Armchair golf fans will be able to watch every shot hit by every player during next year’s Players Championship, following a major breakthrough in the tournament TV coverage being offered by the PGA Tour.
For the first time ever, TV viewers watching PGA Tour Live, the tour’s digital streaming product, on either NBC Sports Gold or Amazon Prime, will be able to select which players they want to watch and follow them for every shot of the round, should they wish, for all four days of the tournament, which takes place from March 12-15, 2020.
“The PGA Tour is the most content-rich sport on the planet, and we have been focused on expanding the amount of content we bring to our fans from our competitions,” Rick Anderson, Chief Media Officer for the PGA Tour, said in a statement. “Our vision is to bring every shot in every PGA Tour golf tournament live and on-demand to our fans, and this is the first step to making that happen.”
According to the announcement, PGA Tour Entertainment and NBC Sports will show more than 32,000 shots over four days at TPC Sawgrass thanks to 120 cameras positioned around the Stadium Course.
“Every shot of the Players on PGA Tour Live is a natural next step in the innovative partnership between NBC Sports and the PGA Tour that spans nearly 60 years,” said Mike McCarley, president, GOLF, NBC Sports Group. “Super-serving golf fans with more comprehensive coverage of the Players is emblematic of our commitment to elevating this championship and builds upon our success in adding enhancements to PGA Tour Live on NBC Sports Gold.”
The tour also announced the launch of its revamped TourCast product, which will allow people to follow the action with shot trails of every ball hit. Fans will also have access to video highlights on demand and all the tour’s ShotLink Data via the PGA Tour’s mobile apps and website.
This year’s Masters, which is not run by the PGA Tour, was the first tournament to allow fans to see every shot from a tournament. Those shots were not live-streamed through the Masters site, although the delay in seeing them was minimal.