Southland Engineering Little Pro golf game

This is a fun machine that I had in the past. A Southland Little Pro mini-golf game. I really love mechanical arcade games.

It's designed by no-one less than Harry Williams. The story goes that he had already retired from the Williams pinball factory a few years earlier, but couldn't stop desiging games. So as a change from desiging pinball machines, he had started a new company (Southland Engineering) and designed this midget golf arcade game.

The gameplay is simple, but gameplay is fun and addicting. Just shoot a ball in each of the holes. The game ends when your 27 shots are used, or when you have putted a ball in all 9 holes. So a good player will only need 9 shots to complete the game.

The game was found to be so much fun, that Williams bought the rights for it and released their version as a 2 player game: Williams Mini Golf.

The golf ball on the lockdown bar is mechanically connected to the miniature manikin on the playfield. A player can rotate the golf ball and the manikin will rotate. To put, there are 2 options, a soft and a hard strike. For the closest holes you need the soft strike button, around hole 5 the holes are further towards the end of the playfield and you need to use the harder strike button.

Gameplay is simple but fun, as you control a mechanical manikin. When learning to play the game it's a very addictive game. After playing it enough, you get used to how much to turn the golf ball and the gameplay becomes a bit boring, as there's no variation, and you'll be able to make the 9 shots each time without much effort.

In 1990 Bromley created a new arcade golf game which was based on this original design, but they added ramps to add some extra challenge.

Click here to see the IPDB entry of Little Pro.

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