you can buy them on Bermuda Isles; the resident course has a lot of water and you can take some wicked shortcuts that will get you to the green with a chance at an eagle or even an albatross putt.
• Goddamned Bats: The moles, birds, and other course wildlife. Landing your ball in their detection ranges will have them relocate your ball to someplace less convenient, such as tiny bunkers that are there just for the animals to put your ball into. At the least, having one of them move your ball doesn't add extra strokes, but it's still annoying to have to shoot your way out of a difficult lie.
• Good Bad Bugs: It is entirely possible to get a condor (4 under par) that isn't a hole-in-one (when you get a HIO, the Hole-In-One text overrides any other result text) on the final hole of Bermuda Isles, which is a par 6 hole (and thus, you need to sink the ball in two strokes). If you succeed...this appears. Apparently, the developers didn't expect a condor to be possible, so where "CONDOR" should be, white boxes show up, giving the impression that the result is censored.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Coach overcooking the roast and setting his microwave on fire, in a game released a few months before the "Steamed Hams" meme (which involves a The Simpsons scene where someone burns the roast he intended to split with someone) spread like wildfire.
• Iron Woobie: The protagonist goes through a lot of verbal abuse throughout the game, from an initially spiteful coach, to a corporate shill tour pro who refuses to admit he's inferior to you, to tournaments where the kindest words anyone has for you is "wow, some amateur beat all the pros here" with all the cameras still focused on said pros, to an absolute bitch of an ex-wife who shows up with her new boyfriend just to heckle you and try to get you to fail, and then takes half your prize money when you win anyway. Nevertheless, the protagonist soldiers on in his goal to go professional, and by the end of the game in spite of still lacking a lot of the respect that he frankly deserves he's satisfied enough that he sets his own quest objective of "just enjoy life."
• Memetic Mutation: "Sucked in!"
• Scrappy Mechanic: While some challenges have the decency to end as soon as you accomplish the objective, most do not. If you meet your quota and still have shots left over, chances are you'll still have to take them. For that matter, there's also no quit or retry option, so if you miss enough shots to make the challenge unwinnable, you still have to exhaust all your shots before you can try again. This problem comes to a head when you do the hot potato shot in front of Max Yards, which forces an instant retry if you fail it, and the task is no easy feat; once you initiate the cutscenes leading up to it, you will not be able to do anything else in game, not even to save your game (e.g. to change games on your Switch without losing progress in this one), until you complete the rather difficult shot.
• Scrappy Weapon:
  • The Lightning Wedge is only good for quests involving hitting minerals that mandate its use. On the course, the fast meter means you'll likely make some pretty inaccurate hits with it. If you want to make low-loft shots you're better off using an iron.
  • Invoked with the vintage club set, which you only use because you're not allowed to use any other clubs on Tidy Park. Beyond that, there's nothing they can do that the other clubs cannot.
  • The Pro Woods. They have the furthest range of any clubs in the game, but the advantage is so small it's not worth the Strike penalty, when the Skimming Woods and Dynamo Woods (+5 and +10 yards, respectively; Pro is +15) offer a bit less yardage but have unique properties going for them without making your non-perfect hits go way off the target.
• That One Level:
  • Courses as a whole:
    • Bermuda Isles comes after Cheekybeak Peak, and while the latter only has some cliffs and those pesky birds relocating your balls, Bermuda Isles is basically 90% ocean with lots of small islands to shoot onto, forcing you to carefully shoot unless you want to become friends with the 1-stroke penalty. Even if you don't end up in the water, there's still sand everywhere which will heavily reduce your shot distances. Then for the last hole, the game introduces you to a par 6 hole!
    • Tidy Park is full of poorly-maintained grass that can easily reduce your shot distances, and it's the only course in the game with no greens; most of the holes are instead surrounded by rough, two by fairway, and one by deep rough. You also must use vintage clubs, which are pretty usable but don't let you take water-skipping shortcuts like the Skimming Woods or shoot over trees like the Lofted Wedges. You can use your own clubs...in the one match play quest available, which cannot be repeated once you complete it.
  • Specific holes:
    • Hole 3 of Bermuda Isles has very narrow fairways with shrubs all over. Shrubs severely reduce your shot power despite not having the appropriate power penalties or terrain type shown on the lie indicator (so if you land in a shrub on the fairway, it'll still say "Fairway"), and unlike rough, bunkers, or even tar, you can't even use Tee Up to get around it.
    • Hole 4 of Bermuda Isles has a green surrounded by water on all sides, and it's a fairly small green that leaves little room for error to shoot onto. On the other hand, a skillful player can nail one of the very few par 4 holes-in-one in the game.
    • Hole 2 of Oak Manor has a similar problem with little creeks of water surrounding the green, this time on a par 3 hole rather than par 4, meaning that if you wanna get under par, you'll have to chip in or take a very careful hit, and you can end up in the water due to not using backspin...or use backspin and end up in the water anyway.
  • The hot potato shot (where you lob the ball into the air and then hit it with your club as the ball comes back down) to impress Max Yards is this not only because is it a very tricky shot to make, but if you fail, you are forced to retry on the spot without any chance to do anything else. Not even to save and quit, which is the only way to save the game!
• That One Sidequest:
  • The mini-putt lab requires you to be great at making bank shots, and you have a limited number of strokes to complete the course.
  • The improvised course on Bermuda Isles may well be harder than the actual course itself, because not only does it involve some very tricky shots across water and sandy shores, you can't use your special abilities. The only relief you get is that landing in the water or out of bounds does not carry a 1-stroke penalty, but you're still very likely to run out of shots anyway.
  • One challenge on Tidy Park has you playing Hole 1 of the course, but only with the putter. You have to hit every putt at max power if you wanna sink it; two or three putts just shy of maximum will basically guarantee a "TOO BAD".
• Underused Game Mechanic:
  • The improvised courses that you play in sidequests and the "kids" course in Lurker Valley are all fun Gimmick Levels that serve as a change of pace...but you only get to play these courses as part of the main story or sidequests, and never again after you complete them.
  • Disc golf is fun once you get used to the tricky controls, but the only chances to play it are across three one-time quests and a side area next to Cheekybeak Peak where you can freely throw discs.
  • As preparation for the long drive competition, Coach gives you a special Long Driver club that can hit over 300 yards. Unfortunately, not only is it not explained how to use it to get the most power out of it, the only two times you ever get to use it is when he first gives you the club in a mission to hit 280 yards and again at the competition itself where you have to hit 300 yards with it. Sure, it would be a Game-Breaker if you could use it on actual courses, but you don't even get to use the Long Driver when practicing on the driving range on your own time!

---