I always wanted to play alongside Tiger Woods. I know I couldn’t beat him, but I know I would learn so much from playing with him.
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 from EA Sports was the virtual answer. When I found out that I could download my face onto an avatars body, I was excited. Now, I would get that opportunity to play alongside Tiger!
However, it wasn’t that easy. I let my husband and son handle the logistics. They are both big gamers on the PS3 and the Wii and since I am not, I figured they would be able to figure it out.
After about an hour later and feeling totally frustrated, we decided to just play the game without designing our own personal players. Instead, my husband was Tiger Woods, my son was Rory McIlroy and I was Paula Creamer, all real professional players. We decided to play the round in Bethpage State Park on the Black Course.
Bethpage State Park is not too far from our home on Long Island, but we never could get on the course in “real life.” It’s nearly impossible and needs to be booked months in advance for a tee time. So at least now, we had the opportunity to play Bethpage even if we couldn’t play in real life.
We could have chosen one of 18 courses offered including the famous Pebble Beach, St. Andrews, TPC Sawgrass and Oakmont. All of the courses are beautiful. The rough is very rough and the greens are not always forgiving like in real life.
When we signed in to Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11, we were given some lessons on various shots. If you want, you could stick with the lessons for a while. But we were anxious to get started and dove right into the game.
The game hooks directly to the Internet via your television. You can join either “Team USA” or “Team Europe” and compete against up to 24 players with 12 on each team. The most interesting thing here is that you can actually chat in real time with your teammates who may be in other parts of the world!
There is even a Ryder Cup mode, which I’m told is new this year, where you can play in a team or the game will select a team for you. The winner wins a point for their team. You need 14 points to win.
As we played hole by hole, the ESPN announcers were fierce. They would say “not his best effort,” “Oh, that was just awful,” and “Not great, but fine.” I found the woman announcer particularly rude when I (Paula ) hit poor shots. (It was actually kind of funny.)
The characters looked very realistic. The PS3 makes the characters really stand out too. It’s very three-dimensional. The courses looked great as well. Every time I played, I felt as if I was playing on the course and got engrossed in the whole experience.
I finally caught on at the eighth hole and had my first Birdie. We ended the game at hole nine with a score of Woods 44, Creamer 46 and McIlroy 51. (McIlroy would have won had it not been for the water hazard where the game tacked on an 11 where it should have been a six.)
In any event, the game was a lot of fun. We will certainly play it again and again. I know that the more you play the better you get. And, what it did do was make me think that I can’t wait to get out on the real course again!
