Cisco brings fan-facing Wi-Fi to Pebble Beach for U.S. Open

This year’s U.S. Open featured a fan-facing Wi-Fi network at Pebble Beach. Credit: Keith Newman, MSR

Fans at the recent U.S. Open golf championship at Pebble Beach were treated to an on-course Wi-Fi network from Cisco, as part of a sponsorship partnership between Cisco and the U.S. Golf Association.

As the official technology partner for the USGA and its championships, Cisco said it set out with the goal to make this year’s 119th U.S. Open the “most connected” in the event’s history, mainly through the deployment of about 400 Meraki Wi-Fi APs throughout the famed seaside course.

According to the USGA, the network saw 25 total terabytes of data used during the championship, but the USGA did not break out daily totals. The USGA also said it saw more than 100,000 connections to the network, but did not specify if that number represents unique connections or contains multiple connections from the same devices. In addition, our special correspondent Keith Newman did spend tournament Saturday at the course, and found the network to provide good connectivity in many places around the grounds. In addition to putting APs on obvious placement spots like the edges of seating areas and on top of hospitality and other temporary structures, Cisco also had some mobile AP placements on towers in strategic locations.

According to Cisco, it brought in gear to create a 10 Gbps backbone for the Wi-Fi network, also including support for tournament back of house operations on that backbone. Static signage at the event directed fans to the Wi-Fi network, and since Cisco also sponsored this year’s U.S. Open mobile app, users of that were also alerted to the free Wi-Fi on the property.

Cisco Vision on the driving range

On the display side of things, Cisco also utilized its Cisco Vision IPTV display management system to help bring more interesting information to fans at the venue. Especially interesting was the incorporation of the Toptracer shot-tracking graphics to show live player performances on the driving range, with the ability to map multiple players and provide a range of stats on shot distance and speed.

The tournament, especially Sunday’s thrilling victory by Gary Woodland over the close-finishing Brooks Koepka, no doubt presented many networking challenges, especially when fans randomly thronged to tee-box areas to try to get a photo or a video of players teeing off.

“Our digital integration with Cisco provided us the opportunity to elevate the fan experience and provide more connectivity than any previous U.S. Open,” said Navin Singh, chief commercial officer of the USGA, ina prepared statement. “We also learned a lot and recognize that mobile consumption demands are only going to continue to grow. We are excited to get to work on providing an even better experience in 2020 at the 120th U.S. Open at Winged Foot.”

More photos from Pebble Beach below.

An on-course mobile AP placement. Credit: Cisco


Digital device use soared at the U.S. Open whenever Tiger Woods was around. Credit: Paul Kapustka, MSR (Screen shot of Fox TV broadcast)

A leaderboard provided space for an AP placement. Credit: Cisco

Toptracer shot-tracking graphics at the driving range, powered by Cisco Vision. Credit: Cisco

Fans clustered around tee boxes, putting extra stress on the network. Credit: Keith Newman, MSR

The U.S. Open’s last hurrah on NBC, ESPN — last chance for good online golf?

If there’s one thing that’s been a bonus of ESPN’s coverage of the U.S. Open golf championship, it’s the fact that for those of us on the West coast, coverage starts at 6 a.m. local time. That means that by the time most of us are at our computers Thursday or Friday, there’s already live golf to be found. For one last time, we’ll enjoy it as the lads tee it up at Pinehurst No. 2 starting Thursday morn.

Will it be the same next year when Fox takes over? Though Fox did a decent job of the Super Bowl online this past big game, there’s no telling how good or how bad Fox’s golf broadcasts will be, and much less how much Fox will devote to online efforts. If the past is any clue, we may see a regression of sorts when it comes to online options from Fox. For this year, anyway, we’ll still have the rich options usually available from ESPN (including the WatchESPN app) as well as the above-decent online offerings from NBC for the weekend play.

You can, of course, also use the official U.S. Open apps or mobile websites to get mobile/online coverage of two featured groups and featured holes, a la the Masters but with less depth. And if you can stand the amount of time it takes for all the dumb features to load, the PGA’s new home page will certainly be kept up to date with scores and video highlights, as well as pointers to where you can watch live stuff.

