"Wii Golf Tournament"

by Matthew C.
2007.02.22

Ever since the Wii was released in the U.S. on November 9th 2006, I've been playing a healthy dose of video games. Last month I invited some co-workers over to my house for a "Wii Golf Invitational". It went over so well that I've now made it a re-occurring event. On the last Friday of every month, we play golf. People know that and plan for it.

I have two "wiimotes" and a co-worker brings two more. Ideally, we'd like to have four people playing simultaneously. This somewhat limits the number of people involved, however last month we had five people playing at once (with two people playing as one "team" and alternating shots).

We don't currently have any prizes or incentives for playing well. We really don't even keep track of who wins. We just get together to play golf on the Wii, sit around, and drink beer. It's a very communal activity that helps bring people together that may not otherwise interact.

The current game of choice is "Super Swing Golf (SSG)", however that can easily change to suit the available audience. "SSG" takes some getting used to and has a learning curve, but it's a much more accurate representation of actually playing the sport.


(PARTY NOTE: "Wii Sports - Bowling" is a great relaxing multiplayer activity. Its re-creation of actually bowling is pretty accurate. Aside from [1] removing the stress to the bowler's fingers and [2] renting shoes, this is almost identical to actually going to a bowling alley! "Wii Sports - Bowling" is extremely fun with INFINITE replay value.)


2007.08.02

I now have four wiimotes. We currently rotate between playing "Tiger Woods" golf and "Mario Party" games. It's good fun to sit around after work, relax and hang out.


2007.10.25

The event is still going strong. We've played Super Swing Golf, Tiger Wood's PGA Tour 07, Wii Sports, Mario Party 8, and even Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Tomorrow we're playing Wii Sports golf.


2007.11.30

OK, so we've settled upon playing Wii Sports golf for about nine holes and then switching to whatever new Wii games have been released.


2008.03.06

Hmm, every time seems to be different. Due to extremely bad weather, last month's gathering was cancelled. We've decided to get together this Friday to make up for the omission. Over the past few months, whoever was in attendance voiced their opinion on which games to play. We played nothing but Wii Sports tennis during a recent gathering, however I presume we'll get back to Tiger Wood's PGA Tour 07 this time.


2008.03.27

I'm no longer going to try and guess what will happen in the coming months. I'm just going to tell you what HAS happened. We're getting together twice this month. The first Friday of the month ('make-up' from the previous week's inclement weather) and the 'regular' last Friday of the month.

For the past couple of times, we've played Tiger Wood's PGA Tour 07 and then Wii Sports Tennis. Tomorrow, we'll be playing a round of Tiger Wood's PGA Tour 07 and (almost definitely) Super Smash Bros. Brawl. :D


2008.08.18

Didn't I just say I wasn't going to try and predict the future and then immediately try to predict the future? What the heck?

Oh well. I've bene playing "Tiger Woods 07" this whole time because I didn't think the 2008 version added anything worth spending money on. I just didn't see any real return on my investment. Well, since I skipped 2008, I'm looking at "Tiger Woods 09" and it's looking pretty cool. I guess they've added additional courses in the 2008 and 2009 versions, but what I'm really interested in seeing is this new 1:1 swing mechanic.

There are also a few new features like four-player simultaneous online play that intrigue me. I'm willing to take the risk and see what two years time has done for this franchise.


2009.02.04

It's been a long time since I added anything to this page, so I'll just say that everyone took a break for the 2008 holidays and I personally haven't played any golf (on the Wii or otherwise) in about four or five months. This month we're going to start back up and it should be quite sobering as we've all been slacking.