Latest / The 5G Podcast with Fexingo: Wireless Networks, Carriers, and Mobile Infrastructure / How 5G Is Quietly Transforming the Golf Course Experience
Transcript
- Lucas: You know, when people think about 5G and sports, the mind usually goes to packed stadiums, instant replays, augmented reality for fans. But there's one sport where 5G is quietly making a very different kind of impact, and it's a sport that's notoriously resistant to change. Luna: Let me guess — golf? Lucas: Golf. And specifically, I want to talk about a deployment that went live earlier this year at TPC Sawgrass in Florida. That's the home of the Players Championship, one of the biggest events on the PGA Tour. AT&T installed a private 5G network there — not just for spectators, but for the actual playing experience. Luna: Interesting. So we're not talking about fans streaming video from the 18th hole. We're talking about the core golf operation. Lucas: Exactly. The network covers the entire course, eighteen holes plus the practice facilities. And the killer application is real-time shot tracking. Every swing, every ball flight, every putt — captured by a combination of radar, cameras, and sensors built into the course infrastructure. All of that data gets processed on edge servers right there at the course, with latency under ten milliseconds. Luna: Ten milliseconds is essentially instant. So what does that mean for a golfer? Are they getting data on their phone in real time? Lucas: Yes — but the more interesting use case is for the broadcast and for the caddies. The caddies have tablets now that show not just yardage, but wind conditions, slope, historical data on how that particular player performs from that lie. It's like having a second caddie who's a statistician. Luna: I can see how that changes strategy. But doesn't that take some of the human artistry out of the game? The feel, the intuition? Lucas: That's the debate. The PGA Tour has actually been careful about this. They're not allowing live data during competitive rounds for the pros — yet. But for the amateur golfer, or for the spectator experience, it's a different story. At TPC Sawgrass, if you're a fan walking the course, you can pull up any shot from any player on demand, from multiple camera angles. It's like having a producer's booth in your pocket. Luna: And that's where the private 5G network matters, because public 4G or Wi-Fi couldn't handle that density of uploads and downloads simultaneously. How many devices are we talking about? Lucas: During a tournament like the Players, you could have tens of thousands of spectators plus dozens of broadcast trucks, plus the on-course sensors. AT&T told me they designed the network to handle up to fifteen thousand simultaneous connections per cell sector. That's orders of magnitude more than Wi-Fi can manage in that outdoor environment. Luna: And the private part — that means the network is dedicated to the course, not shared with the general public. So the bandwidth is always there. Lucas: Right. It uses CBRS spectrum — that's Citizens Broadband Radio Service, a slice of the 3.5 gigahertz band that the FCC opened up for shared use. TPC Sawgrass has its own little slice, and the network is completely isolated from the carrier's public macro network. That means consistent performance, no congestion, and the course operator can manage it themselves. Luna: So is this just for the big, high-profile courses like Sawgrass, or do you see it scaling down to your local municipal course? Lucas: The economics are actually more interesting at the mid-tier level. A private 5G network for a golf course costs somewhere between fifty thousand and two hundred thousand dollars to deploy, depending on coverage area. That's comparable to a full Wi-Fi mesh, but with much better performance and reliability. And the revenue opportunity is real: courses can offer premium digital caddie services as an upsell, or sell data to equipment manufacturers. Luna: Let's talk about that equipment manufacturer angle. Callaway, Titleist — they're all trying to get more data on how their clubs perform in the real world. A private 5G network on a course could give them a firehose of real-world usage data. Lucas: Yes, and that's already happening. Ping, the club maker, has been working with a company called Arccos to put sensors in grips. Those sensors communicate with the network, so every shot is logged with club type, swing speed, ball speed, launch angle. If you're a serious golfer, you get a detailed post-round analysis. If you're Ping, you get aggregated data on how your clubs perform across thousands of players. Luna: I imagine there are privacy concerns there. Players might not love the idea of their data being sold. Lucas: Absolutely. And the PGA Tour has been very careful about opt-in consent. But for the amateur who wants to improve, it's a powerful tool. And for the course, it's a new revenue stream — you're not just selling tee times anymore, you're selling a data-enhanced experience. Luna: What about the caddies themselves? Are they worried about being replaced by a tablet? Lucas: