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Long-time aficionados of the Championship Manager series will remember how, before the famous Eidos/Sports Interactive split, a certain club from the blue side of Liverpool tended to win everything in sight with consummate ease, much unlike their real-life counterparts. Everton’s assured in-game success may have had a little something to do with co-creators Paul and Oliver Collyer being die-hard Everton fans, but whilst the Merseyside team’s triumphs were a smidge dubious in Championship Manager, Tiger Woods’ successes in his videogames are anything but. Just like the great man completely dominates the sport of golf, the Tiger Woods PGA Tour series has not been challenged in its genre for quite some time. However this year, for once, has seen a couple of decent golf games released along with PGA Tour 09, and both place their emphasis a bit less on the serious side than Mr. Woods’ offering. Sony’s very Japanese Everybody’s Golf World Tour (Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds in America) and Capcom’s arcade-like We Love Golf have both had decent showings, certainly strong enough to suggest that a sub-par annual release for the PGA Tour series would come under a little more scrutiny than usual. Of course, a sub-par PGA Tour game would be a first but you can’t hole out every time, right? So, is PGA Tour 09 sitting pretty on the fairway or languishing hopelessly in the deep rough?
The grass is yellower on the other side Now that I’ve got the obligatory golf analogies out of the way we can get this show on the road. As is the case with most annual sports games, your first inkling with Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 is a comforting sense of familiarity, most ostensibly in the graphics. In the game’s build-up Electronic Arts released an ’08 vs. 09’ comparison video, but maybe this wasn’t the best of tactical decisions on their part. Certainly there is some improvement in the visuals; lighting and shadowing are more pronounced and the water looks more realistically detailed but easily the most discernable difference is a change in filter. PGA Tour 09 proves that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side; in fact in its case it’s yellower, or at least a much lighter green, a change that screams out at you in that comparison video. The improvement graphically is there, certainly, but it’s overshadowed by an arguably unnecessary change in palette. Still, the graphical engine remains pretty impressive although its issues are lingering. The matchplay camera likes to place itself behind foliage for that perfect view of bitty-looking leaves, plus it’s often bizarrely unable to keep pace with a slow-moving ball during a long putt. However, the same good stuff about PGA Tour’s visuals are still around too, such as the beautifully accurate recreation of the courses, decent-looking character models and of course they come with their own enjoyable true-to-life animations (if you can call Monty’s stoic reactions an animation). It’s still the best-looking golf game on the market, there’s no doubt about that. The presentation all round is pretty solid although the change in commentary team to Kelly Tillman and Sam Torrence comes across as a mistake. Their comments feel fairly detached and are often inaccurate and tardy, and neither present as particularly charismatic either, although you can just turn them off and listen to the pleasingly diverse and mellow soundtrack. The right club with the right tunes Whilst the graphics, despite what Electronic Arts might say, are a little familiar, there are some new features that PGA Tour 09 brings to the table. One of them is the addition of Hank Haney, Tiger’s real-life coach, here to offer some advice for any willing to listen, and maybe that’s the problem. Although the drills he doles out at the end of a round are useful to a point, they are a little tedious and unnecessary and the benefits they offer to your character are, rightly, only short-term skill increases. Since they’re optional, again as they should be, most players will find no use for them after a few rounds, resulting in what’s a nice idea in principle but in practice very dispensable. A more appreciable new inclusion is that of the Club Tuner, a neat little mode that allows players who care enough to customize their clubs to best suit their playing traits with relative simplicity. If you tend to shank your shots way to the left, Club Tuner will pick up on this and change-up your club accordingly. If you’d prefer to DIY your club tuning then you can alter its attributes (power, workability, loft, spin and bias) using a straightforward slider. It may not be for everyone but players looking to be right at the top of the leaderboard will appreciate an addition that gives the game a bit more depth and personalization. Not that PGA Tour 09 is lacking in the depth department. The single-player game is chuck full of content, something its competitors cannot boast. Apart from an engrossing and enjoyable career mode where you take your customized golfer from rags to riches, there’s the return of the more eclectic and bite-sized Tiger Challenge and the bundle of mini-games, some recognizable and some bizarre, to play on your own or with friends. Of course you can just take to the tee for a regular round of golf, choosing from a huge roster of real-life golfers and courses. Most of your hours (upon hours) will be lost to playing through your golfer’s career, earning them new gear with those afore-mentioned riches to boost up their stats until they’re as mighty as the great man himself.
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Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 
