SAN FRANCISCO--Callaway Tour is Superscape's entrant into the 3D mobile golf genre, and from what we saw at CTIA 2005, it's coming along quite nicely. Callaway Golf is the company responsible for the momma of all golf drivers, Big Bertha, as well as Odyssey putters. In Callaway Tour 06, players using this prestigious golf set will be required to adhere to official PGA rules, including the 14-club maximum in your golf bag, for example. However, the clubs aren't the only thing licensed in Callaway Tour; you'll also be trying your luck on four Troon golf courses; Revere in Concord, Revere in Lexington, Troon North Pinnacle, and Troon North Monument. The courses in the game are mapped to the accuracy of their real-time counterparts, so you'll notice that the topography in the game is quite realistic.

　　The game looks great for mobile phones. As the camera pans around the course cinematically between shots, or as you move it within the game to get a better idea of the layout, you'll see a fair amount of detail in the environment. That detail seems to carry over to the golfing mechanic as well, and you'll have to factor in wind, weather, turf, and incline into every single one of your shots. Despite being fairly detailed, the golfing mechanics are simple and depend mostly on timing your shots on two sliding bars: one that corresponds to strength, and a second for accuracy. For drives, the length of the shot depends upon a combination of your club and the strength of the wind. The first few shots will require that you stop a sliding cursor in the two highlighted sections near both ends of semicircle. If you stray too much on the bar, especially on the accuracy portion, it's quite likely that your ball will go out of bounds, so it is essential above all that you're careful when working with this slider. As you get nearer to the hole, the section that corresponds to the strength will move to indicate that less strength is required to reach the hole.

　　Once you're within putting range, you'll automatically pull out the putter, meaning that you won't be able to do anything but putt from the green. You're given one opportunity, after aiming, to see an estimated trajectory of the ball, and if any changes are necessary, you must make them blindly after that. Putting is dependent on power and accuracy sliding bars as well, but these are slightly different than those used for driving.

　　We saw a few different modes like quick game, tournament, and mobile tour. Although we didn't get the opportunity to check out the online mechanic, players will be able to compete online and post scores to a worldwide scoreboard. We were also told that you'll be able to select the gender of your player, although we're not sure what impact that will have on gameplay. Presuming you're using a woman of Anika Sorenstam's caliber, then ostensibly there'd be none. All in all, we enjoyed the front nine on Callway Tour 06 and look forward to seeing more of this game as it nears release.