Last year’s Tiger Woods served up a great game of golf but was criticized for being buggy, having touchy controls and generally being worse than it’s predecessor This makes it easy to be sceptical when thinking about another version but luckily when it comes to this years rendition everything that was wrong with 08 has been improved and then some.

Just like every other EA Sport’s game, Tiger Woods started to implement more involving analog controls. The thing is that last year it tended to be a bit temperamental when you took your swing. This year though they’ve toned it down and added a shot gage when you swing and this appears to resolve any issues seen in the previous version. You can’t help but draw comparisons with the arcade classic Golden Tee and the unappreciated hand-held DS title that was True Swing Golf. It’s these kind of controls that make you feel more in control of the action and this produces a more involved game of golf.

This year’s main new feature is the dynamic skill display that you’ll get after every round. If you knock in that 20 plus meter putt the chances are that your putting skill will go up but if you fail to sink that 1 meter drop in that putting skill will decrease. Previous golf games seem to be about levelling up your character until your number one. Now you’ve got a reason to keep playing as you keep your statistics up because getting maximum will require a lot of consistent play. Fortunately the ever changing levels of skill make this an enjoyable task as opposed to a monotonous RPG like levelling up system.

That skill system is entangled with an absorbing training mode fronted by Tiger Woods personal trainer, Hank Haney. He’ll occasionally offer you tips, let you know what you are doing wrong and even go through training drills with you. If you succeed at these drills you’ll gain a slight skill boost and although these get quite similar if you chain play them, they can offer up a nice stopgap between constant rounds of golf on the tour. They also do a great job of making the skill system feel more unique and true to the player. They really offer a good representation of how good you are in the game and at what areas and dare I say it, the training drills do actually help your play.

Another new feature is the club tuner. This allows you to tweak every single club in your repertoire to your liking. If you want to make your drives straighter you can adjust this with ease but every single modification you can make often results in some kind of sacrifice in another area. For example hitting the ball straighter will result a slight lack of distance but with the amount of changes you can make you can really tweak your clubs to suit your style of play.

The game also offers a whole plethora of modes but the one you’ll spend most of your time in is the PGA Tour that has the eventual goal of winning the FedEx cup. This is fairly untouched as you still are basically playing rounds of golf against other golfers on the tour. Other mode’s include the bunch of mini-games that were added last year like T-I-G-E-R or Capture The Flag.  Tiger Challenge Mode has been re-tuned for this years version and this pits you in a series of challenges against some professional golfers. It’s unlikely that you’ll spend a lot of time here as the challenges are very short so you tend to spend a lot of time in the load screens. Nevertheless this mode does help as a change of pace from straight up golf.

This year the game really takes full advantage of your console being online. Nearly every shot you take, you’ll be pitted up against numerous Gamer-Net challenges. These are shots that have been pulled off by other players around the world and normally provide a strong challenge. Whether it’s a long drive or a little chip the chances are that someone was in a similar position and uploaded their shot online. Mainly because at the press of a button your shot can be uploaded online as well.

Meanwhile the straight up online golf games have been improved with a simple simultaneous play feature. It lets all players take their shots at the same time. This means that you no longer have to wait for other players to take their shots as they are represented by coloured lines that follow their ball. This speeds up the game and means that more of your time is actually playing the game instead of watching other people do the same.

When you compare this version to last years it’s crazy to think about the amount of improvements and new features they’ve actually expanded upon. It’s enough to make last years version look like a public beta test. 09 isn’t perfect as the crowd animations look goofy, the grass still looks kind of awkward and in some modes you can’t skip the CPU shots. Luckily the aforementioned improvements definitely take your mind off these shortcomings because your so focused on the simple fun golf this game tees up.

Tiger Woods 09 takes the foundations from last year and improves on them in every single way. Combine that with all the new features included and you end up a brilliant game of golf. The refined control scheme makes this highly recommendable to everyone but if your a golf fan or even have a vague interest in the sport you definitely should pick this up.

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