Pga Tour Partners With Wearables Brand Whoop
The PGA TOUR has announced a multi-year partnership with wearable technology brand WHOOP who will become the Tour’s Official Fitness Wearable.
The pair will implement a new WHOOP Live for Charity initiative which will see players wear the devices to highlight the biometric and heart rate changes that happen to elite players during defining moments throughout the season. Those real-time metrics will be integrated into video content.
Featured players will receive a $10,000 (£7,374) contribution to the charity of their choice on behalf of WHOOP and the TOUR. Fans can follow these moments at #WHOOPLIVE beginning in 2021.
“We are excited to grow our partnership with WHOOP and utilize their health technology to optimize the way our athletes train, recover and sleep,” said Brian Oliver, Executive Vice President of Corporate Partnerships, PGA TOUR.
“Our athletes understand the importance of maintaining their health to ensure peak competitive performance, career longevity and overall well-being. The WHOOP Strap will help our athletes unlock actionable insights via physiological data to help them understand and prepare their bodies for competition. We’re eager to begin a first-of-its-kind activation at the TOUR that will incorporate player biometric data with defining moments from the golf course to create fascinating content for fans.”
Last summer upon the TOUR’s return to golf over 1,000 WHOOP Straps were distributed for players, caddies and other essential personnel at PGA TOUR, Korn Ferry Tour and PGA TOUR Champions events, with accompanying membership for health monitoring. WHOOP collects physiological data that helps an individual optimize workouts, recovery and sleep – and can identify changes in respiratory rate with industry-leading third party validated accuracy. This official partnership is a natural evolution from the collaborative efforts to find new solutions to support TOUR athletes at all levels.
“WHOOP has organically grown amongst the world’s best golfers for years and we are proud to take our relationship with the PGA TOUR and all athletes to the next level,” said Will Ahmed, WHOOP Founder & CEO. “This partnership is particularly new and innovative in that it will bring heart rate and other engaging physiological metrics directly into the fan experience.”
WHOOP will activate and create custom content within PGA TOUR Active, a new initiative which aims to highlight the health, fitness and lifestyles of professional golfers, allowing fans to see the techniques and activities helping the best players in the world perform at their peak.
Rory McIlroy – a WHOOP investor – said: “I’ve been a WHOOP member for a number of years and having the ability to monitor my recovery on a daily basis is helpful for my overall performance. WHOOP has been everywhere on TOUR in 2020 and this new partnership will unlock the future of athletic performance and professional golf.”
Throughout the partnership, players and coaches will receive the brand’s latest products, while PGA TOUR events will incorporate the technology in its Player Performance Centers, which travel to each tournament to care for players during competition.
