PGA Tour Aligns With Amazon Web Services To Build "Data Lake" For Golf History

In a staggering move that has executives all over golf asking, why didn’t I think of that, the PGA Tour and Amazon Web Services have combined to create the single greatest piece of golf B-speak nonsense.

I’ll leave it to Sean Martin to reveal in this story for PGATour.com because it does involve the most exciting part of this announcement:

AWS will help the TOUR store real-time and historic content that will give fans and media access to content dating back to the 1928 Los Angeles Open. This “data lake” will contain video, audio and images that AWS technology will tag for easy cataloging. This will help the TOUR and its content partners search, review, annotate and package new content and give them instant access to key moments in the TOUR’s history.

Now that sounds fun. Let’s get that lake filled with data!

As for the real reason behind this deal...

In a newly announced partnership that promises to revolutionize how fans consume the game, the PGA TOUR has partnered with AWS as it looks to modernize the way golf content is created and distributed. The AWS partnership comes at the perfect time as the TOUR grows its global media services. A range of AWS services will be utilized in this new media landscape to simplify content delivery, create new digital experiences, and provide enhanced access to archived broadcast footage and highlights.  

“We are excited to utilize AWS media services to further enhance new and existing innovative services for our fans,” said Scott Gutterman, the PGA TOUR’s Senior Vice President, Digital Operations. “Features like Every Shot Live and TOURCast will now be powered by AWS, which will allow for a more streamlined process and overall better product for our fans.”

Translation: we’re going to help them get closer to real-time streaming so we can make live betting happen.

The Tour’s dreams of live betting is quite unattractive in a world where streamers get excited texts from their cable-subscribing friends and must wait ten seconds to find out what happeed.

These latency issues are hugely problematic when other fans (or other interested observers) can beat the linemakers and algorithms who are on a delay. AWS to the rescue for not just golf, but all of sports streaming.