Analysis PGA Tour is embracing artificial intelligence, and it could change how you watch golf

PGA golfers such as four-time major champion Rory McIlroy embrace the tens of thousands of data points -- roughly 32,000 per event -- that the tour's ShotLink System has offered since 2001. "I made the decision at the end of last year to really look at my stats," McIlroy said after last week's Travelers Championship. "I think they've become very important, and I think the strokes-gained stats, whether it's tee to green or putting or around the green or whatever, I think that's been one of the biggest changes for good that we've seen in golf, because it really just lets you see how your game stacks up against everyone else." For the first time Thursday at the Quicken Loans National at TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm, three fixed, high-resolution cameras, part of the tour's upgraded ShotLink ball-tracking system, replaced the human-operated laser on every green of every hole, capturing the ball in motion as opposed to only the ball at rest. "It's the next phase of how we get the data without having to have human interaction on everything that happens," said Matt Troka, senior vice president of product and partner management of CDW, a technology partner of the PGA Tour.