It’s par for the course that every yearly series will make you wonder, some time around the 16th generation, if the developers know where they’re heading or if they’re just plain winging it. The odd tweak here, the occasional innovation there – it’s all that’s needed to part us fans from our precious pounds. With Tiger Woods, though, we simply don’t care. Why? Because the series has always been great… and with each successive yearling, that greatness is built upon – even if only in tiny increments.

We have to take it as a given therefore, that everything that’s present in the last rehash will be present in the current iteration. With bells on. So then, all that you wannabe Tigers out there really need to know is – what’s different this time around?

Well, there’s a whole bunch of little things, such as a new system for adding fade into your strokes – you can select an exact direction in which to hit the ball as well as the spot into which you wish it to fade. This proves extremely handy on dogleg green approaches when avoiding bunkers on the bouncethrough. The whole system of taking a shot, in actual fact, is a simple case of less fuss, more depth.

The game also records pretty much every statistic related to your golfer, and allows you to share and compare each (along with your favourite replays) with your friends and rivals over Live. The biggest addition this year, though, is the ability to map your own face onto your custom golfer. The process itself is quite time-consuming, as precision is absolutely vital, but we found the results to be nothing short of staggering – they had our visages down to a tee.

Your doppelganger is also fully animated – walking, talking, shouting and dancing all the way to the 19th hole. The likeness is so close, in fact, that it feels oddly spooky – like someone’s just walked over your face, or something. Especially when your minime starts spouting golf-spletives with HIGHLIGHT: Watching innocent members of the crowd hop around in agony after receiving a 100mph golf ball directly to their toilet area. a deep-throated American accent – we got chills.

though, all you really need to know is that, yet again, EA has put together another masterclass in green goodliness. It’s addictive, it’s finely tuned and it’s erm… Golf.

Dan Howdle