With the world becoming more and more digital, many sports are looking to adapt to the times to attract more fans and players. Golf is no exception, as they are looking to implement virtual reality into PGA TOUR events.
The PGA has recently partnered with Intel Sports Group’s Voke and have begun testing virtual reality last weekend at the Genesis Open, giving fans an up-close view of the 10th green. This technology is nothing new to sporting events, as Voke has partnered with the NFL, NCAA, and NBA to work on similar virtual reality projects.
While virtual reality has been used by these other sporting organizations, the PGA is hoping to have a unique virtual reality experience. Scott Gutterman, PGA Tour VP of digital operations, told Fox News that, “The trick is creating an experience that people want to have the headset on for more than five minutes. We’d like for people to interact with the stream, if there are stats they want, to choose themselves, slide the leaderboard in and out (of their view).”
The PGA Tour and Intel team up to take the game of golf into the world of virtual reality https://t.co/9C1GwrIWuE #cdwsocial pic.twitter.com/DLbMtgiZLO
— Ken Ward (@kenwardcdw) February 21, 2017
For now, it seems like virtual reality will only be available at the tee boxes and on the green. It works by triangulating the surface with three cameras, which provides an 180-degree panorama. But because of the lack of mobility of cameras, you likely won’t see this technology following players for a long time.
While the technology isn’t perfect yet, the test run provided great success. This virtual reality experience is available through the typical commercial broadcast and on the Samsung S7 phone via the virtual reality goggles. The experience allowed viewers to choose their own camera angles and showed the slopes and contours of the green just as the players would have.
Seeing how popular the first test of virtual reality was for the PGA TOUR, it will be interesting to see if the feature will appear in more events as the year goes on and if it will attract any new fans to the game.
Cover Image via Twitter