Since joining the LPGA Tour in 2017, Nelly Korda has already seen the game of golf change rapidly. The 23-year-old says the area where she has seen the most growth is in technological innovations.
“The technology in golf has really, really changed over the past five years,” Korda tells Kelley O’Hara on the latest episode of the Just Women’s Sports podcast.“Obviously, with COVID too, technology has become such a huge, huge part of it just to kind of interact with fans.”
Golf was one of the first sports to return to competition during the COVID-19 pandemic, relying on technology to incorporate fans when crowds were still barred from tournaments.
“Cisco actually did a really good job at the US Women’s Open this year,” Korda says. “We had a couple fans come out, but even in Houston, you could see there was a big board of people calling in to cheer us on on the first tee, which was really, really cool.”
Cisco first partnered with the USGA in 2018 and expanded its reach in 2020, bringing a virtual grandstand to LPGA tournaments so fans could tune in from home. The company has also worked with the Tour on innovations on the course.
“This year, and I think it was also last year, we had those 40 cameras on one tee, which I think is the first time anyone’s ever done that,” says Korda.
To Korda, the technical advancements Cisco has introduced have helped fans become more connected and engaged with the sport, changing the trajectory of the women’s game in particular.
“Actually, girls golf is one of the fastest-growing sports I think in the past couple years. It’s grown by like 300 percent,” says Korda. “So I think just seeing the amount of little kids come out has really changed, too, and just the involvement and technology of people has been really cool to see over the past, like, five years.”
Listen to Korda talk more about the growth of the game on the latest episode of the Just Women’s Sports podcast.
