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Every shot from the Masters will be posted online within five minutes
Golf fans who are planning to watch the Masters this weekend will have yet more ways to check out the action. For the first time at a golf tournament, practically every one of the more than 20,000 shots from the first major of the year will be available to view on the Masters website and app within five minutes of a player striking the ball.
NBC Sports and Rory McIlroy launch a streaming service for golf nuts
NBC Sports and four-time major champ Rory McIlroy have unveiled GolfPass, a streaming service for golfers. It will include 4,000 instruction videos, archived tournaments and even a free round of golf, all for $10 per month or $99 per year. The network related it to Amazon Prime, saying the aim is to encourage hobbyists to play more golf and give them additional viewing options. "It's sort of like, for me, Golf Channel 2.0," said McIlroy. "[It] was driven by my desire to enrich the golf experience for fans all around the world."
Garmin's latest golf GPS can throw you into virtual tournaments
Garmin doesn't just want to help you improve your golf game -- it wants to enable golf matches with players who are nowhere near a course. It's launching an Approach G80 golf GPS that includes new game modes, including a Virtual Tournament option that pits you against players at the driving range and at home on recreations of famous courses. It's not going to have the slick presentation of a video game on its 3.5-inch touchscreen, but it could feel more like the real thing. If you're looking for simpler contests, a one- or two-player Target Practice mode can help you improve your accuracy.
Turner had to stream Woods-Mickelson golf event for free due to glitch
Online pay-per-view events are increasingly common, but it's clear they still have some technical hurdles to clear. Turner's Bleacher Report was forced to offer a free stream for a much-hyped one-on-one golf match between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson (simply nicknamed "The Match") when purchasing glitches threatened to prevent paying customers from tuning in on time for the November 23rd event. The company told Variety in a statement that it had taken a "number of steps" to fix the issue, including the free stream to please customers.
Discovery and PGA Tour team up on GOLFTV streaming service
Discovery and the PGA Tour have announced a new OTT service called GOLFTV, which will be a hub for golf coverage outside of the US. GOLFTV will offer more than 2,000 hours of live content each year and will cover around 150 tournaments. Down the line, Discovery might also bring analysis, equipment reviews, course reviews and travel to GOLFTV, Variety reports.
Golf course drone deliveries help you grab a bite on the green
You won't have to wait for a human courier (or drive back to the clubhouse) just to satisfy your hunger in the middle of a golf game. Flytrex and EASE drones have teamed up with King's Walk Golf Course in North Dakota to offer the first drone-based food delivery service on an American golf course. If your stomach is growling several holes in, you just have to pick a pre-approved drop-off point through a mobile app, order your meal and watch as a human-piloted drone carries your grub directly to that point. That's potentially much faster than having a worker drive a circuitous route.
Garmin's latest golf tracker helps you choose the right club
You can already get golf watches that show hole data and track your swing. Let's be honest, though -- ideally, they'd give you some insight as to which club is best for that tricky dogleg or sand trap. Garmin, at least, thinks it can provide that helping hand. It's now shipping an Approach CT10 tracker that fastens to the top of your clubs and provides insight on a club-by-club basis thanks to automatic syncing with supporting Garmin watches. You'll ideally know which club to choose based on your actual performance and situation, rather than picking one based on arbitrary expectations. A 9 iron may be a better choice than a pitching wedge, for instance.
Facebook will air live PGA Tour coverage on its Watch tab
One of the ways that Facebook has been highlighting its Watch tab is through exclusive streaming deals with sports leagues. Now, the PGA Tour joins the roster of sports that will air coverage on Facebook exclusively. Live competition coverage of eight tournaments in the 2018–2019 season will stream exclusively on Facebook.
Zipcar rolls out the UK's biggest zero-emission car-share fleet
The UK's Zipcar club is going green. This summer, the car-sharing company will begin adding Volkswagen e-Golfs to its London fleet, starting with 100 in July and totalling 325 by the end of the year. Other car clubs already have EVs on the roads in the capital, but the move will make Zipcar the biggest zero-emissions car-share program in the UK.
'What The Golf?' is the perfect game for people who don't care about golf
Just when you thought we couldn't find any weirder games at GDC 2018, here comes another one. What The Golf?, created by Copenhagen-based developer Triband, is being billed as the perfect anti-golf adventure. That's due to the fact the title defies the sport's strict rules -- like a set number of holes and, um, using round balls -- in favor of silly, sometimes absurd mechanics that make it feel like anything but a game about golf. Instead of swinging at balls, here what you try to drive to the hole can be a house, a rag doll or (because why not) a cute horse.
PGA Tour AR app puts a golf course on your coffee table
Sports and augmented reality (AR) apps are nothing new. The technology has been used by the NFL, NBA and even German soccer teams to promote their respective leagues, with results varying from the gimmicky to the interesting. Now the Professional Golfers' Association (PGA) has its own AR app on iOS that lets you watch real-time shot trails appear on select holes during live competition. You can also compare up to four different players' shots, if that's your thing.
