Cameron Smith ties PGA TOUR record with 18 putts

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA – The PGA TOUR announced that PGA TOUR AR, an augmented reality (AR) app that rolled out in 2018, will add a “360° Tee Box presented by AT&T� experience on holes No. 1 and 18 on Pebble Beach Golf Links at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. The experience will bring live AR and 360° tournament coverage to life for fans in the United States on their Apple device. The AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am will also showcase live featured hole AR coverage on the PGA TOUR AR app from holes 1, 7 and 18 at Pebble Beach Golf Links. The AR experience will begin in conjunction with the opening round of the tournament on Thursday, February 7. The PGA TOUR AR app is available for free, exclusively in the App Store. After selecting the 360° Tee Box within the app, fans will be directed to scan the floor and tap to start the experience. Once they tap to start, an AR green with the Pebble Beach flag will appear and direct fans to walk toward the green. Once fans walk onto the virtual green, the 360° video from either the 1st or 18th tee box will appear, and they can move their phones around to view the video. The experience will go live one hour before the first tee time Thursday-Sunday at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. “The AT&T 360° Tee Box in the PGA TOUR AR app offers fans a unique and exclusive view of Pebble Beach Golf Links,� said Devon Fox, PGA TOUR Director, Digital Platform Innovation. “Fans will be able to see holes No. 1 and 18 in an entirely new way, getting them closer to the action than ever before. Collaborating with AT&T to bring fans this exclusive experience represents a new way for the TOUR to add value for sponsors and partners in the future.� PGA TOUR AR allows fans to interact with 3D featured holes and live 3D shot trails on any flat surface right in front of them. On featured holes throughout the season, fans will be able to select their favorite player on the golf course, compare shot trails from each round and compare the shots of different players. The 360° Tee Box presented by AT&T experience will only be available for the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am from February 7-10. The PGA TOUR AR app is available on iPhone 7 and above and iOS 11.3 and above and on iPad Pro. The “360° Tee Box presented by AT&T� experience will only be visible to users on the iPhone/iOS versions listed above. The 360° Tee Box experience was developed jointly by the PGA TOUR, AT&T, The Marketing Arm and Trigger Global. The development of the PGA TOUR AR app in collaboration with POSSIBLE Mobile, part of the creative agency POSSIBLE, was aided by existing data gathered by ShotLink powered by CDW, the TOUR’s longstanding state-of-the-art scoring system. ShotLink through CDW technology captures and reports real-time vital information on every shot, by every player, during tournament competition. Every shot is translated into thousands of statistics, changing the way fans watch – and now interact with – the PGA TOUR, bringing them closer to the action. ShotLink and CDW’s vision is to turn data into information, information into knowledge, and knowledge into entertainment. The upgraded PGA TOUR AR app was built using the latest versions of ARKit and Unity to provide fans with faster, more accurate surface detection and the ability to choose where they want to place the models.

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PALM HARBOR, Fla. — Sam Burns had a three-shot lead with five holes to play Saturday and had to make an 8-foot bogey putt on the 18th hole just to keep a share of the lead with Keegan Bradley in the Valspar Championship. RELATED: Leaderboard | Inside the Field: Wells Fargo Championship Burns had two bogeys over the final three holes at Innisbrook, both from errant tee shots, and he did well to make sure his finish wasn’t worse. He had to two-putt from 75 feet on the final hole for bogey and a 2-under 69. Bradley, who got back in the mix by chipping in for eagle, also bogeyed the 18th for a 69. They were at 14-under 199, tying the 54-hole tournament record set by K.J. Choi in 2002 and matched by Adam Hadwin in 2017. Both Choi and Hadwin went on to win. This was hardly a two-man race, not the way Max Homa finished. Homa ran in a birdie putt from just inside 30 feet on the 15th hole, and after a bogey on the tough 16th, he closed out his round of 66 by making a 35-foot bending birdie putt from the fringe on the 18th. That makes seven putts from 25 feet or longer this week for Homa, and it left him only one shot out of the lead as he goes for his second PGA TOUR victory this year. Burns has at least a share of the 54-hole lead for the third time this season. He shot 2-over 72 in the Vivint Houston Open to tie for seventh, and his 2-under 69 at Riviera left him one shot out of a playoff at the Genesis Invitational won by Homa. If the last hour was any indication, it doesn’t take much for the Copperhead course at Innisbrook to bite back. “There’s some birdies out there,” Abraham Ancer said after his 66. “But this golf course, if you’re not in the right position, man, you can make some bogeys quick.” And thanks to a few quick bogeys by the leaders, Ancer is suddenly back in the mix. He was in the group at 10-under 203, just four shots behind, that included Ted Potter Jr. (63), Joaquin Niemann (67) and Cameron Tringale (67). Niemann began his week at Innisbrook in the same group as Dustin Johnson and Justin Thomas, Nos. 1 and 2 in the world, who are no longer part of the equation. Thomas had a 67 and was eight shots behind. Johnson took double bogey on the 16th and 18th holes for a 74 and will be out of town before the final group tees off. Paul Casey’s bid for a third consecutive win at the Valspar Championship is gone, too. He shot 72 and was 12 shots out of the lead. The top three all made eagle during a sweltering Saturday, all in different fashion. It started with Burns, who sent a 3-hybrid soaring with such height that it pitched in front of the first hole and settled 30 inches away for a tap-in eagle. Burns also made a 35-foot birdie putt on the third hole and hit a tough bunker shot to 10 feet for birdie on the fifth. Bradley could barely keep up with him. Turns out he didn’t need to do much. Burns didn’t make another birdie over the final 13 holes, losing a chance to at least keep his distance. The lead was three shots when Bradley missed a par putt on the 13th hole. But on the par-5 14th, Bradley went for the green and came up short and to the right. He chipped in for eagle, and on the next hole, and two holes later, Burns bogeyed the 16th. Homa made his eagle the hard way, holing out from 138 yards on the sixth hole, which only yielded eight birdies the entire round. But he saved his best work for the long birdie putts, his strength all week. Homa started the round four shots behind Burns and Bradley, and he fell seven shots back after the opening four holes. That didn’t bother him. “I just knew if I posted 4 under-ish I would at least have a chance tomorrow, but that’s all you can do out here,” Homa said. “The moment you try to shoot 8 (under), you’re in trouble. So yeah, feels good to have a chance.”

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