Statistics prior to ShotLink on TOUR

Prior to ShotLink data presented by CDW, statistics on the PGA TOUR were determined in a much-less calculated way.

Driving distance was paced off with the help of painted lines alongside the fairway and total putts and greens hit were jotted down by a walking scorer on a piece of Carbon-copy Scantron-like paper.

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“It was like taking your SATs,” said Troy Cooke, a veteran project manager at the PGA TOUR. “You’d fill in the bubble for each shot and where it was from.”

After each hole, a walking volunteer scorer would enter the score into a mobile terminal while also keeping the shot-by-shot Scantron-like sheet. The scorer would also have to wait until every player in the group finished out the hole to record scores, unlike today where information is filed “as soon as ball is hit,” Cooke says.

The Scantron-like sheet used to keep statistics on TOUR prior to the ShotLink era. (PGA TOUR photo)

After the round, the Scantron-like sheet was entered into an electronic reader, which matched those statistics up against the ones the volunteer also entered into the mobile terminal. When there were discrepancies, the volunteer was questioned and they made the final decision.

Driving distance was also prone to human error.

“We would go out and spray paint,” Cooke said. “And the volunteer would walk it off and enter it. We used to spray paint in 10-yard increments.”

In other words, it would be no different than a football announcer trying to figure out yardage on a playing field with yard lines every 10 yards.

Today, lasers measure each shot on mapped courses and real-time data is funneled directly to places such as PGATOUR.COM for fans to gobble up on their computers and mobile devices.

Electronic scoring has existed on TOUR since 1983, and was mainly used for electronic scoreboards on the course. Over the course of time, the scoring information was made available to media and others, all of whom requested more and more data. Eventually, the decision was made to develop ShotLink.

It took two years to build and another 1 1/2 years to phase in before ShotLink was introduced for the start of the 2004 season. In all, 36 servers, 580 laptops, 1,100 handhelds and 200 lasers are apart of more than 10,000 items in the ShotLink inventory. PGA TOUR staff and approximately 350 volunteers per TOUR event (about 10,000 volunteers per year) help bring golf fans real-time statistical and scoring data each week, making ShotLink one of the most innovated solutions in sports.

“The players have engulfed it and loved the information,” Cooke said. “We’ve gone from fairways hit, greens in regulation, sand saves, scrambling and putts – like four or five stats – to thousands of stats.”

And thousands and thousands of satisfied golf fans.