Hello everyone, I’m back again with this week’s Live Tournament news and updates. This past weekend ended with an exciting playoff finish at The Open Championship. Stewart Cink defeated Tom Watson to take home the Claret Jug. We had more than 23,000 players participate across PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii in our Play the Pros UK Major at Turnberry. Where did you place?

This week brings some brand new additions to Live Tournaments. We are introducing the start of Live Tournament Seasons, Progressive Payouts, Amateur Play the Pros, My Stats, and a brand new DLC course. Let us know what you think about some of our recent additions. We are always looking forward to hear your feedback.

Live Seasons Now Open!

 
The first ever Live Tournaments Season just started. The seasons will also include the brand new Progressive Payout system. You will now be rewarded based off the total number of players that you beat on the leaderboard. So if you place 100th for the week and 9,000 players enter, you will get paid for each one of the 8,900 players you defeated. The seasons are broken into 2 categories, EA SPORTS TOUR (Amateur low rating players) and the PGA TOUR (Tour Pro). Jump online now and start your season TODAY!

Live Tournament Updates

• New Live Tournament Tiers Coming Soon. Stay tuned for more information.
• The new “My Stats” feature is now viewable in the Live Tournaments hub. It displays various tournament stats such as your average driving distance, longest putt, and top 25 finishes

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• Banff Springs DLC is now available, look for upcoming Live Tournaments!

• Play the Pros Amateur was added this week. Now you can compete against the Pros in the Canada Open Am!
• Player created Extreme tournaments – TRC Solo, daza9996, and SuperD123 have had their custom courses created for the Extreme Live Tournament. Submit your course below or on the forums. Thanks!
• The second patch is currently being tested by our QA Department.
• Based on forum suggestions from the last blog, Extreme tournaments will be varied between custom courses and real courses. Also, the new Open tournament will vary between allowing all golfers and locking the tournament to pros only

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Tournament of the Week – WENTWORTH DAILY PRO, Wii

This was an extremely close tournament played on 7/21/2009 at Wentworth. The tournament featured some rough conditions with lightning fast greens and high winds. Rudolpho just barely edged out second place to steal the win by one stroke. Congratulations to the top three finishers who made this the Tournament of the Week!

1.    Rudolpho        -20     875
2.    Leenah            -19     859
3.    Torrey31        -19     841

Current Money Leaders

 
Survey - Please Vote

Which REAL LIFE COURSE would you like to see added to the franchise? Sign on now and cast your vote in the Live Tournaments Hub.

Let us know...

• What holes would be good for a custom course on an upcoming Extreme Tournament?
• Do you like the new live seasons with progressive payouts?
• Do you enjoy playing against the pros on Amateur difficulty?
Always feel free to post your thoughts in the comments section below or on the forums!

See you on the links,
Christian Brandt

Hello, my name is Christian Brandt and I'm a Designer for Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 10. I'm starting up a weekly Live Tournaments blog to give everyone more insight on new additions, upcoming schedules, tournament winners, and tournament changes. More importantly, I would like to get your feedback so we can continue to improve Live Tournaments. I'm looking forward to hear what you think about some of our recent changes.

This is a big weekend for Live Tournaments starting today with Play the Pros UK Major Championship and the EA SPORTS Open. It will be exciting to watch how the 138th Open Championship pans out. Tiger finished at 1 over after his first round. Where are you standing after the first round? Remember that the UK Major Championship is played at Turnberry in Scotland, so tee times start at 1:30am Eastern Time Zone.

EA SPORTS Open Contest

The EA SPORTS Open featuring the Alisa Championship Course at Turnberry will be played on Tour Pro difficulty and restricts users to only play as pro golfers. Make sure to complete your 4 rounds before Tuesday 7/21/2009 at 2:00am for a chance at some great prizes. The top placed U.S. and UK player for each of the platforms will receive an autographed Tiger Woods game cover.

Visit www.tigerwoods10.com for U.S. rules or www.easports.co.uk/tigerwoods for UK rules.

Live PGA TOUR Seasons COMING SOON!

Starting next week, we will be rolling out the first Online Season. It will be broken into 2 different channels, EA SPORTS TOUR (Amateur low rating players) and the PGA TOUR (Tour Pro). It will consist of 4 week long events with its own season leaderboard. Join for your chance to be crowned the 1^st ever Live Season Champion!

Live Tournament Updates

• Pro golfer only tournaments have now been included in the daily rotation such as SEMI-PRO Tiger.
• The attribute capped tournaments are back thanks to the patch. Currently PTP and Tour Pro events are set to 7 overall attribute cap.
• Based on forum suggestions, the next few Extreme tournaments are on a single course. Do you prefer custom courses or a single course for the Extreme Tournaments?
• All tournaments have been changed to 1 submission per round/event.
• The new progressive payout structure is currently being tested by our QA team and will rollout to production shortly.

Tournament of the Week - SINGLE TRY - FURYK, X360

This was one of the closest and lowest scoring tournaments I have seen since launch. The tournament was limited to only using Jim Furyk on Tour Pro difficulty at Turnberry. Danielson1924 edged out the win by tiebreaker score. The top 4 players finished at -10, but Danielson1924's tiebreaker of 2,249 just defeated Rastafarian73 with a score of 2, 242.

1.      Danielson1924            -10       2,249

2.      Rastafarian73              -10       2,242

3.      HondaDude20            -10       2,198

4.      Schriney                      -10       2,179

5.      THEBEAST7000          -9       2,216

Current Money Leaders

• PS3 - newberry123, $27,269,207
• X360 - Speed 427, $26,317,574
• Wii - MAYLEE, $13,722,030

Upcoming Schedule

Survey Results

We recently conducted a survey through the Live Tournaments banner that asked "Which classic fantasy course would you like to see revived in the next-gen Tiger Woods PGA Tour series?"

X360

1. The Highlands    

2. Central Park    

3. Greek Isles

PS3

1. The Highlands    

2. Central Park    

3. Emerald Dragon

Let us know...

• What course/custom course would you like to see in upcoming Extreme Tournaments?
• What course would you like to see used for the first week of the live season?
• How do you feel about the Pro Golfer Only and Attribute Capping tournaments?

Please feel free to continue the discussion and weigh in with your thoughts in the comments section below or on the forums!  To read this original blog post and make comments, visit the Inside EA SPORTS Blog.

See you on the links,

Christian Brandt