By D.J. Piehowski * Monday, October 3, 2011
Copyright & Source: www.golfweek.com
Tiger Woods won’t be alone on the cover of EA Sports’ next release of the “Tiger Woods PGA Tour” video game. Which golfer will join him? That’s up to the fans.
EA Sports announced Monday that the Tiger Woods game will follow in the footsteps of “Madden NFL” and “NCAA Football” in hosting a choose the cover contest on Facebook.
Courtesy EA Sports
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2011
Sixteen golfers – eight Americans
and eight Europeans – will be seeded in match play brackets and will face head-to-head votes on the video game’s Facebook fan page, with the American winner being featured on U.S.-released covers and the European winner gracing European-release covers. The look will be similar to the 2011 edition of the game, which pictured Woods back-to-back with Rory McIlroy in anticipation of the Ryder Cup.
"Our big point in all of this is always to keep our fans engaged in the game," said Marketing Director Craig Evans. "Think back just to this past year, when we introduced The Masters. That is something that our fans have been begging us about for the 22 years we’ve been doing the game.
"We do this all the time, in terms of ‘Hey, what do you guys want to see in the game?’ and that sort of stuff. So we thought to ourselves, let’s get them involved in the marketing, as well."
The contest will take place from Oct. 3-23 and the winners will be announced via Facebook on Oct. 24.
“You never know what will happen when you put these things out for a vote,” Evans said. “I think the Madden guys would tell you that they never would have thought Peyton Hillis would have gone on to win their contest. We all have our theories on who we think is going to advance to the different rounds, but we, at the end of the day, have no clue.”
On the American side of the bracket is Ben Crane, Rickie Fowler, Jim Furyk, Dustin Johnson, Zach Johnson, Hunter Mahan, Rocco Mediate and Bubba Watson.
On the European side is Paul Casey, Luke Donald, Ross Fisher, Graeme McDowell, Rory McIlroy, Edoardo Molinari, Ian Poulter and Justin Rose.
Players were selected and seeded based on a combination of the Official World Golf Ranking, the FedEx Cup Rankings/Race to Dubai Rankings and "Fandom" rankings, which Evans described as a combination of Twitter followers, Facebook fans and traffic to each golfer's website.
The Brackets
U.S.
Dustin Johnson vs. Rocco Mediate
Jim Furyk vs. Rickie Fowler
Bubba Watson vs. Zach Johnson
Hunter Mahan vs. Ben Crane
Europe
Luke Donald vs. Ross Fisher
Ian Poulter vs. Paul Casey
Graeme McDowell vs. Justin Rose
Rory McIlroy vs. Edoardo Molinari
Said to say that Martin Kaymer is (not yet) on the list... looks like Germany's best golfer is not that good as all the German magazines tell us...