Transforming Golf's Original Championship: How NTT DATA's Technology Innovations Enhance the Global Golf Fan Experience

The NTT DATA Wall: A Hub of Engagement

At the heart of fan interaction within the spectator village at The Open stands the NTT DATA Wall, a 20-meter-wide LED display designed to bring all the latest updates from around the course to spectators onsite. Launched in 2014, the NTT DATA Wall has transformed from a simple large-screen display to a sophisticated hub of real-time sports analytics and viewer interaction.

Spanning 20 meters by 5 meters, composed of 400 LED panels, and weighing a total of 20 tons, The NTT DATA Wall, which requires three weeks of meticulous construction and setup, boasts an impressive 2.8 million pixels. The core of its operation is driven by Unreal Engine 5, allowing for real-time, near-photorealistic animations powered by high-end GPUs housed onsite, ensuring minimal latency and maximum processing power.

2024 brings significant enhancements to the NTT DATA Wall, particularly in its ability to process and display information. Data from ShotView, which captures every shot by every player, is received in less than a second, with each of the 32,000 shots taken during the championship analyzed. This amounts to millions of data points processed, which is then mapped to player statistics and visuals on the screen within an impressive 100 milliseconds, synchronizing seamlessly with live broadcast feeds.

This year's upgrades also introduce a groundbreaking AI prioritization algorithm that ensures the most crucial shots are displayed instantaneously as they occur. The same high-precision LIDAR map used in ShotView has been adapted for the big screen, ensuring high-contrast and detailed texturing. The 'Hotspots' functionality of the NTT DATA Wall uses these detailed mappings to highlight key moments in real-time across all 18 holes, providing fans with a comprehensive view of the championship's most pivotal plays.

The NTT DATA Wall is not just about showing the game; it's about immersing fans in the Championship.

Revolutionary Digital Twin Technology: ShotView

At The Open 2024, the launch of the latest version of ShotView marks a pivotal moment in golf analytics, blending technological sophistication with user-centric design to redefine how fans interact with the sport. Originally introduced in 2022, ShotView employs digital twin technology to provide an immersive, data-rich viewing experience.

The 2024 version of ShotView introduces a significant leap forward with an intuitive user interface designed to cater to a wide spectrum of golf fans. This latest iteration simplifies navigation, making it easier for users to find the information they seek. For analysts and die-hard fans, the system offers deeper dives into data, providing insights and analytics that were previously unattainable in real-time.

By integrating advanced digital twin technology, ShotView 2024 allows users to explore every nuance of play with exceptional detail. This technology captures every shot, tracks ball placement, and analyzes player performance across the iconic Royal Troon course. The result is a rich, immersive experience that offers viewers a unique perspective on the game, seeing strategies unfold and understanding player decisions with unprecedented clarity.

Preparation for ShotView at The Open begins weeks before the first tee-off. A comprehensive survey of the Royal Troon course is conducted using drones that capture high-resolution images over several hours. These images, combined with LIDAR and photogrammetry data, create a detailed, immersive digital representation of the course. This precision allows ShotView to provide real-time, accurate visualizations of the game as it happens.

The entire course, including critical infrastructures like grandstands and leaderboards, is modeled in 3D to enhance the realism of the visualizations.

Throughout the Championship, a dedicated team of over 60 data collectors strategically placed across the course captures live data. This data is processed almost instantaneously, thanks to the sophisticated network infrastructure comprising 1,800 meters of cabling and 2,000 meters of fiber optics. ShotView's system ensures data from each shot reaches the fans within seconds, though a 30-second manual delay is applied to maintain the integrity of betting activities.

Moreover, 36 strategically placed green cameras provide zero-latency detection of ball positions, which are then verified by the data collectors. This setup supports the processing of over 152,000 raw shot data points throughout the event, each enriched with insights such as stroke gains, all thanks to advanced machine learning models.

ShotView's comprehensive statistical offerings at The Open 2024, ranging from individual player stats to detailed course insights, set a new benchmark in how sports analytics can enhance fan engagement. The system's ability to provide live, detailed mappings of the course and real-time scoring changes the way fans connect with the sport, bringing them closer to the action than ever before.

Lottie: The AI-Powered Digital Human

'Lottie' is NTT DATA's GenAI-powered digital human, designed to redefine the digital fan experience with the warmth of human interaction.

The latest iteration of Lottie features a unified user interface that integrates advanced GenAI technologies, enabling Lottie to interact in a single conversational mode. This breakthrough in digital interaction technology allows Lottie to deliver on-the-spot insights and blend static data, such as the intricate rules of golf, with dynamic, real-time updates from the ongoing action on the golf course.

Lottie's upgrades extend beyond software improvements; her visual representation has undergone a substantial overhaul to ensure more human-like movements and a physically accurate avatar. These enhancements not only improve the realism of Lottie's interactions but also make her presence more engaging and relatable. The aim is to provide a spectator experience that feels as personal and informative as having a knowledgeable companion right beside you.

By leveraging real-time data analysis and providing historical insights, Lottie offers a unique educational layer that enhances the entertainment value of watching golf. Fans can receive explanations about live plays, delve into historical performances of players, or get contextual information about different parts of the Royal Troon course, all delivered through an engaging digital format.

Lottie is not just a feature intended to entertain; she embodies the future of customer service and spectator interaction in diverse settings such as hotels, airports, and event venues.

Private 5G Network: Seamless Connectivity and Edge Compute

Supporting all these technologies is NTT DATA's newly implemented private 5G network, making its debut at this year's Open. NTT DATA's Network in a Box (NIB) is a self-contained Stand-Alone (SA) Private 5G network and edge compute platform designed to rapidly deploy complex use cases.

This development is not a simple communications upgrade; it represents a shift in how sporting events can harness the power of advanced connectivity to enhance operational efficiency and the spectator experience, bringing the edge to the fans.

The private 5G network's core advantage lies in its ability to provide ultra-fast, low-latency communications with high levels of security, resilience, and low power consumption while bringing high-performance compute to the point of need.

The 5G network at The Open will showcase several key use cases that underscore its potential to transform the event experience. Private 5G Stand-Alone networks can be precisely tuned to specific needs. For example, the NTT DATA Wall needs to receive high volumes of data at high-reliability levels. At the same time, the GenAI-powered Digital Human needs very low latency connectivity and edge compute to give a more human-like response time.

There are more than 120 cameras in use at The Open, which require constant, high bandwidth connectivity, not to mention real-time scoring, operations platforms, ticketing, safety, security payments and almost every other aspect of staging a complex, global sports and media event which runs for only four days a year.

Private 5G has the potential to provide optimized connectivity, tuned to the specific needs of multiple use cases; it can be spun up quickly and efficiently, leading to reduced capital and operating costs as well as higher security and resiliency levels, and can effectively streamline and replace a wide range of legacy networks.

The NTT DATA Network in a Box is installed, commissioned and up and running in less than 30 minutes, and can be decommissioned, packed away and shipped out just as quickly – which is ideal for an event like The Open.

Private 5G networks and edge compute are poised to become a key part of modern business technology estates, particularly in how they handle the vast arrays of IoT devices and sensors integrated into today's complex business environments as well as Digital Twins; with real-time analysis, feedback loops, simulation and real-world environmental optimization.

A New Era for Golf

The 152nd Open marks another chapter in the storied history of golf's original Championship, blending tradition with cutting-edge technology to not only meet, but exceed the expectations of today's digitally-savvy audience.

NTT DATA's ongoing partnership with The R&A showcases a shared commitment to innovating at the intersection of sports and technology, ensuring that golf continues to thrive and appeal to new generations of fans around the world.