Review of Augusta Masters 2002, The

Introduction

A very timely release, with today being the first day of the 131st Open Golf Championship at Muirfield. Tiger Woods is looking to add the famous claret jug to the US Open, and the US Masters to edge closer to a grand slam.

This disc concentrates on the US Masters 2002, where Woods was dominant once more. He became only the third player (Jack Nicklaus and our own Nick Faldo being the other two) to win back-to-back US Masters tournaments. Woods kept his head while all around were losing theirs, and thus walked away with another green jacket.

This disc also covers Arnold Palmer`s final rounds at the Masters, as he decided to call it a day after having played in every Masters since 1955, but not making the cut since 1984.

Video

A bog-standard full-frame transfer which looks rather like NTSC. And that`s because it is. In yet another curious move, this disc will only be playable by those of you who have a TV that supports NTSC (or a DVD player that converts it). Seems to be another case of having a small market for a title, and using that to justify not spending more money on a PAL transfer. Not a practice I agree with.

What you do get to look at is some footage of a golf tournament. What can I say about it? Not much. You`ll see trees, grass, sand, water and people walking around playing golf.

Audio

An average DD2.0 stereo soundtrack, and there`s not much to say about it. You can hear everything that`s said, there`s some cheese-filled muzak in the background at times, and it`s voiced by an American. Which is a shame since the voice of golf is undoubtedly our very own Peter Alliss.

Features

There are three extras.

1) Tiger Woods` full post tournament press conference - this lasts for half an hour, and does drag on a bit.

2) Arnold Palmer`s final press conference - this also drags on a bit, with people asking the same questions all the time.

3) Aerial footage of course - this might be useful if you are going to play the course sometime, but it doesn`t really serve any other purpose.

Conclusion

Given that over 1000 hours of golf rounds were played at this tournament, it`s a bit of a swizz that this highlights package only runs for about 50 minutes. If you wanted a lasting record of the tournament, you might want just a little bit more of the action on your disc.

Combine this lack of footage with very average NTSC video and stereo sound, along with some rather tedious extras and you don`t get a very good package. Even huge golf fans should probably avoid this disc as it`s just not very good.