THERE'S no escaping gizmos, gadgets and gee-whiz technology. And even if you could escape them, some elaborate GPS tracking device would be swiftly activated to pinpoint the exact bush you were cowering under.
There are, no doubt, many of us who embrace new-fangled contraptions with the ham-fisted ineptitude of a fumbling, muttering old colonel trying to unfurl the sticky, stubborn cellophane wrapping on a Barley Sugar.
Dr Prin Singhanat, meanwhile, doesn’t have such doddering dilemmas. When it comes to all manner of hi-tech thingamabobs and scientific whatchamacallits, the Thai physicist and innovator welcomes the advancements with open arms. She has now been welcomed to the Women’s Scottish Open. “I started coding at 12-years-old and started my own company at the age of 20,” said Dr Prin of her computer-savvy background. “I sometimes talk better in computer language than I talk to you.” It’s a good job, then, that the golf writers know their FORTRAN from their elbow.
As the founder of Bangkok-based technology enterprise, Trust Golf, Dr Prin is extending her reach with headline sponsorship of the Women’s Scottish Open, which takes place this week at the new, and already flourishing, Dumbarnie Links in Fife.
The lucrative LPGA and Ladies European Tour co-sanctioned championship will feature some of the world’s best players and will be the first of two showpiece occasions on the east coast with the AIG Women’s Open taking place at Carnoustie next week.
Getting to the top ain’t easy in this game. Indeed, getting a foothold on a tour requires the unwavering dedication and discipline of a monk but Dr Prin believes she can accelerate that journey with her appliance of science. Trust Golf’s 3000 square metre centre of excellence in the Thai capital, and the Trust Research and Development Centre, are all-singing, all-dancing facilities that would make Bill Gates’ mansion look as technologically advanced as a Highland bothy. Robotics, artificial intelligence, simulators, launch monitors, augmented reality, 3D Biomechanical analysis tools ? You name it, Trust Golf uses it and Dr Prin, who has plans to roll out 20 such centres across the world, wants to create something of a golfing conveyor belt of talent and use the Women’s Scottish Open to spread her gospel.
“The road from step one to the tour is long,” she said. “It can take maybe seven years. I want to create tour players in two years. I want players to believe that if they turn pro today, they can be a tour player in two years. We want to make the impossible possible. There is no such thing as a perfect solution to becoming a golfer. Just using human brains and human eyes cannot monitor everything at the same time but by using augmented reality we can capture all the data we need. I have 9000 programmers working with me on data. We analyse all the strengths and all the weaknesses and improve the skills of a player. Golf genius does exist.”
Dr Prin’s expansion into sponsorship of golf in these parts – she supports a joint men’s and women’s circuit in Thailand among other developmental programmes – has been a timely tonic for the Women’s Scottish Open.
When long-term backer, Aberdeen Standard Investments, announced it was ending its title sponsorship back in February, there were genuine fears for the future of an event which has grown immeasurably since it was revived back in 2007 after 12 years in cold storage.
Back then, the first prize was £30,000. In the last couple of years, it has been £225,000. Its key slot in the schedule, the week before the AIG Women’s Open gives it another layer of attraction but Dr Prin doesn’t want the Scottish showpiece to simply be an appetiser for the main major championship dish.
“This is the home of golf and I would like to see the Women’s Scottish Open as a major with the same prize money or more of the other majors,” she said. “I don’t want it to just be another event, I want it to be on the world map.
“I want it to be an event where all the ladies are saying, ‘I want to play in the Women’s Scottish Open and there is no chance I want to miss it’.”
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