Putting is broken, driving not much better
EA's claim of 1:1 swing mapping is an outrageous lie (obviously from the school of thought "if you are going to tell a lie, tell a big one") and its not something that won't become obvious after 5 minutes, so why bother? Much better for them to have said "well its nearly there and we look forward to using the new motion control technology to bring you 1:1 NEXT year.
Driving kinda works - but the devil is in the detail. If you want to deliver a 92% power shot onto the green on other versions, you can (with a bit of skill and practice). On the wii however its not as easy, and you are left with 3 basic options: wack it at full power, move a bit slower from about 70 degrees, or give it a little nudge from about 30 degrees. None of these, apart from possibly the first, is anything remotely like you would swing a club.
Putting is....interesting. You hit the ball at 100% power regardless of how far you wish the ball to travel. And just in case you think I am praising this innovative idea - I'm not. It sucks. And if you thought driving was hard to hit precisely, wait until you get to the green. Holding the remote at 90 degrees for a 100% hit, you slowly lower the angle as you want to hit at about 85% power. The power meter doesn't respond, staying firmly at 100%. You lower the club a bit more - still nothing. 45 degrees - nada. 30% - power bar shoots down, so you raise it up a bit, and bang! back up to 100%. Completely and utterly broken.
Apart from that it looks quite nice, with (I think) a total of 13 courses including 5 new ones. Thats a lot of holes of golf to play, so its a real shame that the controls make it a farce rather than a pleasure.
Golf on the wii shouldn't be difficult to implement, but so far nothing has touched the golf on wii sports. Now if that was released as a stand alone title with 13 courses and improved drive controls (no waggle bar for over hitting a shot for starters)............