The shake-up of men’s professional golf has the PGA Tour and broadcasters trying out some new tech.
Physics is a wonderful thing. If you can work out the speed of a ball, its spin rate, and its trajectory, then you can work out where it’s going.
With the advent of Trackman and other advanced ball-tracking devices, all of these variables are now accurately known. And so the PGA Tour has come up with a new piece of technology that uses these variables to calculate the likely location of where the golf ball will land.
They call it “Predicta-ball” and they debuted it during the TV coverage of last week’s Genesis Open. The calculation is all done on the fly, pardon the pun. The predicted location is displayed on a topographical map of the green while the ball is still in the air.
And it’s very cool.
There are some people who suggested part of the joy of watching golf is not knowing where the ball is going to land. And I take their point. But I think the novelty of this outweighs the negative.
It remains to be seen how often this will be used, we’re guessing it won’t be available for every hole. Yet.
Check it out for yourself.
Big fans of "Predicata-ball" here. Good name, great tech. pic.twitter.com/8Rpra3Ium1
— Skratch (@Skratch) February 11, 2023
And while adding a microphone to a golfer during a round of golf isn’t anything new, the interaction between Tom Kim and his caddy in the build-up was also great TV.
Check it out.
Mic’d up Tom is the best Tom
Listen in to @JoohyungKim0621 and Joe Skovron draw up the perfect approach @WMPhoenixOpen. pic.twitter.com/m8ERUM6sKk
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) February 11, 2023
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