Shot Shaping
Shot Shaping shaves strokes! Use the guide printed along the top of the game's control panel to see which direction of trackball rotation for back swing and forward swing will result in the ball flight path that you are trying to produce.

• Use TOPSPIN to keep the arc of the ball lower to the ground and reduce (not eliminate) the impact of wind on your shots. (Topspin also tends to roll further once the ball makes contact with the ground, which comes in handy to get a few extra yards down the fairway.)

• Use BACKSPIN to get a little extra loft and make the ball roll back towards you upon making contact with the ground. (Especially useful when trying to place the ball on greens that back up against bunkers, water, or other hazards or when trying to clear short trees. Beware of the wind!)

Approach Shots (for shots that are 40yds or less from the pin):

• Use CHIP when attempting shorter-range shots. (Use this to get up onto the green when you're close enough.)

• Use the PUNCH shot type to keep your chip shot arcs lower to the ground. (The ball tends to roll further with this shot type too.)

• Use LOB to add some loft the ball's arc of your chip shots. (Lob also adds a little backspin so that the ball will tend to roll back towards you once it makes contact with the ground.)

Shots from bunkers near the green (used when 30yds or less from the pin)

• Use BLAST to help get shots from the bunkers safely out into play again. (The ball's lie impacts the speed of trackball rotation required to get the desired shot. Use blast and fast trackball rotation to counter the effects of hitting the ball while in the sand.)

Putting

• Use PUTT to keep the ball on the ground and rolling in the direction of your swing. When putting, the direction of your back swing does not matter. Only the direction of trackball rotation during the forward swing will affect the direction of the ball's path when putting.


• Check the GRID! The greens may have breaks or undulations that will influence the path your ball takes when putting.

Watch the Wind!

• Watch the display in the upper right hand corner to see wind speed and direction. Factor this in to your shots. Wind below 5mph tends to have much less affect on shots than wind that is 10mph+. Tail winds will carry the ball further and head winds will reduce the distance of your shots. Cross winds will also "push" shots in the appropriate directions. Use shot shaping to counter the wind. Keep in mind that the lower the arc of the shot, the less it will be impacted by wind. This is why Topspin shots are affected less by the wind than Full or Backspin shots.

Flyover

• Use the FLYOVER button to see a bird's-eye aerial view of the course from the current placement of the ball to the pin. PRESSING AND HOLDING THE FLYOVER BUTTON DOWN WILL ALSO DISPLAY THE GRID FOR THE GREEN. (Holding the button down is especially useful when deciding where to place the ball when shooting for the larger greens.)

More Tips on Putting
Putting in EA SPORTS™ PGA TOUR® GOLF can be challenging.

• USE THE GRID - Whether or not you leave it on while you actually make your putt does not matter but ALWAYS at least check the GRID by pressing the SHOT TYPE button if you have any significant distance to putt. Otherwise, you may be surprised to learn the hard way about a break to the green! It's been said before and it holds true in EA SPORTS™ PGA TOUR® GOLF: Drive for show! Putt for dough!

Club Selection
Selecting clubs in EA SPORTS™ PGA TOUR® GOLF is easy. The game will automatically select a club that will work in most instances. Spinning the trackball slowly to the left or right will change the current club selection. Notice that the marker displayed in the lower left of the game screen moves when you change clubs. Be aware, though, that the game's choice in club selection does NOT take wind, shot shaping, or slope of the landing surface into account. The marker displayed in the lower left of the game screen simply indicates the distance our PGA pros would typically hit the ball with the particular club currently selected. Once you have a club selected and are ready to hit: If you spin the trackball very fast during your forward swing you may be able to hit further. If you use a softer touch you can intentionally bring the ball down in shorter distances.

Speeding Up Game Play
There are a few ways to speed up the pace of the game:

• Press the SHOT TYPE button while the ball is in the air. This speeds up the animation and brings the ball down to the ground and to a stop more quickly than normal. THIS DOES NOT HAVE ANY IMPACT ON THE ACCURACY OR DISTANCE OF YOUR SHOTS! It simply speeds through the animations on the screen reducing your "waiting time" for the next shot.
  
• Once you make your shot, press the START GAME button after the ball comes to a stop in order to speed through the player animations. Again, there is no impact to game play other than reducing waiting time.
  
• Use the SKIP PLAYER feature! If a player in your group needs to be "indisposed" for a minute or two, press the START GAME button when it is his/her turn and go to the next available player's turn. This will not cost any players any strokes. It is simply a more convenient way to keep play moving forward and reduce the amount of time spent waiting for other players to take their shots.
  
• When the leader boards or scorecards are displayed on the screen, press the START GAME button to move on to the next hole without waiting.
  
• When an instant replay starts, press START GAME to skip the instant replay and move on to the next shot.
  
• Tell your opponents to limit bragging/complaining about how great that last shot would have been if they had done this, that, or the other thing. You may also want to discuss friendly agreements on limitations of the number of uses of the fly-over button and switching the putting grid on/off. We can't do much about forcing players to take their shots in a timely fashion. This part is left up to you!

Player selectable difficulty levels
At the coin prompt screen, press the SHOT TYPE button and a difficulty level selection menu appears in the lower right corner of the game screen. Rotate the trackball up or down to cycle through the five difficulty levels. (1 = Easiest, 5 = Hardest) The harder difficulty levels have higher wind speeds and smaller holes, increasing difficulty for both driving and putting.