Is sport better watched from the grandstand or an armchair? Wyn Drabble

Golf needs an AI live version of a trajectory tracker, writes Wyn Drabble. Photo / Glenn Taylor

Opinion

Wyn Drabble is a teacher of English, writer, public speaker and musician. He is based in Hawke’s Bay.

What a huge weekend of sport it has been for me! What’s more, I’ve done it without suffering an injury to my new(ish) hip or my dodgy knees. And, for the faraway international stuff, I have suffered none of the rigours of long-distance travel.

I’ll share my secret later.

First it was off to Christchurch for a few hours of casual frivolity at Hagley Oval. It mainly involved well-known cricket and rugby players but the sport of being scantily-clad and soaking in a spa pool also earned good coverage. Perhaps more than it deserved.

How they picked their teams was hard to follow because West Indies cricket great Chris Gayle played for the rugby team. Perhaps there was bar service in the dressing room and some of them became a little confused.

Whatever the reason, they all had fun and the spectators seemed to get their money’s worth.

Then it was up to Auckland for a spot of SailGP. I used to race a one-man sailboat on Sydney Harbour and I remember reaching frightening speeds of easily up to nowhere near the speed of these craft. Then I would capsize. And I never managed to come as close to the grandstand as these guys. There wasn’t one.

But, to be fair, if you compare the cost of these boats with mine, I would come out very safely at the end labelled “budget operation”. I certainly couldn’t afford foils.

Next stop, Dubai. After the third round (of four), Kiwis sat first and fourth at the Dubai Desert Classic golf tournament. Of course I was hoping for Kiwis to take first and second. I got second and 10th.

Daniel Hillier earned close to $1.7 million for his second place and Ryan Fox earned significant pocket money for his 10th place.

I saw both these guys in December in Auckland at the Chasing the Fox golf event, the worst memory of which was, at one stage, being only about two metres away from David Seymour, who was playing for the politicians team. I’m just about over the experience.

So, how did I manage this with neither injury nor discomfort? Simple really. I used three items: an armchair, a TV and a remote control. It felt like business class.

Of course it raises the question of the relative merits of watching sport on TV or being live at the event. There’s no doubting that TV coverage can never really match the atmosphere of being at the event in person.

That said, let’s name some of the advantages of the TV experience. In both golf and cricket telecasts, you can actually follow the trajectory of the ball. It’s marked on the screen in a primary colour.

Standing tee-side at Chasing the Fox, I overheard a boy turn to his father after the fourth golfer in a team had teed off. He said: “I didn’t see where any of those balls went!”

There’s a job for artificial intelligence (AI). We need a live version of the trajectory tracker.

Having just seen the SailGP event on TV and a few years ago watched America’s Cup from a launch on the Waitematā Harbour, I think I’m in a position to make a call on the relative merits of each method of viewing.

My pick is the best of both worlds. The America’s Cup races were rather longer so there was plenty of time to divide your viewing between on deck (atmosphere galore but no idea of relative boat positions) and down below (good view out the window but also a TV set mounted on the wall).

With all the graphics on the screen, you suddenly knew exactly what was happening out there.

And there, only two metres away, was icy beer on tap.