Maybe if Tiger Woods played this year’s version of his videogame, he’d regain some confidence and improve his real-life golf game. After all, successful links play in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005 doesn’t take much more than a good sense of relative distance and a quick button-mashing finger for power boosting and ball spin control. Who knows? Maybe it’s just the sort of thing Tiger Woo (as he’s known around the GameSpot offices) needs to get off the schneid.

I had the opportunity to check out the game for a preview I wrote and was surprised at the progress I had made after only a few hours with the game. After three rounds of play at my first PGA Tour, I was 20-under par. Granted, this was before I had turned on Tour Difficulty--which both increases the difficulty level by turning off the caddy advice feature and decreases the shot options you have when in the rough. Nonetheless, the game’s challenge level, even at Tour difficulty level, leaves a lot to be desired. In fact, once you’ve figured out the game’s swing mechanics, you’ll find yourself blowing through tour events with ease. What challenge there is comes from the level of one-on-one competition you face, such as PGA Tour pros Jim Furyk, Vijay Singh, and John Daly.

In addition, Tiger Woods 2005 rewards you early with good old-fashioned cash. You can use it to buy fun stuff--clothing, a new set of sticks, various accessories--or more substantial upgrades to your golfer’s attributes such as driving power, ball striking, putting, and spin, among others. Win a few PGA Tour events, string together some nice endorsement deals, and you’ll quickly have a stack of greenbacks and, as a result, a golfer that can regularly drive more than 310 yards and can sink putts outside of 20 feet with relative ease. The game rewards you with a lot of success early on in the game, maybe too much.

I’m really of two minds about this type of “quickstart” mentality in games. On one hand, the sense of accomplishment in rapidly earning new items or powers can be a great motivator, especially as you’re learning a game with a complex control system. That said, the law of diminishing returns emerges at some point; sooner or later, you get to the point where earning new stuff is no longer exciting but merely another screen to click through as you make your way to the next race, battle, or golf hole.

On the other hand, some titles eschew early reward and err on the side of frustrating complexity. Another golf title, Links 2004, was a game whose controls (particularly involving the putting game) were difficult to succeed with for all but the most dedicated. In that sense, it was certainly closer to the real game of golf, where frustration, agony, and profanity fill out your Sunday foursome. Despite the realism, however, the game too often fostered a sense of discouragement that made it hard for me to keep coming back for another round.

I’m picking on golf games here, but the concept applies to practically any game. Titles that get it right, such as Burnout 3, find that ephemeral balance between reward and compelling game play. After all, you don’t necessarily want to keep playing Burnout 3 to earn the next Assassin Coupe, you want to play it because it's an edge-of-your seat, neck-sweating thrill ride. With Tiger Woods, one can’t help but wonder if all the money you earn so early in the game--and the apparel, attributes, and accessories you can buy as a result of that success--is merely a red herring meant to distract from a golf game that, while fun, is too easy to engender lasting appeal.

It can be argued that features such as Tiger proofing and the Tiger Woods version of Create-a-Course (which is really just combining a number of your favorite holes to create a dream course), not to mention the online play, will keep gamers satisfied for a while, perhaps even until the Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2006 drops. However, the idea of playing online with opponents who regularly shoot 15-20 shots under par per round--a distinct possibility this year, once the game finds its user base--doesn’t really thrill me.

The essential challenge, and essential reward, of any game is the battle against yourself, not the competition. In golf, it’s about fighting the course and the conditions, and the ever-changing vagaries of your swing and stance. The challenge for a developer is to find that balance; that abstract, teetering mid-point between keeping the gamer engaged both with encouraging reward and compelling game play.