Tiger Woods Vs. Real Golf 

Our family has a Nintendo Wii , and as an avid golfer the first thing I bought (after Super Mario Galaxy and Cooking Mama to appease my two screaming daughters) is the Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 game. (hereafter known as Tiger Woods 08). For those of you who have not tried it yet, the Nintendo Wii is a little different than other video games in that instead of sitting on the sofa and pressing buttons on a gamepad and losing badly to your kids, instead you can stand and wave around motion-sensitive controllers while still losing badly to your kids. So in Tiger Woods 08, you get to swing the controller like a golf club while your on-screen alter ego mimics the swing. Having played the game quite extensively by now, let's do a comparison of how Video Game Golf stacks up to real life golf:

1. The video game Tiger Woods (or your own disturbing likeness) will pout and throw his putter after scoring a bogey on a long par 5. Scoring a bogey on a par 5 in real life for the average golfer is not just normal, it's a cause of celebration. More joy is brought to the world.  Winner: Real Golf

2. The video game allows you to wave the controller around after impact 'to increase topspin'. In real life, there is absolutely nothing you can do after a mishit shot except watch it slice gracefully into the water hazard. Real life golf teaches you acceptance, the video game teaches you to cheat. Winner: Real Golf 

3. In real golf, you get to spend endless minutes looking for your ball, sometimes even in the middle of the fairway in bright sunlight, only to find it embedded an inch deep in some inconsiderate bugger's divot. In Tiger Woods even if you slice it into the woods and out of bounds, the ball will be ready and waiting for you at the drop zone, even better than the best caddy. Winner: Tiger Woods 08

4. In Tiger Woods, you are 400m away from the hole in deep rough. You calmly flick the controller to your 2 iron and blast it 200m towards the middle of the fairway. In real golf, you are 400m away from the hole in deep rough, try to find a 2 iron, remember you could never hit anything above 4 iron and have decided not to waste the money, sigh, and try to use your SW to hit it back towards any part of the fairway, which on the third swing, you finally managed to do. You look around, realized nobody was watching then loudly proclaim "Wow, at least I got out of it in one stroke !". Seems perverse, but real golf is more interesting. Perfection is boring. Winner: Real golf. 

5. In real golf, you get to enjoy your flight mates' company and conversation as your ride the buggy towards the next shot. However, this is tropical balmy South East Asia, and you also get to enjoy the company of your flight mates' BO. Winner: Tiger Woods 08

6. In the video game all you get after a round is a menu screen and an on-screen trophy. In real golf, you get a meal, a beer or two, and an exercise in revisionist history as you describe to each other in extremely flattering terms how well you played that last round and how much better is that course that you played in Indonesia last week was compared to this course. Winner: Real golf.

7. In Tiger Woods 08, you can select by a button push whether you want to hit a flop shot, hit-and-run, pitch, chip, punch, draw, fade, whatever, and execute it perfectly and without the risk of an errant shot killing your flight mate. In real life, you try to hit a flop shot, got your club stuck 10 cm behind a ball, ended up hitting the ball in a semi-punch that somehow managed to roll up to the green near the flag and and you say "err... yes ! just as I planned !". We've given a nod to leading an interestingly variable life in #4, so I'm afraid this one goes to the video Game.  Winner: Tiger Woods 08.

8. Tiger Woods 08 looks better than Tiger Woods 07, and you can bet Tiger Woods 09 will look even better and have more features. The 07 version of you looks better than the 08 version and the 09 version is projected to have some motoric functions fall off completely. Winner: Tiger Woods 08 (and video games in general)

So folks: it's a tie, 4-4. So we have to go into extra holes here, sudden death style;

9. In Tiger Woods 08, you are stuck with swinging a plastic remote in your living room while your kids make fun of you. In real golf, you are out there in the open enjoying the fresh air with your friends.. and the flying bugs.. and the threat of being rained out.. and having various bits of nature, from trees to monkeys, try to get at your ball and making off it it never to be seen again.. but still, sorry, the nod goes to Real golf, because out there at least my kids don't make fun of me when I make a bad shot (they usually laugh at the youtube videos later). Winner and still the overall champion: Real Golf !

  And now that you're convinced that nothing beats the real thing, why not go into our main page , select a course that you like amongst our numerous partner courses, and book your next tee time with your favourite flightmates. If you look around, you might even find a hotel with a Nintendo wii in the hotel lobby, so you can do the best of both worlds :)

 Small print: 'Nintendo' and 'Wii' are copyright of Nintendo, 'Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08' is copyright of EA Sports.  Still a great game, really...