As golf fans anticipate the 90th Masters Tournament at the illustrious Augusta National Golf Club, IBM continues to innovate the way they consume the first major championship of the season, including this year with its new AI-enabled digital experiences.
IBM and the Masters Tournament announced Monday the new and enhanced digital fan features on the award-winning Masters digital platforms, including the Masters app, as they continue to evolve over their 30-year collaboration to bring rich history and on-course excitement to the millions watching from April 9-12.
One of those new features is within the Masters Vault video archive, which allows fans to explore over 50 years of Masters Tournament final round broadcasts.
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Now, using the watsonx AI-powered capabilities, IBM and the Masters Tournament are introducing the Masters Vault Search, where fans can find the shots and moments they’re looking for through simple, conversation-style prompts.
A system of AI agents, powered by specialized solutions including IBM’s Granite small language models (SLM) and agentic AI platform watsonx Orchestrate, has been built to instantly find the exact clips fans are searching for. Once performed, fans will be able to watch full-length replays, as they relive, reminisce and prepare themselves for the coming action in this year’s tournament.
The Masters Vault Search is also built with optical character recognition, speech-to-text transcription of broadcast commentary and scene detection to analyze the footage a fan is looking for.
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The vault dates to 1968, which means fans can see Jack Nicklaus’ 1975 back-nine charge, including his famous 40-foot birdie putt on 16, to capture his fifth green jacket. Nicklaus’ sixth green jacket is arguably the greatest Masters finish in tournament history, shooting 30 on the back nine with a birdie-birdie finish to win his sixth jacket.
Then, there’s Phil Mickelson’s winning putt in 2004, Tiger Woods’ iconic chip-in at 16 the year after, and of course, Rory McIlroy completing the career Grand Slam in a thrilling 2025 tournament. Individual stroke data, which started in 2015, will be available as well.
Finally, the AI-powered Hole Insights returns for its third year, and is even more accurate than before. This feature provides fans insights around every shot taken by every player on every hole during the Masters.
The new enhancement combines on-course visuals with data-driven insights, including historical scoring probabilities and contextual performance trends. This helps fans better understand how each shot, position and decision will impact outcomes for golfers throughout the four-day tournament.
Also, legendary caddie and commentator Jim “Bones” Mackay advised the IBM team behind the solution, lending his expertise and first-hand knowledge of one of the hardest golf courses in the world to better deliver the analysis for fans to consume.
“The Masters Tournament and IBM have continually raised the bar on unique digital experiences that blend cutting-edge technology with the timelessness of Augusta National Golf Club,” Jonathan Adashek, senior vice president of marketing and communications at IBM, said in a press release. “The introduction of Masters Vault Search and updates to Hole Insights show how generative and agentic AI can transform vast amounts of data into meaningful insights – whether you’re a golf fan who wants to understand the implications of a single shot in real time, or a financial institution using AI to analyze millions of transactions to identify patterns and inform decisions.”
IBM and the Masters Tournament have been pioneering the enhanced fan experience with the use of emerging technology. IBM is also partnered with iconic sports and entertainment organizations, including the UFC, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, among others, where fan experiences are powered by the same AI hybrid cloud solutions used by clients across industries.
Those using the Masters digital platforms will also be able to use key features for this year’s tournament like AI Highlights, Round in Three Minutes, My Group, and even access the Masters app on Apple Vision Pro.
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