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Virtual Ryder Cup

The Ryder Cup is great, especially when Europe wins. But to be honest, watching golf is difficult sometimes as the ball is so small. It's frustrating as there's no reason why it can't be made a lot more fun. Here's an idea that I hope some company like Virtual Spectator or the Hawk Eye people might implement sometime soon. Now Hawk Eye are the people who track cricket balls and more recently tennis balls using high speed cameras and Virtual Spectator are the guys who broadcast the Volvo Ocean Race and World Rally Championship races over the web in virtual form. So the idea is, you download a program with a 3d window a bit like google earth and instead of getting some TV images, you watch what's happening in 3D. Now, if you could track a golf ball the way Hawk Eye can and work out its position, you could broadcast the proceedings virtually. Watch from and control your own virtual camera angles, rather than the TV's. In fact you could even make it into a sort of video game. Users could try to make the putt themselves from where Tiger has just landed on the green. Show lots of golf stats, show the live TV at the same time, let users look at any archive rounds golfers made in previous years.

There are various other sports for which this sort of thing could be done. Perhaps it's the way sport will be broadcast in the future! Hope so.

Tags: Ryder Cup, Virtual Spectator, Hawk Eye

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I went to school with the great grandson of Mr Ryder of Ryder Cup fame. Well done to great grandpa Ryder too because today's play really is proving to be quite exciting. Makes a nice change though, usually I can't think of anything more boring than watching it on TV. Maybe it's something about having the goal of beating American opposition that ups the interest level. After all we do need some revenge. They beat us in a lot of things, and that's all well and good, but they're above us in the FIFA world rankings?! I still can't believe that.

Related: Ryder Cup, FIFA World Ranking

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