Golf GameBook, the free smartphone app featuring a golf community, live scoring, tournament manager and social chat, has created a piece of history by becoming what is believed to be the first mobile live scoring app to be used by players competing in a professional golf tournament in Finland.
Competitors taking part in the Audi Finnish Tour event at Peuramma Golf, June 12-14, were each given a smartphone pre-loaded with Golf GameBook’s mobile live scoring app, the first time professional golfers have used a handheld device to post scores in full tournament play.
Mikko Rantanen, Co-Founder and CEO of GameBook Inc., said: “This was a landmark occasion for a professional event and was fully embraced by the competitors. Not only did it make scoring easier, it allowed each player to instantly check the leaderboard. We hope this is only the start of GameBook being used in professional events.”
Markus Ervasti, Director of The Finnish Tour, continued: “We want to try new things and be ahead of the game on The Finnish Tour. Using Golf GameBook was a very logical and well-reasoned decision and I can find nothing but positives to say about this live scoring platform. The feedback from the players was also extremely positive – GameBook is well-known to Finnish players and they were excited to use its functionality in tournament play.”
Finnish professional golfer, Jaakko Mäkitalo, who competed in the event, said: “It was flawless and it was fun…and golf should be fun, shouldn’t it? In this weather (it was raining) it was much easier than trying to write on a wet paper scorecard – I really hope the Finnish Tour stay with this innovation and in my opinion, Golf GameBook should be the perfect solution for other professional golf tournaments.”
The business was founded by PGA professionals with the goal of making golf more relevant, fun and welcoming, and is the fastest-growing golf community in the world with more than 700,000 app downloads. It is available for free on all major smartphone platforms and golfers can download it from the App Store, Google Play, Samsung Apps, BlackBerry World and Windows Phone Store.
GameBook offers a sophisticated, but easy-to-use platform for any golfer, golf club or golf tournament organizer to set up live scoring for all types of golf event and is the only scoring app to offer social interactivity.
It has also been widely used by some of the best golfers in the world competing in the pro-ams at the Volvo Golf Champions in South Africa; Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship; the PGA Tour’s Honda Classic and last year’s WGC-HSBC Champions at Sheshan International Golf Club in China.
Audi Finnish Tour / Peuramma Golf http://www.golfgamebook.com/tournament/2uq-lmg9
Golf GameBook www.golfgamebook.com