A mundane facet of watching golf is being notified on the distance of drives as well as yards left to finish the hole. This rudimentary information is essential to viewing the sport in virtually the same extent as the yellow-line for football. Fans’ expectations for statistics–regardless of how simple or analytical they might be–has risen through the years. These kind of numbers tell its own story, limited only to interpretation and creativity to distill them.
The PGA TOUR, though, has had electronic scoring dating back to 1983. Originally, the scoring was maintained solely for an electric scoreboard system. Then in the early 1990s, it was upgraded; and scoring information was extended to the media, broadcast partners, and hospitality guests. By the middle of this decade, all of these parties became accustomed to this system insofar as desiring more from it, asking for improvements. In 1999, at last, the TOUR came to conclusion to develop a new scoring system that would be called ShotLink.
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The former scoring system required greenside operators who had a custom built terminal to enter scores. The scorers would walk around carrying paper “tear slips” in order to write down player’s scores on these slips, passing them over to the greenside operators at the end of each hole. In the beginning, the greenside terminals were connected to the scoring trailer by copper wire. It wasn’t until 1998 that the terminals became wireless.
Steve Evans, the PGA TOUR’s Senior Vice President of Information Systems, informs SportTechie that two distinct factors present the tipping point for bringing forth change in its system.
“The previous system had a key process problem: the scoring process of walking scorers handing tear slips to greenside operators was not real-time; and there was really no way to make it real-time without completely changing the process.”
“The mid-90s was the time the internet exploded on the scene. We perceived there would be great value in collecting more data, computing new statistics and developing new visual presentations of play.”
With this in mind, challenges formed in order to for this new system to come to fruition.
ShotLink had to be built from scratch. Although some of the underlying technology existed, the solution was constructed from the ground up. Since the fundamental issue with the preceding system was the process problem, in it by itself, they couldn’t try to modernize it–it wasn’t realistic. The PGA TOUR, accordingly, had to coordinate the mapping of each golf course, develop close to 500 statistical models, and envision how the data would be used.
The ShotLink, thus, is a system that records the position of each player’s shot throughout the golf course, exhibiting real-time intel and chronicled, relevant data to fans and the players, themselves. There’s a lot more accessibility to new datasets, too.
The overarching consensus for ShotLink’s mission: “turn data into information, information into knowledge, and knowledge into entertainment.”
The first of which simply consists of gathering data and presenting it in meaningful way. The second phase pertaining to creating techniques and roles in the organization to digest the information, helping all constituents along the way to comprehend it. The third and last part corresponds to mixing the information and knowledge so it can be compelling, sharing the story of golfers who play a complex game and making it look effortless.
For this technology to transpire on the course, a volunteer finds the ball once it rests with a viewfinder and then a laser device computes its exact location. The data point scanned instantly runs through a wireless network to the ShotLink command center, the location traced down unto a map of the course. Broadcasters then have the liberty to showcase this intel on their own design graphic for viewers.
The PGA TOUR collects over eight attributes of every shot in real-time. There are 32,000 shots in a golf tournament, with 12 million characteristics obtained in the last decade alone. Given how much historical data they have at their disposal, they can create new concepts, stats, unique analytics, etc. The development of the Strokes Gained Statistics has spurred from utilizing past data in real-time, which is changing the way the game is measured. Another pertains to the benchmarking of the game; this aspect is conveyed when a golfer is about to putt and the broadcaster shows the probability of sinking the putt based on its distance.
The Strokes Gaines Statistics, on its own right, enabled the TOUR to determine who the best putters in the game are–all yesteryear’s evaluations ascertaining to be flawed.
“Early in the development of ShotLink, we debunked the myth that laying up to a full shot distance is better than hitting the ball closer to the green. Today on TOUR, there are typically less than five par five’s in an entire year that are not reachable by at least some players, who always try to hit the ball as close to the green or on the green as possible,” says Evans.
“Prior to ShotLink, the TOUR players were split on this topic, with the conventional wisdom being lay up to a full shot distance. Players are now using ShotLink data to analyze how to play the game and how to prepare for a given course. Architects use ShotLink data every time they are hired to make a change to a TOUR course,” Evans continued, with regards to the most important use cases for this technology.
Thus, there’s three key areas that the ShotLink system drives change from its statistical measures: course design, broadcast, and fan consumption.
As it relates to course design, architects that alter venues are behooved to leverage ShotLink data to evaluate placement, shape, and undulation. Of late, Tom Weiskopf redesigned numerous holes at TPC Scottsdale and credited this system for providing the knowledge to do it. For new course that are built to TOUR standards, the same use of ShotLink data takes place in this design phase.
From the broadcast standpoint, the TOUR has only scratched the surface of its potential, in spite of the strides they’ve made to ramp the knowledge and presentation of analytics. Although it’s not readily apparent that the graphics shown today are still framed for standard definition–they only occupy the center of the screen–Lovell predicts this will be updated in the next few years in order to provide more canvas for statistical display. The larger canvas coupled with the growing daily interest for more data will morph the way golf is presented to the masses.
In terms of fan consumption, the primary way users consume ShotLink data is through their digital products and telecasts. The mobile shift, naturally, has presided as the vehicle for uptick in this desired data consumption. The dual-screen interaction, also, has led them to develop its own iOS application.
Yet, interestingly enough, the world of poker poses a comparable, overarching symbiosis for golf between data and the sport.
“Poker show the excitement can be created by building anticipation. Golf has the opportunity to do the same thing. Today, you are seeing the probability of a player making a putt. In the future, we will be showing probabilities related to every shot,” believes Evans.
“For example, a player is in the fairway and is 150 yards from the hole, his playing playing partner is 90 yards from the hole but in the rough. Statistically, who has the better chance of making birdie, hitting the green, hitting it inside eight fee, etc.,” Evans added.
Still, none of the capabilities behind the ShotLink system would be possible now or going forward without CDW’s assistance. The TOUR’s official technology partner since 2007, CDW has provided their advice and consultation, on top of its array of products. They helped them engineer the demanding network responsiveness for their digital asset management system as well as assessing wireless data communication needs at the tournament site; CDW’s wealth of experience pays dividends, especially for the infrastructure needed surrounding ShotLink.
The PGA TOUR’s ShotLink system is tantamount to the analytics movement across all sports, paving the way for broadening golf’s appeal to its fans. ShotLink will be in full swing at the upcoming Cadillac Match Play event at Harding Park in San Francisco, California from April 27 to May 3.