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Golf Channel to add high-tech tracking

Radar technology of Denmark-based company Interactive Sports Games, or ISG, to provide 3D data on players and golf ball movement to viewers.

Candace Lombardi
In a software-driven world, it's easy to forget about the nuts and bolts. Whether it's cars, robots, personal gadgetry or industrial machines, Candace Lombardi examines the moving parts that keep our world rotating. A journalist who divides her time between the United States and the United Kingdom, Lombardi has written about technology for the sites of The New York Times, CNET, USA Today, MSN, ZDNet, Silicon.com, and GameSpot. She is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not a current employee of CNET.
Candace Lombardi

The Golf Channel plans to offer high-tech data to its viewers in the form of 3D representations beginning in January.

A Doppler radar system made by the Denmark-based software developer Interactive Sports Games will begin to be used to convey club movement, ball trajectory, and other statistics to viewers, according to the company. The Golf Channel's first use of the TrackMan system will be at the Mercedes-Benz Championship in Hawaii on January 3, according to reports. TrackMan can also measure things like ball-landing coordinates and spin rates, according to ISG.

The Golf Channel, which is the exclusive cable channel for the PGA tour, the LPGA tour, the USGA, and PGA of America, plans to use the system to show its viewers visual analyses of a golfer's tendencies, ball flight, and side-by-side looks at how different players approach the same hole. It will include multiple views of swings and ball movement.

The channel said it will be the first American broadcaster to use such technology for PGA events.