Island green at TPC Sawgrass, home of the Players Championship
In addition to having big-event features like being able to follow featured groups of players throughout their entire round and to watch every group play the famous island-green hole, No. 17, the Players online options also include the PGA’s whizzy Live Maps feature, which lets you look at an interactive Google map of the course and then click on the group you want to see shot info for. For desktop jockeys who want to keep an eye on golf during Thursday and Friday, such option are what make online sports worthwhile.
HERE IS THE LINK TO PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP ONLINE VIEWING
As we did last year, however, we can’t heartily recommend the PGA app for mobile devices, unless your mobile device is made by Apple. We’ve tried the PGA app on several of the Android devices we have around the MSR headquarters, and have found it still spotty — sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. The other confusing thing about trying to watch golf online is the weird handoffs that sometimes happen due to network coverage issues.
What do we mean? Sometimes the golf is available online only, and sometimes you have to open the NBC app because the coverage is live on broadcast TV. Though it seems like you can always get there, the hoops and jumps seem like a confusing Kludge. Why golf (and other sports) can’t figure out the rights issues between themselves and just make it one-click easy for the fans is beyond me. But it’s a little reminder that we are still at early days for online and mobile sports viewing, and at least for me the value of being able to watch online or on a mobile device is worth the tradeoff of having to figure out how to configure my device or launch the right app. But it should be easier, and better.
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