Release: Aug 29 2008
Developer: EA Tiburon
Publisher: EA Sports
Genre: Sports

The Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf franchise has been a largely successful one for a number of years now. Not only does the franchise have a stranglehold on the PGA Tour license, but it also executes the analog stick swing very well and has always boasted some nice feature sets. The series has introduced players to the Game Face feature, a stocked pro shop with tons of licensed items, full PGA Tour seasons, and more. Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf 09 for the PlayStation 3 (which we’ll call Tiger 09 for brevity’s sake) is no exception to this, but this year’s feature set and its tweaks from last year’s game make it a must-play for golf fans this year. It’s not perfect by any means, but Tiger 09 is a deceptively deep and addictive game that will keep virtual duffers busy on the links for a long time.

Arguably the biggest change in Tiger 09, compared to past games, is the new dynamic skill system. Rather than earning skill points or buying stat points, Tiger 09 adjusts your stats in four key areas—Power, Accuracy, Short Game, and Putting—based on your performance in the previous round or Tiger Challenge event. These skills can be bolstered by purchasing and equipping certain items for your golfer in the pro shop, but it’s very possible to see these skill stats fluctuate as you play and gain experience. This new stat system works a lot better than the stat systems in earlier Tiger Woods games and is more accessible to players who don’t have days and days to play a ton of golf and pad their stats or earn lots of cash.

Tiger 09 also adds a Club Tuner option this year, which adds a level of practical customization that hasn’t been seen before in a golf game. This tuner allows players to change club settings to make them more powerful, accurate, or to fade or draw shots with more effectiveness. The Club Tuner feature is very much a risk/reward type of option. For example, tuning your woods to get more shot distance out of them usually leads to a smaller sweet spot, which usually leads to a smaller margin of error when trying to execute straight shots. For players with a natural bias to hook or slice the ball with their analog swings, there’s now the option to adjust your clubs to understand that bias, therefore leading to straighter shots. More serious Tiger 09 players will spend a lot of time here, tweaking their clubs to get the best results.

Coach Hank gives you the rundown

Hank Haney, Tiger’s real-life golf coach, is omnipresent in Tiger 09 and serves multiple purposes. Haney critiques your round performances and then sets up drills to help increase your stats in the main skill areas, based on your past round. For example, if you miss a fairway and land in the rough on the first hole at Pebble Beach, Haney’s accuracy drill may take you back to the first hole and recreate that lie to see if you can hit a certain landing target. These drills are not random, and can be very useful for sharpening your skills and enriching your understanding of each course. Hank’s other main function is to be your guide in the Club Tuner mode. Hank will grade your practice swings and can suggest settings for your clubs based on your overall performance.

Apart from these key additions and changes, Tiger 09 will be a comfortable gameplay experience for veterans of the series. The analog swing returns this year, as does the three-click swing option. Using the analog swing is almost imperative to the full enjoyment of this game, however; the three-click swing option here isn’t executed as well as in Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds. Putting seems to be a bit more forgiving in Tiger 09 than in last year’s game, with more accurate reads and speed detection. There are multiple difficulty settings, which can be adjusted as your skills and comfort level with the game improve. The core gameplay isn’t really that different from past games in the series, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

For solo golfers, Tiger 09 delivers a deep Career Mode consisting of playing through multiple PGA Tour seasons and completing a pretty diverse Tiger Challenge. The PGA Tour Season option IS the Tour, as player attempt to win weekly tournaments and earn FedEx points for the end-of year championship. There is an option to specify how long each tournament should be, so players can blaze through multiple seasons quickly by reducing the length of events from four rounds down to one or two, if desired. The Tiger Challenge is a collection of events that culminates in the inevitable showdown with Eldrick Woods, himself. These events vary between long drive contests, pitch and accuracy trials, match play events, and more. Expect to face some stiff competition along the way from some of the best golfers in the world.

Online functionality is strong in Tiger 09. EA GamerNet greatly enhances replayability here, as players can gain points and reputation for busting posted online challenges, which appear seamlessly during single-player rounds of golf. While teeing up on a hole, for example, you might see the EA GamerNet line and a challenge to drive the ball longer than another player; if you keep it in the fairway on the drive, you “bust” the challenge and earn GamerNet points. There are plenty more challenges posted on EA GamerNet, which can be accessed separately from outside the main game. There, you can attempt to outhit, out-position, or match spectacular shots posted by players around the world. In addition, players can also post highlights from their rounds of play and upload them to be viewed online.

For players that want online matches against other players, Tiger 09 has that option and speeds it up considerably this year with simultaneous play. Now, instead of alternating between players like in a traditional round of golf, everyone in the group can play at the same time. This cut down on a lot of waiting time and generally makes rounds run a lot quicker. There’s still some loading time involved and, if you finish before everyone else, you still have to wait; however, while waiting, you can view other players as they complete the hole. In-depth online stats are kept in a variety of areas, and EA promises some online contests in the future.

Tiger 09’s aesthetics and presentation are a mixed bag. The visuals are solid enough, although there are still hitches in the frame rate from time to time and the gallery seems very generic. Player swings and reactions are decent, though, and the courses look great. In the sound department, the new announcing team of Kelly Tillman and Sam Torrance is a giant step down from the familiar team of Gary McCord and David Feherty. Torrance delivers his lines with extreme flatness, while Tillman is too inconsistent. Granted, the McCord/Feherty duo was growing stale, but the two did have a certain chemistry and Feherty had some genuinely funny lines. In terms of the presentation, it would be nice to see some more stat overlays; why can’t we see what the golfer shot on the 18^th hole during the first three days of the tournament, for example? It just doesn’t feel like the television broadcast that it should be.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf 09 is one of the best titles in the series, and is easily the best PS3 entry so far. It’s not quite the definitive golf game that fans may be looking for, but the new additions and wrinkles to the familiar and successful formula that has driven the Tiger Woods games for some time now come together here to form a golf experience that’s easily worth the asking price and will keep golf fans on the course for months to come.