We announced the Practice Round feature a few weeks back, so I thought I’d spend a little time today going into dmore etail about how the feature works. Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 10 is just over a week away from hitting the shelves, so this will give you a detailed breakdown of the ins and outs of this mode before you get the game.
The Practice Round (PR) feature is located within the My Career section of TW10. So you’ll be using your created golfer when you participate in a PR. First thing you’ll do when you select PR is set up the course and playing conditions for the round. This is done just like in our Traditional Game Modes, so it should feel fairly familiar to you if you’ve played any of the other Tiger Woods games. (click on each of the images to enlarge)
Selecting the course
Selecting the round settings
Once you’ve finished this, you will load into the course to start your PR. There will be a custom load screen entering this mode that will remind you of the unique controller configuration for PR. The controller configuration you set in the game options screen will always apply in this mode, but there are some unique button presses in PR that this load screen will help to remind you of.
Practice Round’s load screen displaying the unique button callouts.
Once you load into the first hole, you will notice that the game sequence in this mode is a little different. You will start each hole at the tee box, but will have the opportunity to either drop the ball on the tee and tee off, or move the aiming arrow to choose another location to play from. Practice Round does not track stroke counts or scores, so if you just want to hit approach shots or putts, you can do that as long as you want on any hole on that course.
Starting out each hole you’ll have the opportunity to drop the ball at the tee box or change locations.
If you decide to change locations, simply use the directional pad to move the aiming arrow and place it in the spot you’d like to take your shot from.
Selecting a new spot to hit from is as easy as moving the aiming arrow to the desired location…
… and then dropping the ball there.
At any time you can choose to change locations by using a single button press to access the change location state with the aiming arrow. The pause menu will always remind you of what the button press is to re-place the ball in a new location. While you are moving the aiming arrow, if you decide you’d rather just take the shot from its original location, just hit the CANCEL button. You’ll see a callout for this on the screen whenever you are changing locations with the aiming arrow.
From the pause menu you can choose several options including restarting the hole you are currently playing or advancing to the next hole on that course. For the purposes of this walk-through let’s choose to RESTART the hole.
The Practice Round pause menu.
When choosing RESTART HOLE, the ball will be placed back at the tee box and you will once again have the option to drop it there or change locations. We’ll choose to place it on the tee.
Back at the tee box after restarting the hole.
Once you choose the DROP BALL option, you will be ready to swing away and execute your shot. Just aim and swing as you normally would in any other round of golf in the game.
Choosing to drop the ball at the tee box will place me at the default tee location. You can choose to place the ball at any of the selectable tee boxes in game (White, Blue, Black) during your Practice Round.
Remember, even while you are addressing the ball, you’ll still be able to back out to the CHANGE LOCATION state to move the ball to another spot on the course if your wish. For now though, we’ll just tee off to further explain the shot for shot sequence of PR.
Once the ball comes to rest after each shot, you’ll be taken to the spot where the ball stopped. You’ll be given the option to accept the shot and drop the ball at that location for your next shot. Or you can retry the previous shot or change location manually to somewhere else on the course. This sequence will continue after each shot until you hole out.
After each shot you have three options: Drop the ball at that location, change locations manually or retry the previous shot.
Once you hole out you can use the MULLIGAN button to return to your previous shot location or let the game automatically finish the hole and take you to the load screen for the next hole. Again, there are no scores kept in PR, so you can jump around from hole to hole as much as you’d like.
Loading to the next hole after holing out.
One of the coolest things about PR is that you can access the Club Tuner feature within this mode to tune up your clubs while on the course. You’ll notice a call-out in the upper left of the screen whenever Club Tuner is available.
Once Club Tuner is accessed, you’ll go straight into tuning your clubs just like you do in the stand-alone Club Tuner feature. One difference in this mode is that it will automatically choose the group of clubs to tune based on the club you are holding at the time. Here’s a look at how the tuning options will appear in the PR version of club tuner.
Power tuning
Workability tuning
Loft tuning
Spin tuning
Bias tuning
Once you’re done tuning, select DONE and you’re ready to test your newly tuned clubs on the course. You’ll be able to hit ball after ball from your current location with the swing feedback trails just like in regular Club Tuner.
Hitting balls in Club Tuner within Practice Round.
Once you are done with your tuning, exit Club Tuner to return to your round. You’ll be given the option to save you clubs or discard your changes when you leave Club Tuner.
Saving your tuned clubs within Practice Round.
In PR, you will have the ability to use unlimited putt previews. This will help you learn the slope of the greens and how hard you’ll need to hit your putts under different weather conditions and ground soak.
Feel free to use the putt preview as often as you’d like in Practice Round.
We’ve integrated PR into the PGA TOUR Season mode by placing a practice round in the calendar on the day before your first tournament round. Before you start the tournament you’ll be able to enter and practice as long as you’d like on the course for that week’s tournament. This will also allow you to make any last minute club tuning adjustment based on the upcoming tournament course or the weather conditions.
You’ll have the option of playing in a practice round before each tournament on the TOUR Season calendar.
I hope this blog has given you some more insight on the new Practice Round feature in TW10. We think that players of all skill levels will find this mode to be helpful in fine tuning their game.
- Mike D.