Garmin's latest activity band is built for rookie golfers
To date, Garmin's golf tracking wearables have been aimed at experienced players, with the higher prices to match. Even the Approach X40 isn't a trivial purchase. But what if you're relatively new? Enter the Approach X10: the new model gives you data for 41,000 courses at a $200/£160 price that's easier to swallow for someone just starting to refine their game. You still get GPS positioning, a 1-inch touchscreen and connectivity with the Garmin Golf app to compete with friends. The main sacrifice is the absence of support for a TruSwing club sensor, so you'll need to step up to pricier gear if you want to perfect your swing.
TaylorMade's new putter can analyze your golf stroke
Blast Motion is known for making sports sensors aimed at improving your golf, baseball or softball performance and now they've teamed up with TaylorMade on a putter that can analyze your putting strokes. The Spider Interactive Powered by Blast putter marries TaylorMade's most popular putter with Blast Motion's motion capture sensors and can measure and report your backstroke time, forward stroke time, tempo, impact stroke speed and face rotation. With the accompanying app, users will be able to track their progress, access training modules and view videos of their strokes.
Hackers say Nintendo’s hidden golf game on Switch is gone
Back in September, intrepid hackers prying into the Nintendo Switch found a game hidden in the system's code: FLOG, a version of the classic NES title 'Golf.' After further examination, the dataminers found that you could only access it on July 11th, and guessed that the game was a tribute to the late, great Nintendo President Satoru Iwata, who passed away on that day in 2015. In other words, you could play it if you fudged the date on your console and didn't connect it to the internet -- until now. Hackers reported that the latest Switch update (4.0.0) wipes FLOG from the console's firmware.
'Golf' Easter egg on the Switch may be a tribute to Satoru Iwata
It sounds like that hidden version of Golf on the Nintendo Switch may actually a tribute to the company's late president, Satoru Iwata. A group of enterprising hackers (including "yellowS8" from our last report) discovered that unlocking it is limited to one day per year: July 11th, the day Iwata passed after battling cancer. You can't just go in and manually set your system clock, mimic Iwata's Nintendo Direct gesture and start hitting the links, though.
PGA Tour taps Intel for VR coverage of six upcoming tournaments
Intel has been powering virtual reality sports viewing for some time now. The chip maker has enabled VR for the Olympics, Major League Baseball and the National Football League, and has taken virtual reality to the golf course with the PGA. It's this last partnership in the news now, with Intel and the PGA Tour organization connecting to produce and distribute live VR and 360 video at six upcoming PGA events starting with the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta from September 21st to the 24th. It will continue VR coverage at the Presidents Cup at the Liberty National Golf Club in Jersey City from September 28th through October 1st.
Zepp phone apps use AI to study your basketball shots
You may know Zepp for sports tracking sensors you can slap on your baseball bat or soccer ball, but its latest tracking involves little more than your phone and a good view of the action. Its game recording and training apps (Android, iOS) are adding a dash of AI technology (namely, computer vision) to analyze your baseball swings, golf swings and basketball shots. If your three-pointer throwing needs work, you just need to point your phone's camera at the court and start capturing. You can share the videos and performance data with others, too, in case you need to prove your skills to recruiters.
Panasonic can read your heart rate by looking at your face
Being a sports professional means keeping calm in high-pressure situations, or at least pretending you are when actually freaking out. Spectators are typically none the wiser, but Panasonic will be giving viewers some additional insight into the mind of golfers competing at the Panasonic Open Golf Championship 2017, which tees off in Japan later this month. Coverage of the tournament, which is being broadcast on Japanese TV and online, will show the heart rate of golfers on-screen, so you can watch the nerves kick in as someone steps up to attempt a clutch, chip-in birdie. It's intended to add a bit more drama to the otherwise slow proceedings, but just as interesting is how Panasonic plans on making this happen, using what the company calls "contactless vital sensing" by way of a special camera.
DirecTV doubles its live 4K broadcasts for this year's Masters
Last year DirecTV made history with the first live 4K broadcast -- the PGA Masters Tournament. It was only one channel, sure, but up to that point anything we'd seen in UHD had been pre-recorded. For the outfit's return trip to the 4K links, DirecTV is doubling the number of channels available. CBS is handling production duties for channels 105 and 106 from April 6th through the 9th. The former will feature views from Amen Corner, while the latter is dedicated to holes 15 and 16.
PGA will test shot distance trackers on three tours
Not surprisingly, the PGA has been hesitant to let golfers use distance trackers on the course. In theory, they take all the challenge out of picking the right club. The association isn't stuck in its ways, however. Officials have announced that they'll let players test distance measuring devices at certain tournaments on the Web.com Tour, the Mackenzie Tour in Canada and PGA Tour Latinoamérica. Competitors won't be allowed to gauge elevation, slope or wind, but this could still help them take more informed swings.
