I'm really enjoying Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 this year, it's got a nice mix of beginner-friendly features, better integration of the GamerNet online features, and a decent amount of depth. It's not a perfect game but, by tightening up the controls, and making the Tiger Challenge actually, you know, work this year, it's the best entry in a while. That said, there's still a few things about this year's game that absolutely must be attended to when next year's Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2010 rolls around. In no particular order:

　　- Improve Putting - I don't care what anyone says: Putting in Tiger 09 is way too easy. Yes, big-time golfers are able to make big-time putts on a fairly regular basis, but you can't tell me that I should be able to sink 30-foot putts with huge downhill breaks on a regular basis, even if my putting rating is hovering somewhere close to "9" right now.

　　In fact, I'd dare say that the putting player rating needs to go away altogether. After all, it makes sense for your created golfer to gain distance off the tee or gain accuracy with his short game as he progresses. In real life, however, putting is the great equalizer on the course, as simple (and infinitely complicated) a measure of eye-hand coordination and spatial recognition as can be. By making putting easier as your putting rating improves, Tiger 09 somehow takes away from that essential skill that is judging break and distance and just how far you have to pull back on the stick to roll the rock into the hole.

　　- Improve the Pro Shop - Namely, give me more things to buy. And I don't mean bunny costumes and astronaut suits. I mean golf clothes. I don't even care if they give me attribute bonuses--in fact, most of the clothing shouldn't pump up your skills. I don't want my created golfer to wear sunglasses, thank you very much. But because you've got a pair that will up his accuracy or distance attribues, I feel like I have to wear them. Keep the attributes bonuses to the equipment and let me play dress-up exactly like I want.

　　- Make Ball Spin a Part of the Swing - Spinning the ball is one of the great joys in Tiger. As the ball flys towards the pin, high over the green, you jam the A button repeatedly moving the right stick left and right trying to judge which angle to set the spin before the ball hits the ground. It's fun, I'll admit it. It's also bullcrap. When a PGA pro puts a shot into the air, he or she has to decide before the ball is struck how much and what kind of spin they want to put in.

　　I want to be able to do that as part of the swing in Tiger. And if the developers really wanted to do it right, it wouldn't be a pre-swing setting either, but rather an advanced method for swinging the stick that would somehow add spin to the ball in the way a real golfer gets "underneath" the ball, sending it spinning on contact. Bottom line: I don't know how the Tiger 2010 devs could do it, I'd just like it if they did.

　　- More courses, more courses, more courses - Did I mention more courses? Don't get me wrong, 16 tracks is nice, but 20 would be better. Sure, I know you've got downloadable courses on the way. But I'm really, really hoping those DLC courses aren't just Tiger 08 courses that EA Sports removed from this year's game in order to make room for Sheshan, Wolf Creek, and the like. Because that would be, you know, cheating.

　　- Skip CPU Players in Tiger Challenge - As I implore so sexily on this week's episode of From the Bleachers, this is simply the most important improvement EA Sports can make to next year's Tiger. I know you spent time on those PGA player models but I simply don't want to have to sit through another Retief Goosen set-up animation to get to my shot. You know you're doubling the amount of time it takes to get through a challenge by making us watch these shots, right? And once you get to an 18-hole challenge, you're talking more than an hour-long wait, half of which is spent simply watching the CPU set up for its next shot.

　　Seriously, EA, let us turn this feature off next year. You can even skip all the other suggestions above as long as you let me turn off Angus McCreary once and for all. But, you know, do the other stuff too.