Doc Redman does things the hard way, and it pays off

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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SYDNEY, Australia – It took three rounds – and doesn’t include Jordan Spieth – but a PGA TOUR experienced crew have taken the Australian Open by the scruff of the neck. Four of the top five players on the leaderboard are regulars and winners on the TOUR, headed by local favorite Jason Day who leads at 10-under. Day has won 10 times on the PGA TOUR but has never won his national Open. The last time he visited his home shores he won the World Cup with Adam Scott in 2013 and his Aussie fans have been begging for an opportunity such as this for the last four years. He may never get a better opportunity than this to carve his name into the Stonehaven Cup, which already has legends of golf including Gene Sarazen, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Peter Thomson, Greg Norman, Tom Watson, Adam Scott, Geoff Ogilvy, Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth adorned on it. “You can look at the names on the Cup, a lot of Hall of Fame members, a lot of great players, a lot of future Hall of Fame members,â€� Day said. “It would be nice to add my name to that list as well, but the hardest thing for me, you don’t want to get ahead of yourself and it’s easy tonight be able to think about the possibility of holding the Stonehaven Cup for the first time. “I don’t want to win it just once, I’d like to come back and win it multiple times.â€� Young Aussie Lucas Herbert is the outlier at 9-under before the hunting TOUR level pack begins. Former Houston Open winner Matt Jones, who also won the Australian Open at The Australian Golf Club two years ago, sits tied third with three-time TOUR winner Jonas Blixt at 7-under. Jones is a member at The Australian and grew up on the course. “I think anyone that plays a golf course for years and years is going to have an advantage, just knowing where to miss shots and how to manage the course would be an advantage for me,â€� he said ahead of his Sunday chase. “Jason’s a world class player, former No. 1 in the world. He’d be the favourite to win but we’ve seen many upsets before and as long as I manage my game and give myself birdie opportunities, anything to happen.â€� Blixt’s teammate in his 2017 Zurich Classic win, Australian Cameron Smith, is fifth at 6-under. He is hoping to draw on the experience of an epic final round and playoff battle with Scott Brown and Kevin Kisner when chasing Day down. “Zurich was probably one of the best experiences of my life as far as getting in the moment and being in contention,â€� Smith, who has finished inside the top-5 of his two PGA TOUR starts this season, said. “I think that will help me heaps tomorrow, obviously been there and doing it on the big circuit is a big help.â€� For the record, defending champion Spieth sits eight shots back. He hasn’t given up hope but knows it’s an extreme long shot. He is expecting high winds like in 2014 when he blitzed the final round field with an 8-under 63 to win the title. “We need 8-under; that would probably be enough given the conditions for tomorrow, may not even need that much but it’s going to be so difficult tomorrow that I’ll go out and try and get under par early and just see what the golf course gets to,â€� Spieth said. Despite the quality of the chasing pack, Day remains the prohibitive favorite. He hasn’t won since his 2016 PLAYERS Championship triumph, which at the time was an eighth TOUR win in 17 starts. On the TOUR he has converted six of 13 54-hole leads, including five of his last six. But despite his clear experience advantage, he expects to feel the butterflies in the stomach Sunday. His win drought is similar to the ones faced by Rory McIlroy (2013) and Jordan Spieth (2014) before they won in Australia. They then followed the drought-breaker with stellar multiple major winning seasons. “I know it’s going to be a very difficult day tomorrow with regard to what we’re going to have out there, the pressure, the wind, the fans, the media and everything out there,â€� Day said. “It’s been a while since I’ve won, so obviously everyone’s going to be nervous out there. “But it’s a good nervous; without nerves you don’t get in the zone and without being in the zone, you don’t shoot the scores that you can shoot. “I’m going to enjoy the challenge of trying to win again tomorrow and it’s going to be a lot of fun getting out there and playing against these guys out there.â€�

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Here are the tee times for the final round of The Open at Royal St. George’s.

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