These impressions are based on only 1 game played with the default golfer. I didn't mess with any player customization, so don't bother asking questions about that.
Courses available:
Pebble Beach
Kapalua Plantation
TPC at Sawgrass
St.Andrews
Couer D'Alene
Emerald Dragon(the only one of the 6 that is a fantasy course).
I played 18 at Pebble just to get an idea of the graphics and controls. Graphically I haven't played a better looking hand-held golf game. The course fly-bys and player animations are very good. There's sort of a blocky look to everything, but it's a Nintendo DS, don't expect Xbox graphics. The animations appeared to be pretty smooth all the time. You can click on the touch screen to instantly view any spot on the hole(very nice). Load times were very fast at all times. Audio was ...well, it's golf. Birds chirping, and a few claps here and there from the crowd (not visible).
Now onto the most important aspect of any golf game, the controls. I despise the stupid click-click-click method of games like Mario and Hot Shots. It's antiquated and lame. The analog swing method of Tiger Woods, Outlaw Golf, and Links on the consoles is much more intuitive, although allows for shooting very low scores when one has mastered the perfect swing technique. The method of swinging in TW-DS is quite different. I didn't read the manual, so I could be wrong on some of this, but apparently you just have to run the stylus along a swing meter as perfectly as possible to get a good swing. Apparently you must also be fluid in your timing to get good distance on the ball. There's also a power bad to the right of the swing meter that you can charge up before you hit. I shanked a lot of balls at first, but near the end of my round I was hitting a lot of straight drives, but shanking a lot of chips. You definitely have to work harder at getting a great shot in this game. The major disappointment to me was the putting. Just like in the console version, you get a caddie tip, move a curson, and in TW DS you then just press a button and putting then occurs on its own without any further input from you. That's lame. Why come up with this cool new swing mechanism and then completely ditch it once you hit the green? Stupid and lazy, if you ask me. Graphically, it's also very hard to read the greens despite there being a grid. So basically you just rely on the caddie tips, and then try to move the putting cursor appropriately. I can't say it enough how stupid the putting is. It doesn't completely ruin the game, but it is a letdown. Taking away swing control from the user is just wrong. But enough from me on that. You can decide for yourself if you like it or not.
I wanted to play Couer D'Alene, but it was locked. So apparently you have to go through some single player challenges or whatnot to open up more content.
All-in-all, I wouldn't say this game is worth the 40 dollar pricetag. 20 bucks, yes, 40, no. For an additional 10 bucks you could get the Xbox version which has many more courses, better graphics, and the ability to play online. But then again you can't play your Xbox in an elevator.
Yeah, I pressed start during play and there were no options for changing putting.
No RTEs. Player customization is pretty weak compared to Gameface in the console games. You can choose from about 3 hairstyles, 7 types of shirts(and change color), a few kinds of pants and shoes, 3 sizes of head, 3 body sizes, and you can wear a couple different kinds of hat. You can also change your skin tone. That's about it. I tried to give myself black hair, but couldnt find it. They had green, red and purple, but not black. Seemed odd (or I'm blind).
There's a legend tour split into 3 parts. Every event is locked until you complete the current objective and move on to the next. Only Pebble, Sawgrass, and St. Andrews are available from the start. You have to earn Coeur, Emerald and Kapalua.
I don't find it easy to score yet. I birdied a few holes, but also bogeyed many. I'm not getting 100 percent on my drives and I haven't figured out why yet. I played my first match against the CPU and it knocked it out of bounds twice on the first hole, but I was dormie 3 and it came back and beat me until the last hole where we tied and he lost. I see no way to adjust difficulty, but I haven't really looked hard at that. I can't speak of Multiplayer right now since I don't have my DS or the manual near me.
No, I know how to get the extra power. It's getting my regular swing to 100 percent that's the question right now. I believe it's a matter of timing the swing perfectly, which I haven't managed yet.