My Letter to Nike+

Nike+,

Digitalizing an entire sport such as golf seems like an incredibly daunting task, but it also sounds really exciting. Imagine having a database of every golfer. Players will be able to track their improvement day by day, and year by year. I was playing golf earlier and came up with a terrific idea for an app that in essence would get rid of the need of a scorecard. When brainstorming ideas for it, I realized that my idea can stretch much farther than I originally expected and began doing research on how technology is being implemented in all aspects of golf. 

In my theoretical app, one would be able to track any and every of information about their golf game, including (but not limited to):

-score
-handicap
-weather conditions
-stats

Say for example a simple statistic noting what % of fairways a golfer hits. There's a problem; how does the app seamlessly know when a ball is hit into the rough or into the fairway? A golfer sure isn't going to input it into their phone every time. Then I thought: well what if the ball had a sensor/gps in it that paired with the phones gps to precisely locate the balls position on the course. Then I'm like: are sensors even in golf balls? 

I was specifically curious whether sensors were being embedded in golf balls or not for this type of idea. I know there is already a company (RadarGolf) that uses sensors which simply locates lost balls for you but there are obviously so many other aspects of a golf ball to consider: spin, velocity, wind, temperature, etc. that players would be interested to see. At first I was looking at Titleist then my attention directed to Nike+ products as it seems you guys are taking Big Data seriously. 

1. Do you imbed sensors into the Nike golf balls?
2. Do you see the massive opportunity in such a product? More and more want to see data regarding their golf game and be able to access it via the cloud. Putting something into your golf balls would not only give you the ability to tell players more information about the game, but it also puts your product way ahead of the others. Then imagine integrating it with your own golf app where players can see all types of info regarding their game. It's a "Big Idea" (get it?) but if executed correctly it can put you miles ahead of competition.

I think there is a big opportunity to get ahead if you were to have the perfect combination of products. Would you guys consider something like this? If yes, I would be very interested in working on this type of project with you guys :). 

Either way I'm curious about how Nike+ is tackling golf in The Digital Age.