The R&A confirmed to Golf Digest Middle East overnight that the year’s final major will be streamed live, geo-tagged across the Middle East, on TheOpen.com.

RELATED: The 9 most compelling groups on Thursday and Friday at Royal Portrush

Confirmation from Mike Woodcock, the R&A’s Director of Corporate Communications – “I have been advised that it will be streamed on TheOpen.com in your region.” – comes as a major relief after a frustrating year for followers of the royal and ancient game across the Middle East.

Broadcaster OSN’s decision to jettison golf from its pay-to-view sports offering on April 1 saw an 11th hour deal with Facebook Live struck so fans could watch Tiger Woods’ remarkable 15th major title win at Augusta National. But the April Fools Day clanger became very unfunny with coverage of the following U.S. PGA Championship and U.S. Open restricted to featured group and featured hole coverage online.

Golf Digest Middle East has remained in contact with The R&A since June 21 seeking clarification as to whether the Open’s return to Royal Portrush for just the second time, and the first time 68 years, would be shown live in the Middle East.

The persistence has paid off – bravo to the R&A – and the reward looks set to begin at 9.35am on Thursday (UAE time) when Royal Portrush’s favourite son Darren Clark hits the opening tee shot. Just in case you were wondering, Tiger Woods opens his tilt at a fourth claret jug at 6.10pm UAE time. 

RELATED: Full Thursday and Friday tee times at Royal Portrush

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“There’s miles and miles of cable, and trucks, and it’s a city that moves every time we move,” CBS’ Dottie Pepper told Golf Digest last year. “It’s not like you can just plug it in and press play.”

RELATED: Social Media giant to broadcast LIVE Masters coverage across the Middle East

But at this year’s Masters, that’s exactly what golf fans will be able to do.

Beginning Thursday morning, every shot of every player all week can be seen on the Masters app or Masters.com. That’s right, you can watch every shot of every player at a golf tournament for the first time ever. Well, virtually every shot. If a player finds a particularly unusual spot on the course (Think: Bryson DeChambeau by the bathrooms on No. 18 in 2016), the cameras might not pick it up. But the goal is for every shot to be seen.

While this new feature won’t be available live or on TV, the hope is that each shot will be viewable within five minutes of being hit. In other words, you should be able to see Rory McIlroy’s tee shot on No. 8 before he hits his second. Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley made the announcement during his pre-tournament press conference on Wednesday.

“The reason we’re going it is because we have always subscribed to the notion that we want to provide content to our fans in the way they want to receive it,” Ridley said of this ambitious endeavour. “You know, the world is migrating more and more towards digital technology. It was something that we thought, and that we were hearing, that our fans wanted, and with a lot of great work of our digital technology committee and our staff, we were able to develop this.”

As in recent years, the Masters website and app will still track every player’s shot, but now, instead of just seeing where a player is on the course (those results usually take about 30 seconds to register on the site and app), you can see how he actually got there. By bringing up a player’s scorecard, you will still be able to see more produced highlights of certain holes, but raw video of all the shots will be stitched together and available for every hole.

“It’s been two or three years in developing,” Ridley continued. “We had it in a beta test mode previously, but now I feel like we can actually execute on this.”

Tracking technology has become an important part of modern sports coverage. Starting next season in the NHL, all players and pucks will have sensors. Those player sensors, by the way, will be sewn into jerseys, not implanted into their brains. Sports hasn’t become a full-on science-fiction movie yet, but we’re getting close with another fun new feature being unveiled at this year’s Masters.

IBM’s “Round in Three Minutes” will provide a condensed version of a golfer’s round at Augusta National, but with a key twist: AI will help determine those highlights. IBM’s Watson has been programmed to detect celebrations and crowd noise to determine the most important and exciting shots from a player’s round. Sounds great, although we wish the machine luck distinguishing between lackluster Dustin Johnson fist pumps.

But while the “Round in Three Minutes” is cool, fans will surely be focused on the Masters every shot feature. During a tournament that draws cries for more TV coverage, you literally can’t get anymore coverage now—if you follow the action online.

“I think quantity is important, but that is not what is going to drive our decisions,” Ridley said. “We’re not going to sacrifice quality, but we thought this was a great supplement to our traditional means of providing coverage.”

