No Boo Weekly!?: Yes, Tiger Woods is a playable golfer in “Tiger Woods 09,” but outside of him, the roster is pretty weak. Only two of the 24 players that competed in this year’s Ryder Cup are in the game, which means no Phil, Sergio or Padraig. There are a number of female golfers and fake, unlockable characters but most of world’s best aren’t in the game. But hey, a sober John Daly is playable, which allows for a lot of easy jokes if nothing else.

No Boo Weekly!?: Yes, Tiger Woods is a playable golfer in “Tiger Woods 09,” but outside of him, the roster is pretty weak. Only two of the 24 players that competed in this year’s Ryder Cup are in the game, which means no Phil, Sergio or Padraig. There are a number of female golfers and fake, unlockable characters but most of world’s best aren’t in the game. But hey, a sober John Daly is playable, which allows for a lot of easy jokes if nothing else.

If virtual golf wasn’t bad enough…: You can now play “Tiger” online in even more ways. EA added a number of new online modes to “09,” but most notable is the ability to play a four-player round simultaneously. For the first time, all players can play at the same time, without having to watch everyone else hit. Each player's shot path is tracked by a colored line that allows you to see what the other players are doing without having to wait for them to do it. It’s about time video game developers started serving the lazy — and the impatient.

Tiger Woods, meet fat Tiger Woods: “Tiger 09” ’s career mode hasn’t been totally revamped, but small tweaks have made the gameplay more varied and given the game a longer shelf life. After creating their own character — fat Tiger Woods, for example — players can either jump into PGA Tour events or play Tiger Challenge events. Challenge events are mini-contests that allow gamers to build up points, which enable challenging pros to a round and unlocking additional courses. Unlike past games where players improved the attributes of their character buy purchasing upgrades, in “09” attributes are bolstered by playing well. So if you putt well, you’re player will become a better putter quickly. This isn’t a total catch-22; you can still upgrade your short game even if you’re a deplorable putter by playing post-round challenges generated by virtual Hank Haney, but it will take longer to level up attributes if your skills are lacking in a certain area.

Does it hold up against “Lee Carvallo’s Putting Challenge”?: Yeah, but it’s no “Bonestorm.” “Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09” is a complete, polished golf simulator. Unfortunately, this game will not improve your putting.

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“Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 All-Play”
Nintendo Wii
EA Sports

3 out of 5 stars

Of all the sports titles EA has tried to transition to the Wii, “Tiger Woods” golf would seem to be the most logical fit. Unfortunately, previous Wii versions of “Tiger” were not quite polished enough. The game lacked one-to-one controls, which meant that drawing the Wii Remote back simply started a canned animation and didn’t give gamers the control that even golf in “Wii Sports” did. But with “Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 All-Play,” EA seems to have gotten “Tiger” on the right path; that said, it’s not quite where it needs to be.

“Tiger 09” features pseudo-one-to-one controls which means the Wii does a good (but not perfect) job of tracking the controller’s movement. This is a significant improvement over past iterations, but it’s still somewhat difficult to gauge exactly how hard you’re hitting the ball. Hopefully, when the Wii MotionPlus controller accessory is released next spring, future “Tiger” versions will be able to offer true one-to-one gaming.

“Tiger 09” ’s feature set on the Wii is comparable to the 360 version, but it also offers additional mini-games which should appeal more to casual gamers. This is the kind of full-featured game the Wii could use more.

Visually, “Tiger 09” on the Wii is significantly inferior to “Tiger” on 360, which is something Wii owners have undoubtedly grown accustomed to by now.