Golden Tee '99 (1999 Incredible Technologies)
Click on Marquee for KLOV listing.
The Story: Golden Tee. Another one of those game's you'd likely find in a bar, just like my Megatouch. I remember playing Golden Tee every weekend with friend's at, well, whatever tavern we happened to visit in the Saint Louis area. It's one of those games that anyone can get the hang of in just a few short holes. The trackball controls really make this game. I would constantly try trick shots, shortcuts and just flat out slam that trackball hoping to make it past a water hazard or sand trap. We even took bets at times. Who will beat who? Will he make that shot?
Golden Tee remains a big hit even today. Now there's the "Live" series. Back when we played it all the time it was the "Fore!" series, and before that it was the classic Golden Tee Golf. That was the series I was after. Yeah sure, it lacked a backspin button and the enhanced graphics that the sqeuel's are known for. But in my mind, sometime's simple is better, and it's still a great game that anyone can have fun with. I wanted a Golden Tee in a smaller cabinet, with a simple 19" standard arcade monitor and a simple PCB. I'm not trying to bring down my fellow Fore! series collector friend's. This is just my personal preference. With that said, my preference would likely be less expensive than a Fore! series game, but also harder to find with the smaller cabinet I really wanted. Yeah, most of the classic series GT games are conversions, but most of those are still larger cabinets. I would need to be patient and wait until the right conversion came along. As luck would have it, I didn't have to wait long at all.
The Score: Another local find on craigslist. A classic Golden Tee in a former Atari Gauntlet cabinet. A smaller cabinet with a 19" screen, but with the same overall profile and large control panel as a standard GT. This is exactly what I've been looking for. The seller had this game listed for $150 with what he described as a "misaligned" image on the monitor. He also listed it as a 2001 model. Without screen shots to research, I had to take educated guesses that the monitor likely needed a cap kit and that I was acually looking at a Golden Tee Classic, which was the final release of the classic GT series. The usual negotiations over the phone take place and we settle at $120.
Upon pickup of the game I notice that the image isn't really misaligned at all. In fact, the problem was that the top third of the image was missing altogether. Either way, a cap kit should take care of that. However another thing I noticed was that this wasn't a 2001 model as stated. I was gretted to a Golden Tee '99 title screen on powerup. This isn't a dealbreaker by any means, but I was sure to point that out to the seller and he quickly knocked off another $20. We were both happy with that and the deal was made.
The Service: The monitor happens to be a Wells Gardner K4900, and I happen to have a spare working chassis for it. I will eventually repair the original chassis, but for now the spare will work just fine. The trackball was working fine but I cleaned the rollers anyway which did improve the accuracy. The next thing to address was the lack of a marquee. This was originally an Atari Gauntlet cabinet which originally had a solid marquee, not backlit. Whoever did the conversion just painted over the Gauntlet logo and left it at that. I decided to cut into the cabinet and add a light fixture behind this area. I then bought a used marquee and cut some plexiglass to mount it. I had to cut the marquee down, as there's not much space on the cabinet for it, but I was able to squeeze the entire logo in. It doesn't look perfect, but in my opinion it looks much better that having nothing there at all. I also cut new plexi to go over the monitor, another piece that this former Gauntlet lacked. After that, this game just needed the standard fine tuning and cleanup as well as a new battery on the board.
Golden Tee remains a big hit even today. Now there's the "Live" series. Back when we played it all the time it was the "Fore!" series, and before that it was the classic Golden Tee Golf. That was the series I was after. Yeah sure, it lacked a backspin button and the enhanced graphics that the sqeuel's are known for. But in my mind, sometime's simple is better, and it's still a great game that anyone can have fun with. I wanted a Golden Tee in a smaller cabinet, with a simple 19" standard arcade monitor and a simple PCB. I'm not trying to bring down my fellow Fore! series collector friend's. This is just my personal preference. With that said, my preference would likely be less expensive than a Fore! series game, but also harder to find with the smaller cabinet I really wanted. Yeah, most of the classic series GT games are conversions, but most of those are still larger cabinets. I would need to be patient and wait until the right conversion came along. As luck would have it, I didn't have to wait long at all.
The Score: Another local find on craigslist. A classic Golden Tee in a former Atari Gauntlet cabinet. A smaller cabinet with a 19" screen, but with the same overall profile and large control panel as a standard GT. This is exactly what I've been looking for. The seller had this game listed for $150 with what he described as a "misaligned" image on the monitor. He also listed it as a 2001 model. Without screen shots to research, I had to take educated guesses that the monitor likely needed a cap kit and that I was acually looking at a Golden Tee Classic, which was the final release of the classic GT series. The usual negotiations over the phone take place and we settle at $120.
Upon pickup of the game I notice that the image isn't really misaligned at all. In fact, the problem was that the top third of the image was missing altogether. Either way, a cap kit should take care of that. However another thing I noticed was that this wasn't a 2001 model as stated. I was gretted to a Golden Tee '99 title screen on powerup. This isn't a dealbreaker by any means, but I was sure to point that out to the seller and he quickly knocked off another $20. We were both happy with that and the deal was made.
The Service: The monitor happens to be a Wells Gardner K4900, and I happen to have a spare working chassis for it. I will eventually repair the original chassis, but for now the spare will work just fine. The trackball was working fine but I cleaned the rollers anyway which did improve the accuracy. The next thing to address was the lack of a marquee. This was originally an Atari Gauntlet cabinet which originally had a solid marquee, not backlit. Whoever did the conversion just painted over the Gauntlet logo and left it at that. I decided to cut into the cabinet and add a light fixture behind this area. I then bought a used marquee and cut some plexiglass to mount it. I had to cut the marquee down, as there's not much space on the cabinet for it, but I was able to squeeze the entire logo in. It doesn't look perfect, but in my opinion it looks much better that having nothing there at all. I also cut new plexi to go over the monitor, another piece that this former Gauntlet lacked. After that, this game just needed the standard fine tuning and cleanup as well as a new battery on the board.