NBC, which earned all kinds of honors recently for its online coverage (especially its Olympic streaming efforts) still, in my book, is learning how to do all this. Yes, there was lots of Olympics stuff online, but you had to hunt really hard to find the actual live programming late at night from Sochi — and when you did, the NBC window could spoil the results for you, since the integrated Twitter feed was usually a minute or two AHEAD of the NBC “live” online broadcast. Still, NBC and the NBC-owned Golf Channel should have more info and analysis than you could possibly want all weekend.

If you are watching on an actual television set, the ESPN coverage on Thursday and Friday goes from 9 a.m. Eastern to 3 p.m. ET, then you switch over to NBC for two hours, and then back to ESPN for the last two hours of coverage. On the weekend, it’ll be the last call for Johnny “63” Miller as lead broadcaster, as NBC covers things from noon ET to 7:30 p.m. Saturday, and Sunday from noon until the winning putt drops. Or until there’s a tie and an 18-hole Monday playoff.

Watching Golf this Week: The U.S. Open, Philly Style

US Open MerionAre you ready for 2013 Major No. 2? The big daddy of them all? I truly can’t wait for this one to start, because I feel like we all sorta got cheated at the Masters. I mean — lost in the hubbub of the Tiger Drop Crisis was the fact that the dude was just about ready to take the lead and start stomping everyone.

And then the ball hit the pole. And went into the drink. And then the wheels came off.

As play starts today outside Philadelphia at the quirky old Merion East course (Anyone else think the logo featuring the pole-baskets looks like a freaking bloody Q-tip?) all eyes rightfully will be on Tiger Woods, and his quest for Major No. 15. Nobody else really matters right now, and nobody this year is truly playing at his level. But one thing is for sure, the “new” Tiger isn’t anything like the old — over the last year or so he has shown a tendancy to choke on the weekends at majors, something he never did before. And the rest of the guys playing? They’ve gotten better.

What does that mean for Tiger? It means his margin of error is much slimmer than it was when he was the only guy on the tour who looked like an athlete. Now there’s lots of them. He used to be by far the farthest hitter, now he’s about top average. There are new foreign foes like Graeme McDowell, who aren’t going to be intimidated by Tiger the way the U.S. Tour guys used to be. With its tight layout and wet conditions Merion is probably going to be a birdie fest, so no more rope-a-dope par fests like last year at Olympic. There’s going to be room to make shots here, so let’s get it on. Having just watched the Blackhawks beat the Bruins in triple overtime in the Stanley Cup opener, I’m ready for more drama and lore. Don’t let us down, Tiger. Or whoever wants to keep Tiger’s majorless streak going.

ESPN has your live TV Thursday and Friday, our suggestion is mute when Berman starts talking, unmute when Van Pelt has the mike. NBC gets the weekend, with lots of online viewing available at USOpen.com or via the U.S. Open app, which beats pants off the PGA Tour app (which still doesn’t really work on all Android phones). WatchESPN and ESPNRadio also available online.

THE U.S. OPEN

(all times Eastern)
TV COVERAGE
Thursday, June 13 — ESPN, 9 a.m. — 3 p.m.; 5 p.m. — 7 p.m.; NBC, 3 p.m. — 5 p.m.
Friday, June 14 — ESPN, 9 a.m. — 3 p.m.; 5 p.m. — 7 p.m.; NBC, 3 p.m. — 5 p.m.
Saturday, June 15 — NBC, 1 p.m. — 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, June 16 — NBC, 1 p.m. — 7:30 p.m.

RADIO
SIRIUS XM (Satellite)
12 p.m. — 4 p.m., Thursday; 12 p.m. — 5 p.m, Friday. The live broadcasts are also available to subscribers on the SiriusXM Internet Radio App and online at SiriusXM.com.

ESPN RADIO
10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday-Friday, 2 p.m. — 8 p.m. Saturday-Sunday.

NEW! PGA TOUR RADIO!
This a better deal for those not living in the U.S., because it’s free internationally. Inside the U.S. you will pay (due to rights fees) $1.99 per event or $9.99 for the whole year. Gives you the CBS feed, audio version. Click here for more info and payment plans for your area.

