If you played golf on Mars, it would be a strange game with some monster huge drives possible. There'd be no grass, so you'd aim to get the ball not on the green but on the red, hopefully in the regulation amount of strokes. The fairways would be dust-ways and the bunkers would probably be shaped like faces when viewed from above. Of course, you'd be dead too. Though some might say that as a sport, the pace of golf is rather suited to a corpse.

Not us, though. We might not worship Tiger Woods as an idol, but we like a bit of the old ball-and-stick-whacking-punctuated-by-strolling action. So the arrival of Tiger's latest Xbox venture pleased us as much as a hole-in-one on a par four.

The game's attention to detail was one of the first things to strike us, as we created our golfer and headed out into a tournament. The Scottish seaside course was faithfully rendered, with white stone cottages and even the ruins of an ancient castle at one point. Topped off with the accompanying chatter of seagulls, you really feel like you're playing beside a windswept Caledonian beach.

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On some holes, electronic scoreboards lurk behind the green, replete with live tournament stats. And perhaps most impressively, as we were lining up a shot on the fourth hole, a distant cheer went up. We wondered why until a ticker update flashed across the screen telling us someone had birdied a few holes ahead of us to become the new tournament leader.

By the close of our first round, mind you, we weren't being cheered. In fact someone had the audacity to boo our amateur golfing selves. They soon found out it's not a good idea to irritate a man holding a large club. In fairness, a 20 over par round is very poor, a sad state of affairs caused mainly by our struggle to get to grips with the new precision putting system.

Precision putting does away with the old system of toggling between different distance putters. Instead, you're presented with a simple meter indicating the distance to the hole, and as with a fairway shot you must pull back the analogue stick to that mark to initiate the back swing, before pushing it forwards to play the stroke. It's not particularly difficult to get the meter spot-on, but the recommended distance isn't the whole story. There are other variables to take into account such as the slope and the speed of the green.

Some greens are quite complex, humpy and difficult-to-read affairs, and all this is compounded when the heavens open and it starts to pour. If it's overcast at the beginning of a round, it could start to pee down at any point, making the greens soggy and giving the player an even bigger headache judging putts.

The old putting system can be turned back on if you prefer (or indeed the ancient three-click method), but we came to appreciate the precision putting as we acclimatised to it. Even though PGA 10 is certainly testing at times, you're always learning and slowly mastering facets, and the compulsion to come back and play more is constantly there.

Developing your golfer is an interesting exercise in itself. There are four attributes (power, accuracy, short game and putting) which can be coaxed up via skilful play and the training exercises a coach presents between tournaments. Tournament winnings can be spent on equipment which also boosts stats, and building up your golfer while partaking of the PGA Tour is an absorbing experience. Even if it makes very little sense that a pair of camouflaged cargo pants increases the accuracy stat by 0.5.

Aside from the PGA season, there's a cluster of mini-games and golfing modes (from match play to skins), alongside the freshly introduced tournament challenge. The latter consists of a series of graded challenges over the game's sixteen courses, which vary from beating pro golfers in contests to replicating feats such as a monster 60-foot Tiger Woods putt. It's a smart addition to the package, with plenty of unlockable equipment to be gained from completing the challenges successfully.

EA has also made considerable efforts to tie PGA 10 in with the real world. Competing on Xbox Live, there are regular live tournaments online, and a 'play the pros' option that lets players partake against the real life Tiger and company when the actual PGA tournaments are underway, which beats watching them on TV. Even the weather conditions on the course mirror the real weather on the day, so if it's raining at St Andrews, it will be in the game as well. Very cool.

PGA 10 is an excellent golf game with a deep campaign mode, and this year brings some impressive innovations such as tournament challenges, not to mention being able to go online to take on Tiger and other golfing professionals when they play real world tournaments. The new precision putting system also works well, even if it can be a little tricky to get used to.