Ireland's Shane Lowry poses with the Claret Jug, the trophy for the Champion golfer of the year after winning the British Open golf Championships at Royal Portrush golf club in Northern Ireland on July 21, 2019. (Photo by Glyn KIRK / AFP) / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE (Photo credit should read GLYN KIRK/AFP/Getty Images)
GettyAs the oldest of golf’s major championship, it’s no surprise that tradition is important at The Open Championship.
The tournament is always held on a links course (built on land close to the sea), players compete for the famous claret jug, and the winner is announced as ‘The Champion Golfer of the Year’. This was the case as Irishman Shane Lowry emerged victorious at the 148th Open this weekend.
Inevitably, there have been some concessions to modernity since the first staging of the event in 1860, but at the turn of the decade, mobile phones were actually banned from the course because they were seen as a distraction and a threat to the silence required for players to make their shots.
The Open AI
Fast forward a few years and, like other sporting events, technology is essential to how Open Championship organizers operate the tournament and engage with fans. In 2019, the major innovation was Artificial Intelligence (AI).
NTT Data has worked with The Open for many years, collecting and analyzing various data points from around the golf course. This is used to power official websites and applications, and to provide insights for official broadcasters.
However, a lot happens on a golf course. With 18 holes to cover and more than one hundred players contesting the event, it can be difficult to keep track manually.
For the 2019 Open Championship at Portrush, Northern Ireland this week, NTT used AI to automatically extract information such as player name and hole and to analyze the facial expression and body posture of the player making the shot.
This allows its platform to automatically categorize video highlights and to analyze player swings and shot type – saving organizers significant amounts of time and improving the quality of output for fans.
For example, commentators receive more information that can be relayed to newcomers to the sport – helping them to understand the quirks of golf – and more seasoned fans can receive more personalized experiences.
Driving engagement
But it's not just fans at home that benefit. NTT tested out a dedicated application at the event, providing spectators with continuously updated highlights, while it also built a giant video wall at Portrush.
The wall not only showed AI-powered highlights but also (anonymously) analyzed the facial reactions of those watching in order to see which content was the most exciting.
“It is important that fans are given the best possible experience and new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, are key to providing a deeper level of insight and understanding for spectators,” says Simon Williams, NTT Data U.K. CEO.
Several sports are using AI-powered production to improve the quality of their output. This includes Wimbledon, which uses AI to determine the most exciting moments of a game and automatically creates highlights packages to be distributed via the competition’s digital platforms.
It’s not just at an elite level that AI could have an impact. With many minority sports looking at digital platforms and Over The Top (OTT) streaming services as a way of expanding their fan base and driving revenue, AI can dramatically increase the quality of output and reduce costs.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevemccaskill/2019/07/23/open-championship-brings-ai-to-the-golf-course/
2019-07-23 07:57:47Z
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