Gadgetory

when you think of the game of golf you usually don't think about lasers but the technology is now an integral part of the PGA Tour for fans players and the broadcast shot link is a laser system that maps tee shots and putz so real-time information and stats can be fed to scoreboards TV commentators and viewers watching on TV or online well we have a fairly laser so that person is going to select the player's name that they want to shoot for they're going to look through a rangefinder they're going to cite the ball in fire the laser wait for the information to come to the handheld device and then hit enter which then sends it to our truck a Doppler radar system placed on one or two holes can follow a ball and flight in real time so we know apex of the flight we know spin rate ball speed swing speed vertical launch angle hores all spin rate PJ golfer Ryan Palmer says he examines the shot like numbers to help improve his game I have used it a lot to find out my squares game needs most work and it's paid off the data is also used by EA Sports to create its PGA Tour video game this year featuring top-ranked golfer Rory McElroy instead of Tiger Woods all those stats that we're giving to them are changing the makeup of the players in the game based on all these extended stats that were now able to provide with shot link with younger players like McIlroy and masters champion jordan Spieth dominating the headlines the tour is delving deeper into tech to entice another generation of golf fans it's partly designed to stimulate more interest in the sport generally but but but also to focus people's attention on how cool these young guys are it's an approach the PGA hopes will be par for the course in the future in San Francisco I'm Kara Tsuboi cnet.com for CBS News