Ten years ago this month, I bought a brand-new Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge. After years of second-hand devices, I finally owned a flagship phone that I had researched and bought myself.
It was a significant step in my journey to where I am now, but it was also the start of something else.
Excited about my new phone, I spent days researching and downloading new apps and games. Some of these stuck around for months, some for years, but only one has stuck around (barring preinstalled Google apps).
Desert Golfing is the oldest app on my Android phone
But I have little to show for it
Last year, I bought a Google Pixel 10 Pro. I backed up my app data from my Pixel 8 to the cloud, then used it to set up my new phone.
Somewhere in that process, my save data for Desert Golfing was lost.
This was not the first time I had lost my progress, but it was the first time I cared. On my Pixel 8, I had reached a high score of roughly hole 6,000.
For the first time in ten years, I was over halfway to the finish line. But now, staring at a flag labeled “83,” I wonder if I will ever be able to reach the fabled hole 10,001.
Before reading any further, I urge you, patient reader, to download Desert Golfing. It’ll set you back $2, but I could not spend that money on a finer app.
Play a level, or two. It’ll take you seconds, I promise. Before you hit your tenth hole, you’ll understand why my sadness over my loss of progress cuts so deep.
Ten years of playing the same mobile game, and I’m further from my goal than ever before. But only now do I appreciate the beauty of Desert Golfing.
Desert Golfing is the worst and best mobile game
To some it’s boring, to others it’s transcendent
From a purely rational point of view, Desert Golfing is a bad game. It’s repetitive, unrewarding, and devoid of music. There are no significant milestones, no rewards, and no excitement.
Just the same process again and again, accompanied by the same sound effects…thwack….ssshhhhh….shhh..shh…thwack…shhhh…bing…brrrrr…thwack.
What’s there to see? Two tones of orange, a white circle, and a yellow flag on a black pole. A few numbers marking “progress,” and that’s it.
There’s not even a settings menu, but how could you possibly adjust perfection?
Playing Desert Golfing is a form of meditation. To breathe in when the ball is struck, to breathe out when it flies through the air. To not react to a sunk ball is to win. For how could you honestly react to the same goal 10,000 times in a row?
No, this is not a game for cheering and showing off to friends. It’s a personal journey, one that tests you and comforts you at the same time.
Progress is victory in Desert Golfing
The 10,001 target is nice, but it’s not what really matters
I am sad that my progress in Desert Golfing was lost, but I don’t feel I wasted my time.
Yes, I would like to reach the end. If I focused and played Desert Golfing once a day, I would finish the game in less than a year. But I’m not sure that matters.
Every time I sink a ball in Desert Golfing, I win the game. Yes, the levels get harder (after hole number 2,000), but I never felt like I was winning more at hole 5,000 than I was at hole 50.
Desert Golfing is the quintessential mobile game. It’s there to kill time, to make the wait for the bus a little more bearable.
I think that every other game I’ve installed on my phone has been more “fun,” yet Desert Golfing is the one that has stuck around for a decade.
Ten years of playing the best mobile game
Writing about Desert Golfing feels a little silly. What’s the point in discussing a twelve-year-old game that’s barely changed?
The last time Desert Golfing was seriously discussed was when its sequel, Golf on Mars, launched in 2020.
But for me, Desert Golfing marked the start of a journey into Android that brought me to this job. Sometimes I wouldn’t touch the game for months, but it would always be there.
It’s been with me over my university career, five failed relationships, eight (personally bought) Android phones, two moves across the Atlantic, and too many questionable haircuts to count.
Ten years later, and I think it’s time to complete Desert Golfing. I owe it to the most beautiful mobile game ever created to finish it and finally see everything it has to offer. Then perhaps, I’ll lay it to rest at last.
