.KEYWORD tiger
.FLYINGHEAD PRODUCT REVIEW
.TITLE Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf
.OTHER
.SUMMARY News Editor Heather McDaniel thinks she’s Tiger Woods. She doesn’t play golf like him, doesn’t have the money he does, and she doesn’t do Nike commercials. Yet, she insists she’s Tiger Woods. How is this possible? Read her review of Tiger Woods Golf for Palm Connected Organizers to find out.
.AUTHOR Heather McDaniel
I am Tiger Woods. Well, OK, not quite. I can’t play golf like him, I don’t have the money he does, and I don’t do Nike commercials. But I am Tiger Woods. So how could I be Tiger Woods? The answer is easy: by playing Tiger Woods Golf for Palm Connected Organizers.
.CALLOUT To play this fun game, you need a whopping 500K of free space on your device.
After playing the game for a few days, I wasn’t able to stop myself from playing. This is a cool game. At times, it’s as frustrating as the real thing, but so much fun.
.H1 Getting started
Before you get started, you should make sure that your PC and Palm device meet the requirements to run Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf. To play, you need a Pentium-based PC with 133 MHz, 8 MB of RAM that runs Windows 95 or 98. If you’re a Mac user, make sure it’s at least a PowerPC and you’re using system 7.5.3 or higher. Your Palm device can be a Palm Professional, Palm III, Palm IIIx, or Palm VII with 500k available.
The fact that you need 500k of space on your device can be a big drawback, especially if you have a Palm Professional without the Palm III upgrade.
To get started, load the CD into your drive. If you follow the instructions, you shouldn’t have any problems. After you load the courses onto your Palm Desktop, HotSync your PC and Palm device.
Once you do that, tap the "Tiger" icon on your Palm device. You’ll have to register the game before you can play the full version. If you choose not to register, you’re stuck with a one-hole demo.
To register, go online to one of the URLs provided in the instruction booklet. Then enter the certificate number and User ID.
After you enter the numbers, you’ll be given another code to unlock the game. Pay careful attention to the code. It’s long and easy to screw up. When I registered the game, I had to do it a couple of times because I missed a letter or number while entering the long code.
You can start the game by tapping the "Tiger" icon in your applications menu. This’ll take you to the Pro Shop, which is shown in Figure A.
.FIG A To start playing the game, you’ll have to go through the Pro Shop.
Your only choice will be Start New Game. Tap it, and you will see the Game Select screen, illustrated in Figure B. The Game Select screen give you three options: Stroke Play, Tournament, and Fast Play.
.FIG B Tiger Woods PGA Golf lets you play in three different modes.
Stroke Play lets you start at any hole and play through the eighteenth. This is an ideal option to practice. One great feature of Stroke Play is that you can take your shots over if you hit a bad shot (I prefer not to call it a mulligan because it sounds like I’m cheating). Fast Play lets you choose a course and play in a single-player match as Tiger Woods. The reason why game play is so fast in Fast Play mode is because the golfer’s animations are turned off. Finally, there’s Tournament Mode. Tournament Mode is just that — a tournament where up to four players compete against each other. The players can be human or computer-controlled.
From there, you choose your player. Figure C shows you that you can be one of several PGA pros like Tiger Woods, Mark O’Meara, Lee Janzen, or Davis Love III. In case you don’t want to be Tiger Woods, or anyone else for that matter, you can create your own player.
.FIG C You too can be Tiger Woods in this game.
The final step before actually playing the game is choosing a course. There are three courses that are replicas of actual courses. You can play at Tournament Players Club (TPC) at Summerlin, TPC at Sawgrass, or Badlands Golf Club. Once you choose your course, you’ll then be taken to the first tee for your first shot.
.H1 The swing
Learning how to drive the ball isn’t too difficult. The hard part about making an accurate shot is the timing.
Whether you’re driving the ball 200 yards or going for a two foot putt, you have to use the "Swing Meter", illustrated in Figure D.
.FIG D Here’s what the "Swing Meter" looks like while making a putt.
To begin your swing, tap the "Swing" button or hit your scroll button. The meter will rise, and you have to hit the "Swing" or scroll buttons again to begin your backswing. Then, you hit either button a third time to complete your swing.
For an accurate shot, you should hit the swing meter at its upper- and lower-most points. Since the timing can be difficult when tapping the screen, I found it easier to use the scroll button to control my swing.
Just like in real golf, you have to be aware of wind conditions, how far certain clubs can hit the ball, and what obstacles lie in between you and the pin. As you can see in Figure E, course conditions are shown on the screen while you’re preparing your next shot.
.FIG E You can tell what conditions you’re facing when preparing a shot.
Another cool feature of this game is that it allows you to apply a topspin or backspin to your shot. You can also draw or fade your shot. If you use these options, you can sometimes avoid a sand trap or water.
.H1 Fore!
I started off by playing a few holes of Stroke Play at TPC Summerlin. I chose to play as Mark ‘O Meara and Tiger Woods. I found the course at TPC Summerlin to be pretty easy.
I thought did well enough to try to play in a tournament against three other computer-controlled players. Boy, was I wrong. I played in a tournament as Mark O’Meara against PGA pros Peter Jacaobsen, Craig Stadler, and Tiger Woods. I chose to play at the Badlands Golf Club. I found it to be very difficult. I finished at +32.
.BEGIN_KEEP
Apparently, the actual golf course at Badlands is well known for its wind conditions. These conditions are simulated on the game, so watch out!
Despite taking a beating on the golf course, I still found Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf to be a lot of fun to play.
One final interesting note: This game is apparently one of the first to be provided in a Springboard module for one of the new Handspring Visor machines. If you’re one of the first to get a Handspring Visor, you can play this game without sucking up extra
memory.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf can be found at the following locations: EA Sports http://www.easports.com/handhelds/tigerpalm.html, and
MacMillan Software at http://www.macmillansoftware.com/catalog/software_bud.cfm?isbn=157595267X.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
.DISCUSS http://powerboards.zatz.com/cgi-bin/webx?13@@.ee6d816
.END_KEEP
