The Masters 2019

It’s my favorite time of the year.  

It’s the week of The Masters, golf’s first and arguably most prestigious championship of the year.

I have a feeling this weather front moving across the midwest could wreak havoc on this year’s tournament, but putting that aside, let’s talk about two key things: Players I favor in this year’s tournament and IBM’s continuing technology partnership with The Masters.

First, the players I’ll be keeping an eye on at the top of my list: Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Francesco Molinari, Justin Rose, Rory McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwood, and Jon Rahm.  In no particular order and just based on what I know of their games and their recent play (from tee to green, but especially with approach shots and putting).

If the weather gets really bad (i.e. windy, rainy), look for bad weather players like Tiger Woods, Ricky Fowler, Sergio Garcia, and a host of other world players (especially from Europe) comfortable playing in adverse conditions.

For funsies, I would also throw in the mix world class players like Henrik Stenson, Hideki Matsuyama, Xander Shauffele, Branden Grace and Marc Leishman.

Now, to IBM’s continuing partnership with Augusta National. At this year’s tournament, you will once again be able to watch the best highlights of a competitor’s round in three minutes. These highlight reels will be generated using IBM Watson Media technology to analyze video from every player, and it will score every stroke based on characteristics that may indicate a significant or exciting moment: Cheers or groans from the crowd, an overexcited TV announcer, etc. 

Using all those data points, AI from Watson will score, combined and rank those clips and pull them all together for the highlight clip.

You can read more about this and other IBM technologies used behind the scenes at The Masters.

Okay, well it’s less than 24 hours until the day that golfers around the world wait for and look forward to every year.  You can try calling me this weekend, but you likely won’t get an answer.

And if you find the waiting to be excruciating like I do, check out today’s gallery pics.  They’ll whet your appetite for Augusta National’s great gift to we golfers.