Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 review

The EA cash cow keeps on mooing and hopefully we won’t see it getting in the way of a tidy putt on the greens of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09. Another year sees another golf game and whilst Tiger may be not on his usual superman-like form for real, this game certainly is.

After last year’s odd and not-so-welcome tweak of the control system, things have been put right this year with a more accessible analogue stick golf swing and if you like, the classic three-button press with a power bar which sets your speed and accuracy.

Tiger’s coach Hank Haney also appears on in the game and in a similar way to Madden 09, appears at the very beginning of the game whilst he watches your swing and tells you how good you are.

Then it’s time to mix it with the pros or create your own golfer and get onto the various links and courses to swing your big stick about. You can also customise your stick if you like to suit the way you play and when you’re on the fairway there’s a handy feedback meter in the corner of the screen which tells you exactly what you’re doing to hit those fantastic or quite frankly embarrassing shots.

The Tiger Challenge is back, where you have to play either 9 or 18 holes against real-life and make-believe opponents until you take on the man himself, there are also tournaments, mini games and the Fed Ex cup to make your way through. There’s plenty to keep you going.

And instead of applying points yourself to your character as you get more experienced, the game does it for you. Keep hitting long and your power will increase. Keep on applying backspin and you’ll be spinning the ball better than ever as you go. When playing single player you’ll still have to wait whilst the AI player has their shot but thankfully this doesn’t apply any more online. Now up to four players can tee off simultaneously and see each other’s progress in real time which means you can finish a round in-between an hour or two and not a whole afternoon.

For most of us, golf games are the closest thing we’ll come to actually being able to experience hitting a ball anywhere near where we want it to go. This one’s a return to form for Tiger despite the new commentators who aren’t a patch on the sarcastic couple we’re used to. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 gets an excellent 8 out of 10.

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