Back Nine Blog

Enjoy the most recent blog from EA Sports.  This blog details the Club Tuner for the Wii by Assistant Producer Joe Tanksley:

Hey, I’m Joe Tanksley and I had the privilege to work on Tiger Woods PGA TOUR® 09 All-Play for the Wii this year.  This is my first year on this project and I am excited of the new look and feel of the game.  One of the main goals for this year was to revisit the swing mechanic.  Taking full advantage of the natural motion of the Wii-Remote is critical for any Wii title, but is especially important for a golf game because a good swing can be the difference between birdie and bogey.   A golf title on the Wii is the perfect opportunity to provide a great 1- to- 1 swing mechanic and this year we did just that.  However, we realized early that everyone’s swing is different. We didn’t just want to give you a generalized swing and force you to adapt, we want you to be able to swing the way you want to swing.  Our new Club Tuner allows you to take your created player and tune your clubs to better adapt to your natural playing style.  If you have a natural draw/fade and are having a problem hitting the ball straight, you can go to the Club Tuner and adjust your clubs accordingly.  If you want to add error to your swing because it feels more like golf for you to do so, you can do that as well.

In Club Tuner, you can choose to tune Drivers, Woods, Irons, and Wedges (if you need to tune your putter, you’re doing it wrong).  You can tune the club in five areas, Power, Workability, Draw/Fade, Loft and Spin.   As you start to tune your clubs, you will notice there are trade offs for each of the areas. You can increase your Power attribute, but at the risk of lowering your accuracy; Workability at the cost of draw/fade amount, etc.  The intuitive trajectory arcs allow you to customize these areas until you find your sweet spot.   If you are having trouble tuning your clubs just right or you make a mistake and can’t seem to correct it, you can select the Fix Button and Hank Haney will attempt to make some adjustments for you.  An issue I had was that I was hitting the ball too far on some of the shorter holes and overshooting the fairway on my drives.   When I dropped down to a wood, I would suffer  from hitting the ball too short, which is good for doglegs but not so much on par 5’s with divided fairways.  So, I went into the Club Tuner and tuned my driver to dial down the power but increase my spin so that I could get better accuracy off the tee.

Another nice feature of the Club Tuner is the Report Card.  The Report Card gives you a grade on your swing based your Shots Taken, How many were inside/outside the target circle, and your average grade.  The grading scale is from A – F and each time you tune your club and take some shots, your score will be recalculated.  This is a great way to really judge how well you are tuning your clubs.

Club Tuner will help to fulfill your swing potential so you can rack up those trophy balls and PGA TOUR® trophies faster than previous versions of the game. Then you can go on to prove to your friends, foes, and your estranged cousin Pete, the self-pronounced golf expert, whose golf game really is deserving of champion.

You can find the Club Tuner in the My Coach section of Career Mode.  Enjoy!

-Joe Tanksley | Assistant Producer