The long awaited, much hyped new EA Sports game was finally released to the public today:Â Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 12: The Masters
In order to play Augusta, you have to use a pro avatar or work your way up through the Tour and earn your way there using your own profile. As far as I know, you cannot bring Tour experience from an earlier game version to help get you there. So, since we all want to play the course as soon as we get our hands on the game, we’ll be playing as one of the pros at first, right? I went with Suzann Pettersen. She seems like a cool chick and I have heard great things about her fun personality.
Right away, you’ll notice a few new things besides the course.
As the game is loading, it asks to set up your balance board. I wish I had one – that would make the game even more real! (Update: Twitter friend @ToddLewiSS just told me that board only had a usable width of about 16.5″, so at 5’11”, my stance is a bit wider than that. As he pointed out, it might be fun to use for little chip shots but not for a full swing. I’ll have to think about whether or not I want to invest in this after all.)
Next, you have a caddie! Not just the Tour pros, either. When I create my own avatar (and I will), she will also have a caddie, whose own course knowledge will grow as my own experience progresses. Also, see that tee looking thingy next to my caddie in the pic above? Yep, you can re-position yourself within the teebox for better angles. Pretty cool.
Another tricky thing you may notice is that the wind actually swirls around on some holes! Careful with those shots. You may pick a club and a shot and by the time you swing the wind changed direction. Yeah, just like real golf! Only on the course, you don’t have the handy-dandy wind icon that tells you which direction and how hard it’s blowing. Just a cool little feature, I thought.
So, how did I do? Well, with swing settings on advanced, nice weather, Thursday pins and precision putting selected, here’s how “we” did:
As you can see, I had an eagle, a birdie and two bogies heading at the turn…
But then I made two birdies on Amen Corner alone! Had a three putt bogey in there and a couple good par saves. So what if the scorecard shows you going “out” on both sides? We know what they mean!
So thanks, Suzann, for being so reliable out there. And for having such a great caddy. He gave me a lot of good advice.
I recommend when you play this, you listen to your caddy! I liked figuring out my shots and THEN asking for advice to see if we agreed. Surprisingly, we usually did!
By the way, I do use the Wii Motion Plus on my controller, but that’s not all. I also have a Chicken Stick, which makes it feel much more like playing golf for real. It has a real grip and partial shaft, and the weight of the controller and motion plus in the device just about feels like the weight of an iron. Â (You activate the b button by pulling that ring behind the club.) Awesome. You need one of these:Â Bad Chicken Wii Chick Stick Golf Club
Stay tuned as I will be posting progress reports with my own player and how I progress. Going to start on Tour and earn my way to Augusta this time.
My editor from their website still isn’t sure what’s going to happen with their online presence so there could still be some life there.
All is right with the Universe
Annika has a frequent Q&A session on
The Commish that Saved the LPGA
Twenty years ago, the LPGA looked a lot like it does today. Sponsors and tournaments were dropping off like flies. The Commissioner was being removed from duty. Players were unhappy. Then the organization made a winning move by replacing Bill Blue with Charles Mechem. He developed a good relationship with the players and the media, conciliated the sponsors, grew the tour with more events and ultimately got the LPGA back on track and thriving. We need a Charlie Mechem for 2009. Charlie’s still involved in the golf world to a fashion, though I doubt he could be lured back to his old post at this point.
I recently spent a day with Charlie – talking, eating, and of course, playing golf. He is a charming, amiable man with a gracious spirit. When my golf ball rolled off the fairway and wedged into a dicey lie in the plants, he casually kicked it out and humorously issued a “commissioner’s ruling.” I wouldn’t accept that with anyone else, but who am I to argue with the commish? I think you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn’t like this man.
I told the story of how he became commissioner and saved the LPGA in this article (starts on page 12) for Jackson Hole Golfer Magazine, an annual publication issued in a beautiful hard cover book as well as a glossy magazine.
With Carolyn Bivens on her way out, the LPGA needs to find someone who can pull off what Charlie did, and I suspect it won’t be easy. (Hey Charlie, how about filling in while they conduct their search?)
In his article on what went wrong with Bivens, Alan Shipnuck offers up Judy Rankin as a suggested replacement with the logic that she’s “basically a female Mechem.” Sounds good to me.
Photo from Golf.com (David Cannon/Getty Images). Perhaps If Ms. Bivens appeased all the sponsors like she must have with this homage to Ronald McDonald, she’d be in less trouble today.
Next post.