The PGA Tour and WHOOP, the human performance company, have announced a multi-year partnership naming WHOOP as the Official Fitness Wearable of the PGA Tour and PGA Tour Champions and a sponsor of PGA Tour Active.
To activate the partnership, WHOOP and the Tour will implement a ‘WHOOP Live for Charity’ initiative to highlight player biometric data and heart rate during defining moments throughout the season with those real-time metrics integrated into video content. Featured players will receive a $10,000 contribution to the charity of their choice on behalf of WHOOP and the Tour. Fans can follow these moments at #WHOOPLIVE beginning in 2021.
“We are excited to grow our partnership with WHOOP and utilize their health technology to optimize the way our athletes train, recover and sleep,” said Brian Oliver, PGA Tour Executive Vice President of Corporate Partnerships. “Our athletes understand the importance of maintaining their health to ensure peak competitive performance, career longevity and overall well-being. The WHOOP Strap will help our athletes unlock actionable insights via physiological data to help them understand and prepare their bodies for competition. We’re eager to begin a first-of-its-kind activation at the Tour that will incorporate player biometric data with defining moments from the golf course to create fascinating content for fans.”
Last summer upon the PGA Tour’s return to golf over 1,000 WHOOP straps were distributed for players, caddies and other essential personnel at PGA Tour, Korn Ferry Tour and PGA Tour Champions events, with accompanying membership for health monitoring. WHOOP collects physiological data that helps an individual optimize workouts, recovery and sleep – and can identify changes in respiratory rate with industry-leading third party validated accuracy. This official partnership is a natural evolution from the collaborative efforts to find new solutions to support TOUR athletes at all levels.
“WHOOP has organically grown amongst the world’s best golfers for years and we are proud to take our relationship with the PGA Tour and all athletes to the next level,” said Will Ahmed, WHOOP founder and CEO. “This partnership is particularly new and innovative in that it will bring heart rate and other engaging physiological metrics directly into the fan experience.”
WHOOP will activate and create custom content within PGA Tour Active (www.pgatour.com/active), a new Tour initiative highlighting health, fitness and lifestyles of professional golfers, where fans get an inside look into the techniques and activities helping the best players in the world perform at their peak.
“I’ve been a WHOOP member for a number of years and having the ability to monitor my recovery on a daily basis is helpful for my overall performance. WHOOP has been everywhere on TOUR in 2020 and this new partnership will unlock the future of athletic performance and professional golf,” said Rory McIlroy, WHOOP Investor and four-time Major champion. “And now fans will have access to player data that will change the way they experience and engage with the game.”
Throughout the partnership, PGA TOUR, PGA TOUR Champions and Korn Ferry Tour players and trainers will receive the latest products and technology from WHOOP to assist in monitoring their health. WHOOP will have an amplified onsite presence at all PGA Tour events to provide VIP support and incorporate that technology with training and recovery staff on the PGA Tour’s Player Performance Centres that travel to events and bring state-of-the-art fitness equipment and care to its athletes throughout the season.
WHOOP membership costs $30 a month and comes with a free Whoop Strap 3.0 and a coaching platform app.
