The Sony Open, one of the first PGA tournaments of the year, officially gets underway Thursday at the Waialae Golf Course, just around the corner from our house.
Things get very busy in the neighborhood, and on the golf course, in week or two before the tournament, as tents, stages, grandstands, and camera towers are put together in various parts of the course, and miles of fiber optic and power cables are laid in place around the course.
I took this photo a couple of days ago showing the cables running along what during the tournament is the 17th hole, which runs parallel to the beach. The cables appeared to be running to a television camera tower overlooking the 16th green.
On the other end, it seemed that some or all plugged into a black case that sat under a temporary pole, perhaps 10′ high, with some sort of gizmo at the top. I was curious, and took a photo of the case, which was marked “PGA Tour Shotlink.”
So when I got back home, I looked up PGA Tour Shotlink, which turns out to be an amazing data system that is temporarily installed on the course for each PGA tournament, and makes possible instant data sharing of a tremendous amount of cloud-based data.
The PGA TOUR’S ShotLink technology, powered by CDW, has tracked and recorded every professional golf shot in real time since 2001, delivering insights to fans watching at home or following tournaments through mobile apps, and providing critical data to
players striving to improve their performance.
I was just shaking my head at the complexity of this portable system, but a friend made an obvious comment: “Imagine what a system like this can do tracking demonstrators or marchers or any other public gathering or in any public space.”
It’ a whole new world.
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No doubt the technology is ALREADY being used by governments worldwide. China would not have its current highly sophisticated surveillance state were it not for American tech companies eager to sell their goods to whoever, wherever.
Are any local people at the tournament? Huge spreads of Hawaii’s prime land is occupied by golf courses but hardly anyone I know plays golf anymore. Why waste prime lands for a game that is fewer and fewer local people play?
Have you ever arrived from an international flight from Asia and more specifically Japan? It’s like a golf club bag mega store warehouse in the luggage collection area just before customs. Those people come here JUST to golf.
to balance out Eric’s comments, i can count over a dozen people i know (these are acquaintances and all local people) who golf regularly or as often as possible. and that’s without even trying.
i do hope people agree that sports fandom is gross.
to be more clear about it, the attitude that YOU/YOUR FRIENDS do not use (whatever resources) so government should not fund it contributes to all sorts of curious thinking. here are some:
don’t have children so no taxpayer funds to school
don’t drive…roads
don’t use transit…buses/handivan/rail
don’t paddle…outrigger storage
not homeless…shelters
paid for home…housing subsidies or public housing
and so on and so forth