The caddies I've talked to actually see it as a tool. A good caddie already knows the yardages and the wind. What the tablet gives them is real-time data on green firmness, on how the grass is changing throughout the day, on the exact break they saw on the last putt. It makes them better at their job. It doesn't replace the human judgment call — like knowing that the player is nervous and needs a confident number. Luna: So it's augmentation, not automation. That feels like a healthy balance. Lucas: Right. And look, not all courses will adopt this. It's still early. But TPC Sawgrass is a flagship, and if that model proves out — if the data shows that players score better or have more fun or that the course can charge a premium — then you'll see it spread. I think within three years, most high-end public courses will have some form of private 5G. Luna: And the technology keeps improving. We're already hearing about 5G-Advanced, which promises even lower latency and better support for IoT. That could bring down the cost of the sensors. Lucas: Exactly. The sensors themselves are getting cheaper. The radar units that used to cost ten thousand dollars are now under a thousand. And the network gear is getting more compact — you can put a small cell on a light pole or a flagstick. Luna: I want to come back to something you said earlier about the spectator experience. You mentioned on-demand replays from any angle. How does that work in practice? Lucas: So imagine you're standing at the 17th hole at Sawgrass — that famous island green. Every player tees off, and a dozen cameras capture the shot from different angles. The private 5G network streams those feeds to the edge server, which stitches them into a single multi-angle video file within seconds. You pull out your phone, open the course app, and you can watch any player's tee shot from any camera angle, in 4K, with zero buffering. Luna: That's the kind of experience that makes people show up early and stay late. It's more immersive than TV, because you're there. Lucas: And that's the business case for the course. More engagement means more spending at the concessions, more return visits. One estimate I saw from a golf industry analyst suggested that courses with private 5G could see a fifteen to twenty percent increase in per-visitor revenue. Luna: That's a pretty compelling ROI. And it's not just golf — the same model could apply to other outdoor venues like tennis clubs, race tracks, even large public parks. Lucas: Yeah, I think golf is just the beachhead. The technology is really about how to deliver high-bandwidth, low-latency connectivity across a large outdoor area with unpredictable user density. If you can make it work at a golf course, you can make it work at a festival or a construction site or a college campus. Luna: And these private networks are also a way for carriers like AT&T to generate new revenue beyond the consumer market. They sell the hardware, they manage the network, they get a recurring service fee. Lucas: Exactly. It's a big growth area for them. And it's interesting because it's a different kind of relationship — they're not just selling you a phone plan, they're selling you an infrastructure solution. The golf course becomes a mini cellular operator. Luna: Speaking of the economics of these things — and I know we don't talk about this often — but a couple of dollars a month is genuinely what keeps these shows going. If you've gotten something out of this episode or any of our other deep dives, buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It makes a real difference. Lucas: Yeah, honestly, it's the listener support that lets us stay ad-free and independent. We don't have a big corporate sponsor behind us. So if you value that kind of journalism, it helps. Luna: And now back to the course — there's one more angle I want to explore. What about the maintenance side? Are grounds crews using 5G too? Lucas: Absolutely. The network supports a bunch of IoT sensors for soil moisture, turf temperature, even the height of the grass. The maintenance team gets real-time alerts if a particular section of the fairway is drying out. They can adjust irrigation remotely. One course in Florida told me they reduced water usage by twelve percent in the first three months. Luna: That's significant, especially in drought-prone areas. And it's another data point that makes the business case stronger. Lucas: Exactly. The network pays for itself through water savings and increased revenue. So the environmental and the economic cases align. Luna: Alright, so where do we see this heading next? Are we going to see 5G-enabled golf carts with autonomous driving? Lucas: That's actually in pilot at a course in Arizona. A 5G-connected cart that can navigate itself to a specific location, so you can call it from your phone and it picks you up. But that's a whole other episode. Luna: We'll save that for another day. For now, it's clear that 5G on the golf course is much more than a gimmick. Lucas: It's a real infrastructure play with measurable returns. And it's happening right now.