{"id":273,"date":"2011-03-25T18:37:10","date_gmt":"2011-03-25T18:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jaystuller.com\/?p=273"},"modified":"2011-03-25T18:37:10","modified_gmt":"2011-03-25T18:37:10","slug":"world-golf-tour-grows-prepares-for-virtual-opens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/golf\/273\/world-golf-tour-grows-prepares-for-virtual-opens","title":{"rendered":"World Golf Tour Grows, Prepares for Virtual Opens"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2011\/03\/image001.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-274\" title=\"image001\" src=\"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2011\/03\/image001.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"145\" height=\"97\" srcset=\"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2011\/03\/image001.jpg 145w, https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2011\/03\/image001-90x60.jpg 90w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 145px) 100vw, 145px\" \/><\/a>The World Golf Tour (WGT), a free online golf game that recreates famous golf courses in virtual reality, recently added two new world-class courses to its burgeoning portfolio, and made an avatar of the popular <a href=\"http:\/\/www.taylormadegolf.com\/\" target=\"_self\">TaylorMade<\/a> R11 driver available in its virtual pro shop.\u00a0 As it prepares to host a virtual <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usopen.com\/en_US\/index.html\" target=\"_self\">U.S. Open<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.opengolf.com\/\" target=\"_self\">Open Championship<\/a> this coming summer, the site has in less than three years seen more than 100 million rounds played.<\/p>\n<p>With Bethpage Black, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.standrews.org.uk\/The-Courses\/The-Old-Course.aspx\" target=\"_self\">Old Course at St. Andrews<\/a> and several other venues already available for any-time play, the WGT just put up the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.seapines.com\/golf\/harbour-town-golf-links.asp\" target=\"_self\">Harbour\u00a0Town\u00a0Golf Links<\/a>, which hosts the PGA TOUR\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theheritagegolfsc.com\/\" target=\"_self\">The Heritage<\/a>.\u00a0 Through photographs and measurements that are eerily accurate, the computer animation recreates the Pete Dye and Jack Nicklaus design. Also new is the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hilversumschegolfclub.nl\/\" target=\"_self\">Hilversumsche Golf Club<\/a>, one of\u00a0Europe\u2019s top 100 courses and host of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.klmopen.nl\/klmopen\/home\/?website_id=1&amp;taal=1\" target=\"_self\">European Tour&#8217;s KLM Open<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The WGT offers numerous monthly and ongoing competitions, including closest to the pin contents on various courses, and straight up 18-hole events.\u00a0 But what\u2019s quickly turned into a highlight of its year are virtual versions of the U.S. Open and the Open Championship in Britain.\u00a0 While the details of this summer\u2019s competition aren\u2019t yet final, things will likely be similar to last year, with an initial qualifying round that lasted for about a month.\u00a0 The top 156 qualifiers plus ties then played a 36-hole championship, with the winner getting a trip to the real-life Open.\u00a0 Qualifiers also got a chance to compete for a grand prize, a trip for two to Scotland and a round on the Old Course.<\/p>\n<p>Since launching in October 2008,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/WGT.com\/\" target=\"_self\">WGT.com<\/a> has become one of the largest golf sites in the world. It boasts more than 1 million monthly unique visitors that are playing more than 5 million rounds per month. \u00a0And that is something of which members of the real world golf course owners and operators association can only dream.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The World Golf Tour (WGT), a free online golf game that recreates famous golf courses in virtual reality, recently added&#8230;  <a class=\"excerpt-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/golf\/273\/world-golf-tour-grows-prepares-for-virtual-opens\" title=\"ReadWorld Golf Tour Grows, Prepares for Virtual Opens\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":274,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,372,3600,4785,1694,17],"tags":[1027927,6123,5309,6124,6125,6126,439,158,6122,1391,1027925],"class_list":["post-273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-taylormade","category-world-golf-tour","category-connoisseurs-scotland","category-haversham-baker","category-courses-and-travel","tag-st-andrews","tag-the-u-s-open","tag-united-states-golf-association","tag-the-pga-tour","tag-harbour-town-golf-links","tag-the-heritage","tag-pete-dye","tag-jack-nicklaus","tag-wgt-com","tag-bethpage-black","tag-taylormade"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2011\/03\/image001.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":277,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273\/revisions\/277"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}