Golf games: Unleash the Tiger within!

The 2009 U.S. Masters Golf Tournament tees off at the Augusta National Course and sees a certain Mr. Woods tilting for his fifth of those ill-fitting Green Jackets. But which games to pick if you‘re planning to let your inner Tiger loose?

There’s a raft of choice across all gaming formats, and the sport of Golf translates very well to consoles - remarkably so in a couple of instances. Here’s our selections to help you separate the eagles from the triple bogeys:

Wii
Wii Sports includes a fun and surprisingly addictive little golf game. However it’s not what you’d call deep or expansive and players looking for a more sizeable challenge should certainly check out Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09: All Play, which is as polished and fully featured as you’d expect. Also very worthy of your consideration (and possibly cheaper to purchase second-hand) is Super Swing Golf 2, which offers a highly decent round in spite of the cartoony visuals - slick swing mechanics too. Finally, and making no claims of sporting realism whatsoever, Mario Golf and Kirby’s Dream Course are both excellent fun on Wii Virtual Console.

DS
Handheld golfers are not nearly so spoiled for choice, with just a couple of games of any note. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 is the obvious pick and will certainly not disappoint. But we’re going to go for Nintendo Touch Golf: Birdie Challenge (AKA True Swing Golf) in view of its precision 3D gameplay and the ability to send live Pictochat messages to one another - the digital equivalent of coughing loudly while your rival attempts a tricky shot!

PSP
In comparison Sony’s handheld has an embarrassment of golfing games. Quite literally in the case of the heck-awful King of Clubs - avoid it like the fourth hole bunker at Royal St. Georges! Alternatively any of the handful of Tiger Woods games make a smart choice, as does our current favourite, Everybody’s Golf 2. Like its predecessor gameplay is as involved as you want it to be - use the traditional power bar to select power and accuracy or just choose how hard you want to hit the ball and let the PSP handle the twiddlier bits. The nine-hole single-player tournaments are the perfect length for portable gaming too.

Playstation 3
Everybody’s Golf: World Tour, the bigger brother to the above, is our choice for Sony’s next-gen super console, if only because it’s so much more riotously colourful and determinedly unserious than anything from EA’s stable. Which is not to say that this is any kind of push-over. Indeed, now that the power bar is banished in favour of a more intuitive gameplay style the six full-sized courses included here are trickier to master than ever - not that you’ll ever tire of trying. Unlockable characters, clothing and assorted golfing goodies merely add to the fun, even if they don‘t always add that much to the proceedings. Moreover, though, we love it because it‘s so eminently playable and looks gorgeous throughout.

Xbox 360
Microsoft’s big box is surprisingly under-blessed, golf-wise. A couple of downloadables from Xbox LIVE Arcade and the ubiquitous Tiger Woods on main console is about all. Of the former, 3D Ultra Minigolf Adventures is as serious as it sounds and is overshadowed by Golf: Tee It Up! This utilises the familiar three-step power bar while a useful Focus feature allows users to tweak ball trajectory in-flight. It’s a solid round for the money (800 MS Points - £6.80) and the four-player gameplay is always welcome. That said, there really is only one serious golfing choice on 360, and that, inevitably, is Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09. Every year we wonder how EA can possibly improve on last year’s game, but they keep on doing it! This latest outing is the best yet and boasts simultaneous  online stroke play, where four players can hack away at the same course without having to take individual turns, and live statistics whereby a poor performance in any given tournament actually affects your character’s performance ability - much as it might in real life. The in-game mentoring from Tiger’s own coach system is exceptionally useful in such circumstances!

And that’s pretty much it for console golfing. You’re probably getting one very clear message by now too - pretty much anything bearing the words ‘Tiger’ and ‘Woods’ is a winner. We sometimes wish that EA didn’t have such a stranglehold on the market. Then again we’ve a cupboard full of well-played Woods games and we’re always giddy with delight whenever the latest offering flops onto the doormat. Other golfing games do exist, though. Do tell if we’ve missed any obvious candidates in our round-up. Otherwise we’ll see you in the 19th…