ONLINE
The U.S. Open site at USOpen.com has live online coverage with featured groups.
Thursday groups:
7:11 a.m. – Marquee Group 1 (Phil Mickelson, Steve Stricker, Keegan Bradley)
1:14 p.m. – Marquee Group 2 (Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Adam Scott)
Friday groups:
7:44 a.m. – Marquee Group 1 (Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Adam Scott)
12:41 p.m. – Marquee Group 2 (Phil Mickelson, Steve Stricker, Keegan Bradley)

Featured groups on the weekend, TBD.

There are also mobile apps for iOS and Android.

FACEBOOK PAGE
Here’s the USGA Facebook page.

TOP TWITTER FEEDS TO FOLLOW

The U.S. Open Twitter feed.
Geoff Shackelford — well known golf writer. If you’re not following Geoff you are missing the online boat.
Golf Channel — official Golf Channel feed
@PGATOUR — official PGA Twitter feed
@StephanieWei — great golf writer who is a Twitter fiend. Now leading the Wei (hah!) with Google+ Hangouts during most tourneys.
Doug Ferguson is the lead golf writer for AP. Good Twitter insights that often aren’t part of your wire-service lead.
Matt Ginella is a former Golf Digest writer now at Golf Channel. Your guide to the best golf course reviews, evar. Plus great columnist-type commentary on a regular basis.

WHAT’S THE COURSE LIKE?
If you haven’t heard about good old Merion and the baskets on the flagpoles you’ve been under a rock the past week. Here’s a great lengthy takeout on Merion’s East Course from the folks at SBNation.

WHO WON THIS THING LAST YEAR?
The Birdman! Excuse me, it was Webb Simpson, with an assist from Jim Furyk.

Dear Nike: Where’s My EveryShot TigerCam?

As cool as it is to be the editor of the greatest new sports-biz publication, I can’t pass up the opportunity to apply for the newest job in the golf-social-new-media business: Editor and commentator for Nike’s new EveryShot TigerCam website. As you guessed, this is an Internet location (also available in app form) that shows, every weekend, a full but time-edited version of Tiger Woods’ entire round of golf.

Cool, right? Don’t you wish it really existed? Me too.

After missing out on all but a few minutes of British Open coverage Thursday I had to settle for ESPN’s SportsCenter highlight package and was left hungry for more. Very specifically, I wanted to see more of El Tigre, other than just his amazing out-of-a-divot shot that had ESPN’s Tom Rinaldi screaming like a child when he showed the slow-mo to Tiger afterwards. I wanted to see every drive, every middle iron, every lag putt and maybe get some in-between-holes comments from the man himself.

Why hasn’t Nike, or ESPN, or the PGA, made this happen?

Look — I understand that there are a whole lot of “other” golfers out there who are worth watching. Some of them even win majors. But for me — and all the millions of golf fans who drive up TV viewership whenever Eldrick is in contention — watching golf is all about Tiger first, and everyone else second. I’m not even going to try to explain it, though a fellow fan I met at the Olympic Club during the recent U.S. Open put it best when we both talked about how we became hooked years ago when we watched Tiger blow up the golfing world at the 1997 Masters.

“It was transformational, what he did then,” said my new pal, as we watched Tiger miss a birdie chance on 17 during his Friday round at the U.S. Open. “I haven’t been able to stop watching him since.”

It’s not just me — I have heard many paid golf commentators on TV note this year that yeah, when he is on, there isn’t a better golfer in the world than Woods. Maybe not ever. So — in this day and age of multiple, cheap, easy broadcasting production platforms why in Nike’s name isn’t there some service that, especially for majors, does a quick turnaround and give us a speed-edited complete recap of Tiger’s rounds?

If the folks at Nike want to give me a call I have some great ideas how to make this happen, but basically if you have one editor/producer (this would be me, because I thought of this) and a couple kids just out of school who have camera/FinalCut skilz, you would just follow Tiger around all day and then spend a couple hours each night editing the footage down to just shots and some quick, YouTube-worthy commentary and graphics. Charge five bucks a tournament for viewing, and I bet you would make as much as Tiger does when he’s winning.

