iPhone - Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf

The long anticipated (at least by me) release of Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf has finally arrived and it does not disappoint. That is not to say that it is perfect or that there is no room for improvement because there is but for its first appearance on the iPhone there is a lot to love here.

When you first launch Tiger Woods you will be asked to create a new player. While the console versions have dozens of customizable options the choices here are very limited. You get to choose the shade of skin color, name and clothe your golfer. This is a cell phone game so this is acceptable.

Once you have created your character you are off the play some golf. There are seven courses included which is an awesome amount for a 10 dollar game. Some of the world’s most famous courses are here like St Andrews, TPC Sawgrass, Pebble Beach and TPC Boston. Every course looks great and has a better than expected draw distance. The grass and trees look great from afar but when you get up close to anything in this game the textures are extremely blurry. This is really the only knock on the graphics that are otherwise great.

You have the choice to “Play Now” or to join the “PGA Tour”. Play Now lets you select what course you want to play and configure the amount of players, tees and whether to play the front or back nine or a full 18 holes. All seven courses are available from the get go so you do not have to wait to unlock courses. For a cell phone game this is perfect. The PGA Tour lets you go out and challenge a field of professional golfers through an entire PGA season. Included in the game are some famous names like Annika Sorrenstam, Vjiay Singh, Natalie Gulbis, Retief Goosen and of course Tiger Woods.

The biggest addition to Tiger Woods PGA Tour for the iPhone is the new swing mechanic. When you are set to take a shot a curved meter appears and you will need to drag your finger down the meter and then back up to take a shot. How straight the shot is depends on how straight you drag your finger through the shot. You can add a power boost to your shot by slightly pausing when your finger reaches the bottom of the meter and then sliding it up to complete your swing. The ball turns red if you did this correctly but wait too long and the ball will turn blue and your shot will be underpowered. You can also add a draw or fade by curving your finger in either direction when you bring your finger forward to finish your swing. The whole process takes a couple of rounds to really get comfortable with but once you do you will realize just how genius it is.

As you play through each hole you will earn money for hitting the fairway, green, scoring under par as well as many other good shots. This money can be spent to upgrade your equipment just like in the console games. The equipment choices are limited and what you really are buying is just a better star rating for each piece of equipment. On the course these upgrades really are helpful and will improve your scoring so you will definitely want to take the time and do this.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour also tracks all the stats that you would expect. Also in this version are the Trophy Balls. Only 9 are included but this is just icing on a complete package so you will not hear any complaints from me.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour will cost you $9.99 in the app store but with all that is included the price is definitely justified. The only real issue I can complain about is the blurry textures when the camera zooms in too far. I highly recommend getting this game if you are a fan of golf.