Since he began his professional career in 1996, Tiger Woods has launched himself into the pantheon of all-time golfing greats with his flair for the dramatic and his uncanny ability to dominate. Along the way, his intense competitive drive has melted more than a few competitors during a tournament’s stretch drive. The sight of his fiery red shirt on a Sunday afternoon can strike fear into the hearts of even the most battled-tested golfers.

That is, except in the video game world where the reset button is never more than a chip-shot away.

From the inclusion of the game’s most radiant star to emerging technologies that allow gamers to re-create a golf swing in the comfort of their own homes and experience some of the world’s most renowned courses, video game golf offers unprecedented realism and may have the power to introduce golf to a younger generation, inspiring them to move from the living room to the driving range to experience the real thing.

Mike DeVault, a producer on the Tiger Woods PGA TOUR game franchise, believes that the evolutionary process the industry has gone through is certainly capable of opening the game to younger players.

“With some of the new consoles and the new controllers that have come out – I mean for example with (Nintendo) Wii and the Wii MotionPlus controller – you can actually execute the golf swing like you would in real life, standing there holding the controller and actually making the swing and having that translated into the game,” he says.

It’s that attention to detail and the added dimension of being able to put gamers in the soft spikes of some of their golfing heroes that gives the current landscape an advantage over games of the past.

“When I was growing up it was a lot more interpretive, with maybe 10 pixels and a guy hitting a one-pixel ball,” says DeVault. “I think more and more it definitely has the ability to inspire people to get out there and play.” Another bonus? Today’s games allow for multi-player competition, meaning that during the cold, dark days of winter, you can take on your buddies at Pebble Beach or Pinehurst without leaving the comforts of home.

Doug Lawrie is the head golf professional at BraeBen Golf Course in Mississauga, Ont. While he cautions that nothing can replace actually swinging a golf club for the first time, he suggests that young players can at least develop a sense of the required motor skills through video game play.

“I think there are certainly qualities it has, though of course it’s not the real thing,” say Lawrie of golf video games.

“However, for posture, stance, working on swinging aggressively, I think there’s some great qualities in the game.”

Every year DeVault and a whole production team look to take what worked in their game and add even more elements of realism. It’s a tenuous balance at best and one that DeVault says ultimately comes down to whether or not they can make their product fun.

“From a game play perspective, as far as the characters and the swing go, it’s really just about trying to represent as many of the nuances of the golf swing as we possibly can into the game without making it as completely overwhelming as the game of golf can be,” he says. “There’s a fine line there between making it feel rewarding and representing golf accurately and causing a great deal of frustration, which wouldn’t be good.” In past editions, the putting system on the Tiger Woods PGA TOUR franchise gave gamers different putters to use for different distances. It didn’t offer the realism that most EA Sports titles must stand up to and as a result DeVault says they worked for most of the year to change it.

“We had a previous putting mechanic which wasn’t – in our eyes – probably as accurate and as true to life as we would have liked,” he says.

“So we came up with a new putting mechanic which essentially models real life. You have this one single putter that you use on every hole for every putt distance.” The real boom to video game golf came in 2006 when Nintendo launched the Wii. Since then they have sold more than 50 million units worldwide and revolutionized an industry that had long been focused on visual stimulation rather than actual game play. With the Wii MotionPlus controller they were able to change the way the game is played, but also the way it’s developed.

With Nintendo rivals Microsoft and Sony developing similar control systems, the golf video game landscape is ready to take a few more steps forward. DeVault says when that happens gamers and golfers alike will be the ones to benefi t. “Golf is a sport which lends itself really well to those sorts of control mechanism,” he says. “I think it’s just kind of a natural fit, so I would imagine that when those peripherals do come out that it will definitely impact what we have to offer. Luckily we work with the Wii team fairly closely so we’ve already got some experience in that realm.” Most importantly, according to Lawrie, it would give young gamers more opportunity to begin practicing their golf swings. “Mimicking is a huge way to improve yourself,” he says. So while ultimately it would take several years of dedicated practice to develop a swing like that of Tiger Woods, young golfers can build the foundation for a lifetime of golf by doing their best impression of him on virtual fairways and greens.