For those of you who have tuned out the golf world, the most prestigious tournament in golf, The Masters, is this weekend.
To mark its 72nd year, Augusta is turning up the heat on its online presence. With partner IBM, Augusta National is offering a rich online experience for golf lovers. While the online coverage still does not rival what is offered currently on broadcast TV, it's great for the times in which national TV is not covering the event, or for sneaking a peek at work.
Masters.org's online coverage
This is not the first year for online coverage of The Masters. They debuted the service back in 2006, but it's been improved upon and tweaked to the state that we see it in today. Unfortunately, the available video streams are limited to Amen Corner (holes 11, 12, and 13) and an additional stream of holes 15 and 16.
Over time, I think that it is safe to assume that we will see complete coverage of the tournament online, since it has been steadily adding streams since the service debuted. Rounding out the online offering is a nice slide-out, customizable leaderboard, with live stats.
I really have to applaud The Masters on this Web offering. This sort of online content is very unexpected from an organization like Augusta National, which is notorious for the control that it demands over live TV broadcasts of the tournament.
Online coverage of sports is a very exciting field, with a lot of potential. I think that this will become really clear when we see the Silverlight-powered online coverage of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing this summer. With a wealth of options for viewing video, side by side with statistics and a variety of other information, services such as this one from The Masters, the 2008 Olympics, and MLB.tv are taking the experience of watching sports online to the next level.
The Golf Channel plans to offer high-tech data to its viewers in the form of 3D representations beginning in January.
A Doppler radar system made by the Denmark-based software developer Interactive Sports Games will begin to be used to convey club movement, ball trajectory, and other statistics to viewers, according to the company. The Golf Channel's first use of the TrackMan system will be at the Mercedes-Benz Championship in Hawaii on January 3, according to reports. TrackMan can also measure things like ball-landing coordinates and spin rates, according to ISG.
The Golf Channel, which is the exclusive cable channel for the PGA tour, the LPGA tour, the USGA, and PGA of America, plans to use the system to show its viewers visual analyses of a golfer's tendencies, ball flight, and side-by-side looks at how different players approach the same hole. It will include multiple views of swings and ball movement.
The channel said it will be the first American broadcaster to use such technology for PGA events.
(Credit:
Nokia)
Pro Session Golf, a video analysis application for your phone, is now available worldwide. You can download the software to several Nseries Nokia phones, by simply going to Pro Session Golf and selecting the Buy Now tab.
The software enables you to capture your golf swing using the camera on your phone. You can use the software's split screen and drawing tools to analyze your swing. The software even gives you the ability to send your golf swing from your phone to the Internet or to another phone.
It comes with some sample swings and some video content from the Titleist Performance Institute MyTPI, that will help you determine if your swing fault may be caused by a physical limitation.
It is a great little application for your Nokia N95, N93i, N93, or N73 phone and is easy to download.
If you just can't figure out how to use that pencil that comes with your golf scorecard, or your handwriting is not quite up to par, then there's always the iPhone golf scorecard.
This application allows you to keep scores for up to four players. You simply tap the names of your foursome into your iPhone and then tap in the corresponding scores. Your iPhone keeps everything nice and neat. Then just add up your score at the end of the round.
If you are the ultimate iPhone geek (and an avid golfer), this is the application for you. Fire up your Safari browser, and log on to iphone18.
- prev
- 1
- next
