By Rahul Banerji
The PGA Tour on Tuesday announced a renewed and expanded agreement with Twitter to distribute free nearly 140 hours of live competition from 28 tournaments during the 2018-19 season, it said in a statement.
The multi-year agreement will stream on Twitter the first 60 to 90 minutes from the morning hours of all four rounds of PGA Tour Live’s Over-The-Top on a global basis.
The addition of Saturday and Sunday morning coverage will result in the most live PGA Tour content ever offered on Twitter.
Involving the fans
In a nod to the Tour’s Fans’ First initiative, it is launching Fan Vote Fridays giving them a chance to vote via Twitter to determine one of the two featured groups to be showcased during Friday’s coverage for each tournament streamed on Twitter.
Fans will also have pre-tournament access with live streams from the driving range each week.
Twitter will begin live streaming at the Desert Classic in Palm Springs, California, on January 17 and 18. The four-round coverage on Twitter will begin at the Farmers Insurance Open in San Diego and conclude in August at the season-ending Tour Championship in Atlanta, where the FedExCup Champion will be crowned.
Global feed
The live coverage will be available globally on Twitter and can be found via @PGATOUR.
“The evolution of our streaming partnership with Twitter over the past three years has led to extraordinary feedback from our fans globally,” said Rick Anderson, chief media officer of the PGA Tour.
“We continue to reach an ever-growing young, diverse and loyal audience allowing us to expand and improve the product with live programming, real time highlights and video-on-demand content.”
“We’re thrilled to grow our lighthouse collaboration with the PGA Tour, bringing even more content to passionate golf fans around the globe,” said Kay Madati, vice-president andglobal head of content partnerships at Twitter.
‘Good response’
“We saw tremendous excitement and growth in 2018 around golf conversation and sponsor enthusiasm for PGA Tour content on Twitter.
“This year, we will reach and continue to serve highly engaged golf fans every day throughout the season by pairing those conversations with live programming and real-time highlights, all in one place on our platform.”
The PGA Tour and Twitter initially teamed up to live stream tournament coverage during the opening rounds of the first two events of the 2016 FedExCup Playoffs.
They formalised the live stream relationship in January 2017 with PGA Tour Live coverage from select events during the 2016-2017 season.
Priyanshu takes first round lead
Meanwhile, at the Kensville Golf & Country Club near Ahmedabad, Gurgaon’s Priyanshu Singh shot a three-under-69 to take the first round lead at the PGTI’s Pre Qualifying II for the 2019 season on Tuesday.
Priyanshu had six birdies against three bogeys to lead by two shots. Singh’s round featured a terrific run of four consecutive birdies from the ninth to the 13th. Chandigarh’s Amrit Lal was in second place at one-under-71.
Out of a total field of 99, the top 24 players plus ties will qualify from the ongoing 36-hole event for the Final Qualifying Stage.
Also read: Wading the Internet in search of better golf
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