Golf: Digital Scorecard signing from Samsung, Golf GameBook

Golf has officially gone high-tech.

Technology giant Samsung, has teamed up with the Finland-based Golf GameBook to develop a new practice on the putting green — digital golf scorecard signing. Utilizing the S-Pen technology on Samsung’s Galaxy Note II, electronic scorecards can now be signed in the same way one would sign a paper scorecard, making it officially golf-rule compatible.

“This innovative new feature makes the Golf GameBook‘s Android app even more appealing for golfers of all levels! We are very pleased about our co-operation with Samsung, and grateful as well. It has been a wonderful experience participating in the development of the new electronic scorecard. In addition, I am very proud about our S Suggest qualification. It shows that Samsung values our international potential,” says Kalle Väinölä, co-founder of GameBook.

The Samsung / Golf GameBook scorecard partnership has well established roots in the digital golf space; last summer, the two companies partnered to create digital, real-time scoring for multiple golf events in Nordic countries. As with the scorecard signing, golfers utilized Samsung phones and Golf GameBook applications to keep track of their scoring. The partnership even managed to generate interest among some golfing legends,

“Our fruitful collaboration with Samsung is one of the major steps on our journey towards an international breakthrough. Recently we have had the honor of providing real-time scoring for great golf legends such as Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, as well as the British Open champion Stewart Cink‘s own golf tournaments. The feedback from all of these has been very positive. We can now comfortably say that the traditional golf sphere is about to change and will soon be benefitting from the digital development,” Väinölä continues.

With Samsung being a major player in the in the smartphone space (they seemingly split the smartphone market share majority with Apple, depending on the latest product release) and with sports continually pushing the digital boundary, the partnership has the potential to be very lucrative.

The United States golf market is estimated to bring in more than $70 billion dollars annually, with nearly 27 million golfers participating in 470 million rounds of golf a year. It may have given a large group of people one more reason to pick Samsung over Apple’s iPhone 5 counterpart.

(via Golf GameBook press release)