EA SPORTS - It's In The Game

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With Tiger Proofing, Eagles and Birdies
Take on New Meaning

Harbor Town fairway before Tiger Proofing

When Tiger Woods burst on the pro golf scene in the late 1990s and immediately started attacking courses with unprecedented success, course architects responded by lengthening holes, narrowing fairways, adding bunkers, and making a variety of other changes designed to make courses more challenging. Newspaper scribes soon dubbed the process "Tiger Proofing" -- and now, for the first time, you can beef up your virtual courses in Tiger Woods PGA TOUR® 2005 to prevent golfers from attacking the pins on every hole.

"The concept was basically stolen straight from real life," says Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 2005 producer Cody Murry of the new game's Tiger Proofing capabilities. "We just took the idea a lot further than the real-life changes that happen on the real courses. Now, the courses simply play different every time you play them. With all the different sliders and variations and tweaks that we do and allow the user to do, you can essentially play a different golf course every time you turn on the game."

Not much landing area now!

Tiger Proofing allows the gamer to make radical changes to the course. By narrowing fairways, deepening bunkers, re-shaping greens, raising the length of the rough, and making tons of other alterations, a savvy architect can make even the best cyber-golfer finally earn their birdies. Even tee boxes can be moved -- with certain limitations.

"Placing the Tiger tees was actually one of the most fun parts of the process," Murry says. "Who wouldn?t want to tee it up from the middle of the ocean on the 8th hole at Pebble Beach? In most cases, we were limited to using the existing terrain to find new places to lengthen the course. But in special circumstances, we constructed new teeing grounds where we knew it would be fun to play from -- like the aforementioned 8th at Pebble. It was fun to play amateur architect for a while."

What's more, gamers can now take their Tiger Proofed courses online and challenge other golfers on their newly-altered home turf. Longtime Tiger Woods PGA TOUR players that are used to shooting in the 50s may have to start revising their expectations a little.

Make sure to check out the videos above to see more of what Tiger Proofing is all about -- and be ready for the golfing challenge you've been waiting for. You may think you've mastered some of the courses in the game, but once they've been Tiger Proofed, you won't be taking those eagles for granted any longer!