EA Sports PGA Tour Golf Challenge arrives on Facebook (with no Tiger Woods in sight)

EA Sports, the company responsible for video game hits such as Madden NFL Football and NBA Live, has released its third game on Facebook -- PGA Tour Golf Challenge. Create an avatar and then hit the links -- playing rounds of golf to earn experience and then rise through the ranks in your virtual PGA career. Swinging the club only requires you to be able aim and click the mouse and then you can refine your shots with various clubs as well.

PGA Tour Golf Challenge has four modes of play, though only two of them are available at launch. You can take on the 'Daily Challenge' where you compete in a three-hold course against your Facebook friends playing the game. There's also the 'Course Challenge' where you can choose to play virtual versions of six real-life courses -- Pebble Beach Golf Links, St. Andrews, TPC Sawgrass, Wolf Creed, Banff Springs and a fantasy course called Emerald Dragon.

The other two modes, which are still unavailable to the public, are 'Challenge Friends' -- which allows you to challenge friends once a day to a match to earn bonus coins and the PGA Tour Season which will let you "complete season events to unlock new courses and Tee Sets."

In addition to perfecting your stroke on the course, you will need to train your player to stay competitive by giving them lessons in putting, chipping, etc -- each of which costs coins earned while playing the game. Coins can also be used in the game's ProShop, to buy new balls, clubs, clothing, and more shots, which will allow you to play longer. If you don't want to earn coins the hard way, you can use Facebook Credits (which are purchased with real-life cash) to buy in-game currency, called Golf Cash, which can be used to buy items the ProShop as well.

Probably one of the more interesting things about this new golf game is that Tiger Woods does not seem to be associated with it at all. Considering that EA has already built a brand around its long-running Tiger Woods PGA Tour video game series (including a freemium version on the web), seems like a loss not to expand that existing brand onto Facebook as well.

We'll have a full review of the game coming soon. In the meantime, check out PGA Tour Golf Challenge for yourself.

Play PGA Tour Golf Challenge on Facebook >