(It would sure beat the over-produced “video” section on Woods’ own website, where as of Thursday night the newest stuff is Tiger at… The Greenbrier. Yuk.)

This could scale to other golfers who might be individually interesting — Bubba Watson comes to mind, or maybe long-drive fans would pay a buck a weekend to see every tee shot from Alvaro Quiros. It’s not like it would cost a lot to try. I understand there may be some rights questions but why not give it a test and agree to split the revenues amongst those who have skin in the game now, like the networks and the Tour?

The bottom line is — there is a whole lot of “content” out there every weekend that simply gets lost because of the old model of golf coverage, which is a highly produced show with some guy in a trailer deciding which golfers you should watch. And that’s so 1997, and not in a good way. It’s time to let the fans decide who they want to watch, and how much of that golfer’s round they want to see. C’mon Nike, PGA, and networks. Make my EveryShot TigerCam (the domain is even still available!) a reality.

Watching Golf Profile: Shot Link and Shot Tracker — How Wireless + Lasers + Volunteers Makes Golf Stats Come Alive

A Shot Link laser operator sights a ball. Photo credits: PGA Tour.

When you watch golf on TV — or online — do you ever wonder exactly how the commentators know, within seconds, how far a player is from the green? Or from a bunker or hazard? If you are a golf veteran you may know of something called Shot Link, which somehow uses lasers to figure out the distance in seconds. But do you really know how it all works? And why it needs a wireless network and a whole bunch of volunteer help to bring it together every week?

Here at MSR we have been entranced this year with an app on the PGA Tour website called Shot Tracker. On the surface it looks just like an online leaderboard — until you glance at it while a tournament is going on, and you see all kinds of little graphics going in motion. Only then do you realize that hey — this thing is showing every shot on the course! — and if you are like me you are instantly addicted, watching seven different scores at once, to see how Tiger did out of the rough, how Phil did out of the trap, and whether Jason Day made that 40-foot, 4-inch putt.

Shot Link laser operators in a greenside tower.

Naturally, we wanted to know how it all worked so we put in a call to the PGA and eventually got on the horn with Steve Evans, a senior vice president in the PGA’s information systems department. Evans was kind enough to walk us through the amazing behind-the-scenes technology of Shot Link and Shot Tracker, both of which will likely play a huge role as the tour embraces more mobile data consumption options for its stats-insatiable fans.

The key to understanding Shot Tracker is to know about Shot Link, the system that is the heart and soul of instant PGA statistics. Shot Tracker, which is an app on the PGA’s website, gets all its data from Shot Link, the system set up on each course. On the Shot Link site the PGA describes the system thusly:

The ShotLink System is a revolutionary platform for collecting and disseminating scoring and statistical data on every shot by every player in real-time. The vision of the system is to “Turn data into information, information into knowledge, and knowledge into entertainment.”

Another view of a handheld laser/scoring system in action.

According to Evans the two technological keys to Shot Link are wireless handheld devices for entering data about shots, and laser-based survey equipment, which as you might guess provides an accurate distance from laser to a golf ball lying in the grass. With every group of golfers in a PGA Tour event covered by Shot Link there is one person walking with the group as a scorer, entering information like “shot hit” when someone swings at a ball. On each hole there are also handheld and tower-located laser stations, to get fixes on balls in the fairways, rough, sand, and on the green.

The final piece to the Shot Link system is a huge graphical database of every course the PGA plays on, mapped for distances. Via triangulation from their laser stations and some sophisticated computer programs the Shot Link system can almost instantly calculate distances to greens, hazards and other places on their map — which the tour can then relay to commentators in the broadcast booths, making them seem like complete wizards of distance. But it turns out, there’s a lot of elves running around making the wizards look good.

