“ProStroke Golf?” I thought to myself, “This is going to be a long day…” As it turns out, we’ve got a pretty good golf game here. It was still a long day, but ProStroke Golf: World Tour 2007 turned out to be a nice escape.

I’ve got to be honest: I’ve played a lot of Tiger Woods PGA Golf, and I’m getting a little tired of it. I really enjoyed the arcade style play, and I thought the controls worked very well – for a while. After the latest couple of iterations of Tiger on the 360 left me rather disappointed, I was ready for a new golf game. I’ve had a good deal of fun with the Tiger Woods series, but I’m ready to move on. There was a lot of potential in the Tiger Woods games, but it’s grown into sort of a monster, and it’s getting kind of ugly. The constantly shifting control mechanics were enough to irritate me, but charging for cheat codes on what was clearly the go-to version of the game just plain made me angry. Thankfully, ProStroke Golf 2007 is here to take the game of golf back to its roots.

ProStroke Golf is definitely not a Tiger Woods game. What we have here is far more of a golf simulator than anything else, and for that matter, it’s a very well constructed simulator. The controls are a lot more traditional than Tiger’s analog swing mechanic, and I found them to be quite a refreshing change of pace. There are a number of different ways to add spin or directionality to your ball, all of which are really well represented in the “shot shaper” view. After you’ve selected your club and aimed sufficiently, you initiate the swing by pressing the R button. The downswing motion is triggered by quickly switching from the L to R buttons, and striking accuracy is determined by when you let go of the L button. You can alternately continue to hold down R after you’re into your downswing if you want to boost your shot’s power. However, with greater power comes decreased accuracy, so you’ll need to release your shot right on time in order to effectively use the power shots. When you’re setting up your shot, a quick button press is all that’s needed to alter your power gauge’s maximum capacity; making accuracy easily attainable. It may sound like a fairly simplistic mechanic, and it is, but that’s precisely why it works so well. You’ll still need to pay close attention to where you aim, but you’ll get the hang of it pretty fast. In order to be a master of pinpoint accuracy, however, much practice will be required.

Practicing here shouldn’t be a problem, because there are 18 full courses here for you to duff a round on. Everywhere from Scotland to Japan is recreated here, and the graphical detail actually does a great job of distinguishing one course from another. For a PSP game, ProStroke Golf looks surprisingly good, and manages to stay that way throughout the whole outing. The framerate is consistent even when doing a fly-over of the course, and all of the scenery is really quite impressive. The character models aren’t exactly mind blowing, but you won’t spend much time looking at them. The audio is another pleasing aspect here. Tiger Woods games have all of us virtual golfers associating repetitive and annoying commentary, and even crappy licensed music with golf games. In ProStroke, there is commentary, but its toned way down from the level you’ll find in other sports games. Your avatar won’t be making irritating comments about your performance, but the crowds will certainly let you know how they feel about your last shot. I found myself plugging in headphones and letting the background sounds run for a while at the office as well. The placid chirping of birds and rustling of branches can definitely be a welcome replacement for “Best MMO class” arguments.

If you happen to get bored with the offered courses, or grow tired of the fairly robust career mode, fear not. ProStroke Golf has an amazing course editor that allows you to create your own masterpieces, or edit pre-existing courses. Don’t like that tree or think a hole needs more bunkers? No problem! Simply load the course editor and spend 10 minutes or so familiarizing yourself with the fairly simple controls, and you’re officially a course designer. Best of all, ProStroke Golf has a message board community where you can share your custom creations or download someone else’s perfect course. This feature really adds a ton of replay value to this game, and makes it so the challenge level is completely up to you. There is, of course, Wi-Fi multiplayer included with this game as well. Stroke play allows for head to head only, but a match play game will allow for a full foursome. It works great, but you may have a tough time finding 3 friends with copies of this game.

For the serious golfer on the go, ProStroke Golf: World Tour 2007 is the only way to play. The fluid and intuitive controls provide a refreshing change of pace, and a great level of challenge. The graphics are well above par for the PSP, and the addition of course creation modes and online play should definitely keep you coming back for more. Ultimately, what we have here is a spectacular example of a portable golf game that definitely stays out of the rough stuff.