Our goal with the Tiger Woods games on next generation consoles has always been to offer the most authentic golf experience. To support this goal we have essentially focused our efforts on recreating with extreme detail some of the most famous golf courses in the world. But ever since Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 06 game hit the Xbox 360 about four years ago, players and community members have asked us for a next-gen fantasy course. One course in particular was often mentioned in the forums: The Predator.

So about half-way into finishing Tiger Woods PGA TOUR® 10, we sat down to discuss downloadable contents and figured why not just recreate The Predator for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 as a DLC course?

The last time The Predator was featured in the game was in Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 07 on the PlayStation 2 and the original Xbox. The team and I sat down, popped in a copy of the game and started playing the course. I think our first reaction was: "wow, that's going to be a difficult one!" The Predator can indeed be an unforgiving course to play, with some very long holes scattered with ruthless obstructions and OB areas. But our real challenge was to figure out how to recreate such a dense jungle environment without altering the overall design of the course. We wanted to be as faithful to the original as possible so we started by porting the actual PlayStation 2 course terrain data to our next generation engine then began replacing and upgrading everything.

The course is basically a golf oasis surrounded by an impenetrable jungle. We did some research to find visually interesting trees and foliage that would allow us to create a real sense of jungle density. Hole 10 is a good representation of such thick vegetation.

The other big feature of the course is water. Water is omnipresent in The Predator: a river can be seen flowing from most holes and there are a number of waterfalls scattered throughout the course. We did spend some extra time creating and tuning special water-based effects to ensure that the players will witness some really spectacular scenic vista.

Once the course was assembled, we got even more creative and started placing some fun new additions: there are now broken rope bridges (Indiana Jones style), a crashed propeller airplane (Lost was on TV when we were designing the course), apes are hiding behind the trees (can you spot them?), tee markers are actual mini Tiki statues (imported from Polynesia), etc.

I think we managed quite an incredible challenge with The Predator and created an impressive looking golf course that plays really well. I really can't wait to hear the players' reaction and remember folks: this is only the beginning...

See you online at the tee,

Reza