The PGA Tour is now bringing the golf course to your home through Apple’s augmented reality platform. Using Apple’s ARKit in iOS 11, the PGA Tour has made a new app called PGA Tour AR that lets you compare professional golfers against each other and check out featured golf holes. You’ll be able to better visualize players’ strokes and the angles from which they sank the balls.
To use the app, first let your camera sense a surface, and then tap the screen to select a hole. The terrain will materialize and you can select players and rounds to compare shot trails. The app also lets you enter the pro player’s name and compare them to up to three other pros. You can move your phone closer to see the golf balls and terrain up close, but as soon as you tab out, you’ll have to go through the setup again.
The app currently lets you choose from specific tournaments and holes, such as hole 7 from Pebble Beach Golf Links 2018 or TPC Sawgrass 2017’s hole 16. Eventually, the PGA Tour plans to feature at least one hole from each tournament.
“Tapping into ARKit in iOS 11 allows us to showcase real-time data provided by ShotLink and CDW in a rich, visual way for fans,” PGA Tour’s chief media officer, Rick Anderson, said in a press release.
As it is now, the PGA Tour AR app is pretty basic and rudimentary. You’re able to see basic balls and grass on a surface in front of you, but you can’t visualize the players’ actual movements before you. The app doesn’t have much functionality after you’ve seen your favorite tournaments and players.
However, the PGA Tour does plan to eventually enable fans at golf tournaments to hold their devices in front of holes and display shot trails live, which could be potentially useful when it rolls out.
The app is only available on iOS.