IGN Sports: The game now enables golfers to manipulate the ball flight and trajectory through stance and ball positioning. How will these options affect my swing decision.
Micah Loucks: Changing the ball position in your stance has actually proven to be one of the most used new features in the game this year. First of all, you can now hit a low shot to keep the ball out of the wind, and you can also hit a high shot when you want to minimize the amount of roll or wish to clear some trees. The high shot is extremely helpful when you are trying to stick a long iron or fairway wood approach on the green. One other notable advantage is the idea that you now have a little more help with those pesky "tweener" shots. Since the low shot travels a little farther than a normal shot, and the high shot travels a little less than a normal shot, you can now dial in your approaches with a little more accuracy. With the incorporation of Tiger Proofing, this comes in real handy as the risk vs. reward ratios have been stepped up this year."
(drool)
IGN Sports: Is it true that I can create my own swing this year. How did Team Tiger come up with this feature?
Micah Loucks: Most definitely it's true. The idea came about when we started to look at ways to further enhance our industry leading character creation feature. We were already making improvements to Game Face, but we wanted something more than just changing a characters physical appearance. Anyone who has either played golf or has watched it on TV can attest that no two people have the same swing. In fact, golf swings can be as unique as one's own appearance; they can be graceful and beautiful to look at, or they can be quite ugly and something you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. It was this line of thinking that lead us down the road of creating a "Create a Swing" feature.
IGN Sports: I've been known to routinely score in the low 50s. What has the design team implemented to slow me down?
Micah Loucks: Don't worry; we have quite a number of things to slow you down this year. If you want to get a feel for what we've done, play the Legend Tour against the upper tier players and you'll notice the fairways have gotten narrower, the green's smaller, and the bunkers deeper. If that doesn't faze you, try playing your matches in Tour Difficulty and feel the pain of hitting from the rough. In Tour Difficulty the extra power boost you put on your shot could get you in big trouble unless you hit it on the screws. Oh, and there is no spinning the ball out of the rough in Tour Difficulty either, so hitting fairways and greens is the only way to score low. If this doesn't manage to produce little beads of perspiration on your forehead, try creating your own Custom Course and speed up the fairways and greens and watch even the slightest miss-hit roll into some places you really don't want to be.
This is sounding good...maybe we'll finally get a good challenge. The addition of ball placement your stance to alter trajectory and distance sounds awesome. Can't wait to give it a whirl...