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By Kent Gray
OSN’s new Chief Executive has defended the cable network’s decision to jettison its golf offering in the face of mounting criticism from UAE fans slowly coming to grips with the fact they won’t be able to tune into this week’s 83rd U.S. Masters from Augusta National.

In response to a stinging email from a disgruntled “and soon-to-be ex-paying customer”, CEO Patrick Tillieux pleaded for understanding as a “golfer myself” but also as a CEO and board member of OSN who “must do what I do” for the good of the network.

Related: Major disappointment for golf fans as Masters TV coverage unlikely in UAE

OSN ditched all but two cricket channels from its sports portfolio on March 31 with Tillieux quoted as saying the company was “redirecting our investments from sports to content that our customers enjoy the most.”

“In the coming months, OSN will be delivering a new binge-watching channel, fresh monthly pop-up channels celebrating the biggest movie franchises, plus more curated lifestyle and women-centric shows,” he said.

Those comments raised the ire of golf fans following Golf Digest Middle East’s news story on Sunday – Major disappointment for golf fans as Masters TV coverage unlikely in UAE – and prompted one fan to pen an email to Tillieux with the subject line “On Behalf of UAE Golfers: The Complaint”.

Identifying himself as an aspiring MENA Tour player, ‘Kamel McRib’ elicited some Game of Thrones imagery to express his disappointment:

“Have you heard of Game of Thrones? Being in TV, I’m sure you have. There’s a character in the show that goes by the name of Tyrion Lannister (also known as “the Imp” or the “the halfman” because of his dwarf stature). There’s a scene in which he, Tyrion, tells Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen: ‘To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world’. I think that was also Oscar Wilde. But I’m sticking with Tyrion.

Why do I quote that phrase you may ask? Well, as a freshly minted CEO it would be hard to resist the temptation of exerting your mark. The earlier the better. Which is exactly what you (board-approved of course) did by removing pretty much all sports channels, including OSN Sports 3 HD (the home of golf in the UAE). All in an effort to introduce ‘… more premium movies and women-centric programming’.”

We’re not convinced Kamel McRib is the author’s real name but know others share his or her sentiments. The presumed alias also didn’t stop Tillieux from responding in an email exchange that Golf Digest Middle East has been copied in on.   

“Thank you for your articulate mail. You defend golf like no one else would,” started Tillieux, who succeeded Martin Stewart as OSN CEO in late November.

“I hope that despite the loss of golf you may find many other reasons to stay with us.” – OSN CEO Patrick Tillieux. 

“I am golfer myself and I fully appreciate your disappointment. However, I am also a CEO and a board member of OSN and I must take the decisions that are eventually beneficial for the company. Most of the time these are quite unpleasant decisions in the short term.

“I am not excluding that opportunities will pop up again in the future including incidental golf opportunities, but for the moment I must do what I do. I hope that despite the loss of golf you may find many other reasons to stay with us.”

That seems unlikely. Indeed, a number of respondents to a social media post of our original story said they had, or intended to cancel their subscription.

McRib continued his tasty “rant”, pointing out the importance of golf to the UAE and that fans in Dubai could no longer watch coverage of the European Tour’s Race to Dubai.

“I’m sure you knew/were aware of all of the above (a list of UAE golf facts) before proposing the decision to the board, supported by a presentation with great graphs and cannot-say-no economics/statistics. And as a private company, us viewers (and paying customers) must respect your freedom to exert such a decision given that you are working for the protection (and hopefully increase in value) of shareholder interests. Personally, as a capitalist, I understand and respect this principle all too well.

“However, also as a viewer (and soon-to-be ex-paying-customer), I also hold the freedom to express my opinion on what I consider to be a magnanimous mistake. You will disagree, of course.  This is the end of the rant. Thanks for lending us your kind ear (eyes technically). Feeling better already.”

Few other fans will be feeling as generous as Masters coverage begins on Thursday. The brighter news is that Discovery’s GolfTV came on stream April 1 to provide UAE fans with a pay-to-view streaming service of the PGA Tour (not including the Masters).

RELATED: PGA Tour coverage available via GolfTV; European Tour negotiations on-going

Golf Digest Middle East will carry full and extensive coverage from Augusta National throughout the week.

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