Wireless Networks, and Lots of Volunteers

In addition to some impressive techno-firepower — Evans said the PGA has three different Shot Track setups that leapfrog each other going from venue to venue, with computer servers and office space in separate 53-foot trailers — at each venue the tour must draft up to 350 volunteers to staff the scoring system. When you start thinking about two-person crews for each tower laser, with one tower on par-3 holes, two on par-4s and three on par-5s, plus walking scorers, plus walking laser holders, plus several shifts to cover all the golfers at a tourney — the volunteer needs add up. But Evans said the drafting is actually getting easier each year.

“We have about an 80 percent retention rate” of volunteers signing up year after year, Evans said.

The PGA also installs its own wireless network on each site, using approximately 22 access points, putting antennas up in the air a bit so that there is good coverage for all the handheld scoring devices and the lasers. Evans said the PGA also has sophisticated enough software to check for data anomalies, and if a question comes up the answer can be confirmed if necessary via a voice radio.

What you have, in the end, is some incredible real-time data gathering being used to fuel stats and graphics that help bring the game to life, both in information relayed to TV broadcast crews as well as delivered directly to fans via apps like Shot Tracker.

And it’s not just distances that Shot Link provides. At the recent FedEx St. Jude Classic, it seemed like a lot of guys were rinsing their shots into water hazards. So a query was run against Shot Link data, and sure enough it showed that over 9 years there were more balls hit in the water at the FedEx than at any other course. Now that’s turning knowledge into entertainment.

On the drawing board is a new version of Shot Tracker, the addictive app that uses Shot Link data to show where and how players are playing on a leaderboard. Since the current version was built using Adobe Flash technology, it can’t be easily shown on Apple iPhones and iPads, since those devices don’t support Flash programs.

“Our road map [for Shot Tracker] is multi-platform, with lots of talk about mobile devices,” Evans said. He also hinted there might be a different user interface, perhaps one more like the one recently used for the U.S. Open that showed different playing groups on a graphical map of the course. That app, however, didn’t show shot by shot data, the killer app thing that Shot Link brings to the table.

As wireless electronics get better and cheaper, who knows what the future will bring — perhaps wireless microchips in each ball? For now, Shot Link and Shot Tracker are pretty darn good, and for that we can thank the PGA IT folks and the many, many volunteers who push the buttons and sight the lasers.

“It’s been kind of neat, to figure out how to build something like Shot Link,” Evans said. Golf fans everywhere, no doubt, agree.

U.S. Open Sets Records for Online, App Viewing

We don’t have any definitive viewer numbers, but according to a press release from the USGA, the recent U.S. Open golf tournament in San Francisco attracted a record number of online viewers, especially for live online video and via mobile devices. This is hardly a surprise, since online golf viewership overall has been spiking this year, with no end in sight to the growth curve.

According to the USGA, which pioneered online coverage of golf, overall viewer visits to the U.S. Open website during the week increased 79 percent from the year-before totals, while views of live streaming video increased 210 percent from 2011. Though the USGA hasn’t provided exact numbers on page views and streaming video looks, it’s a good guess that the latter number is somewhere in the one- to two-million range, since approximately a half-million to a million folks will watch online video of a regular PGA event, according to PGA Tour reps. The U.S. Open’s website features were powered technically by IBM, which also helps produce the wonderful online experience for The Masters golf tourney.

The availability of an Android version of the USGA’s U.S. Open app helped spike visits to the mobile version of the Open website — according to the USGA, mobile website views increased 375 percent in 2012, with iPhone app downloads jumping up 44 percent from the previous year. In addition to live video the U.S. Open websites also included a live leaderboard, a photo stream and a unique feature that let you look at an interactive map of the course and see which players were on which hole. The USGA was also extremely active on Twitter, with the official U.S. Open Twitter feed providing constant scoring updates and links to feature coverage.

Even though the U.S. Open live online video wasn’t very comprehensive — on Thursday and Friday the coverage followed one “marquee” group throughout its round, and on the weekend the coverage consisted of only play at two holes — it was extremely well produced, with commentators that were critically judged by many observers to be better than some of the broadcast TV talent. It’s probably a safe guess to say that next year the USGA will continue to expand live online coverage of the U.S. Open, in sync with the expanded live online views coming next season from the PGA Tour for regular events. That’s good news for golf fans, who will apparently be rewarded for finding more ways to watch.

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