The Ryder Cup is golf’s ultimate showdown, where Team USA and Team Europe go head-to-head in a rowdy, pressure-packed battle that feels more like a sporting brawl than a quiet round of golf. It’s played every two years, with intense match-play formats, roaring crowds, and national pride on the line. Over the years I worked on the digital products for several Ryder Cup tournaments, first as Lead Designer, then as Director. Each year brought new innovation, platforms, and paradigms, culminating in the 2016 Ryder Cup at Hazeltine.
Ryder Cup scoring is notoriously confusing. Our goal was to design a responsive scoring experience that made the match-play format clear, dynamic, and easy to follow—even for the casual fan.
This view provides an at-a-glance overview of all Ryder Cup matches taking place. A blue circle or red circle denote which team has won each hole, and grey is a tie.
The new scoring paradigm allowed users to quickly scan the overall score, then view a breakdown by match, followed by a deeper dive into each player's performance on every hole.
Every tournament year we would build an American site, as well as a European site, each with its own color palette, editorial, video rights, and spellings.
The points race leading up to the tournament was almost as exciting as the play itself. Fans loved all the various data viz we provided in the months and weeks before the player selections were made.
We carefully crafted the site with a mix of live video, VOD, articles, and an up-to-the-minute social feed that brought the hype.
The site was full of color and excitement to match the tone of the actual tournament.
Partnering with Google, we were able to create a 360 degree view of the entire Hazeltine golf course, using "street view" technology. Each hole was complete with stats, video, and info about the green.
Months before the tournament, our team took turns turns carrying the wearable backpack throughout the entire course, capturing photos to create a 360-degree panoramic view. (Me with the Trekker!)
We carried the technology over to our mobile apps as well.
This is the European version of the app, with blue color scheme. On the right is a comparison feature; fans could choose two players from opposing teams and see how their stats matched up.
Ryder Cup's 2016 digital products also offered fans a Connected TV experience through Samsung TVs. Users could watch live video and VOD, and follow scoring, news and photos in real time.