Kombo's Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don't waste your time. This is why we've split our reviews into four sections: What the Game's About, What's Hot, What's Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.

What the Game's About
Tiger Woods is the greatest golfer, and not only has he gotten his face on Wheaties, he has his own video game franchise. While the golfing fad has died down a little bit in North America, it hasn't hurt Tiger Wood's popularity. EA takes this franchise seriously and each year's game rarely misses a step. You can take to the links with the world's more famous face in professional golf and compete in tournaments, challenges, skins and other golfing events. Now that Woods is sitting out this year, the only place to catch him is on Tiger Woods 09 for the home console systems.

What's Hot
This year the biggest additions in Tiger Woods 09 are the instantaneous online play, Wood's personal coach assessing your play, club tuning to do some adjusting to your swing, new skill system and some new courses. All these additions work really well and make the game extremely user friendly. Not being a big golfer myself, I was pleasantly surprised about how intuitively the controls worked. Not even reading the instruction manual, I was able to swing with the best of them on quick play. After you scratch that surface, it is easy to dive into creating a golfer and tackling some tournaments and challenges.
The skill system to improve your player this year is more organic in how you progress. Instead of accumulating points and maxing out stats to have a golfer better than Woods himself, the skills are more fluid and dynamic. The skill setup is a way to chart how you as a player change as you play more. So you could start off with a phenomenal short game, but as you focus on putting or driving, your skills in chipping could suffer because of it. This is the ultimate reward system -- just like the real pros, you need to be at the top of your game all the time.


What's Not
It's nice that Hank Hanely is included for golf fans and Tiger Woods devotees, but his purpose in Woods 09 is rather superfluous. Not to get down on the guy for some poor voice over because he is a coach, not an actor, but there isn't anything his likeness adds to the game. I would have much rather seen and heard Tiger Woods coaching and giving tips. This is his game after all.

The game of golf doesn't change too much and Woods 09 keeps with that tradition. Part of what might make the Woods franchise so successful is the more incremental improvement it sees each year. The drawback is that because the change is so slow to happen, finding a really compelling reasons to plunk down more cash for a slightly better game is difficult. For the future of this franchise, it might benefit to have more sweeping changes to areas that would give perceived value, like graphics for character models.

Final Word
Woods 09's improvements are targeted to some key areas like career mode and online so it is easier to recommend this game over past years. Still, it seems the Tiger Woods franchise likes to move at a slower pace. If you are looking for a golf game to get into that is new player friendly and instantly enjoyable, Woods 09 is a great entry point. The new online mode is a joy because it requires less waiting around and more action, and if you are heavy into playing over the internet, that could be the only selling point you need.