Nielsen knew what he was in for by offering this hole for show at E3. There's no pleasing some people. But, he insists, the game's core and casual fan bases — practically divided into PS3/360 and Wii camps for about 5 years — have more in common than they think. "It's not that our core likes one thing and our casual consumers like another," he said. They want to approach the challenge in the same way, one is just willing to tackle a more demanding set of expectations than another. "Our research shows they also like a lot of the same things. Like fantasy golf courses.

"We haven't built one in a number of years," Nielsen said, "but they were always our most popular DLC courses. We don't feel like we have to build two separate games; it's one game that reaches that broader audience."