The Computer Wiz

• Daniel Forsgren, 34, the inventor of Protracer, the best thing to happen to televised
tournaments since David Feherty

"My background is in computer games. I
developed Pinball Fantasies. Heard of it? It was pretty famous. One day I was playing a computer golf game, which traces the ball's flight, and I thought, 'You know, they never show that on TV — maybe we can find a way to show the actual shot trajectory.' So I developed Protracer. We use a highly sensitive camera that detects light frequencies and that's good at discriminating a golf ball. Then computer-imaging analysis traces the ball's flight. The European Tour
got on board first. We debuted at the Spanish Open in 2007 but had some problems. We set up in a little tent, it was raining, and water was leaking on thousands of dollars of equipment. Our cameras were tracing birds, bugs, and divots — and only occasionally golf balls. [Laughs.] But we got the kinks out.

We got the go-ahead to try it on the PGA Tour this year, and our breakout moment was at the Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines. Tiger
hit a big draw, but it was very windy, and his ball was thrown to the right. (See that Protracer shot, and others, here.) You could really see the trajectory and how the wind affected the ball. Fans and broadcasters loved it. Peter Kostis enjoys analyzing with
it. CBS, ESPN, NBC and the Golf Channel
all now use it. There's just one problem. People have trouble with the name. They tend to confuse it with ShotLink. And a CBS producer called it the Pro-Tractor. Maybe Golfball Fantasies would have been catchier."