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Pebble Beach, Calif. – The 78th US Women’s Open is set to be a historic tournament.
For the first time in the history of the women’s game, the USGA is bringing its main event to Pebble Beach Golf Links. There are few courses as well known as Pebble Beach in the United States, so competing in the US Women’s Open on this stage carries a lot of significance.
“I think this is going to change dreams,” said USGA CEO Mike Wan. “I think this is really important for people who play, but the real impact of this is girls who are considering playing or aren’t really sure what they think about golf.”
But only play At Pebble Beach it won’t be the only thing making this week historic. The USGA will also use ShotLink technology throughout the course, allowing live shot tracking throughout the tournament. This is the first time that ShotLink data has been used in a women’s professional event.
“I think it’s really cool for the women’s game,” said John Bodani, USGA’s chief commercial officer. “We haven’t been able to offer that before, and we haven’t been able to offer anyone before. To be able to offer that depth of stats would be really cool.”
The shot tracking system, called USGA ShotCast powered by Cisco, will use the PGA Tour’s ShotLink system, which is used every week on the men’s professional circuit. The USGA ShotCast was previously shown at the 123rd US Open, hosted by the Los Angeles Country Club last month.
“When we first started talking about using ShotLink for the US Open, we felt we needed to commit to doing it for the women as well,” Bodani said. “Luckily, [the PGA Tour] He was willing to work with us to come up with a solution so we were able to do that.”
Fans will have access to the USGA ShotCast online and via the USGA App, which will contain radar data, shooting runs, green sights and video highlights of every player on the field. It will also contain 3D images of each hole.
In addition, ShotCast will archive every televised footage, allowing fans to catch up on all the action they missed throughout the tournament.
This data is available on a weekly basis on the PGA Tour, but such advanced stats are not usually available on the women’s game. Raw data gained from strokes on the LPGA Tour is available through KPMG Performance Insights, but with caddies manually recording the data, it is far from a perfect science. This also means that there is no ability to track players around the track in real time.
That all changes at this week’s US Women’s Open, a tournament that’s truly the first of its kind.