For a sporting event known for its tradition, the Masters are certainly on the cutting edge – at least when it comes to the tournament’s iPhone app.
Updated in mid-March, he Masters Golf Tournament is returning for the second straight year with all the bells and whistles sports fans have come to expect from a top-flight sports iPhone app. Whether you’re looking for live scoring or multimedia coverage of the event, you will find it here.
Before I come off as too positive, the free iPhone app isn’t without its faults. While it includes video coverage of the event, it’s somewhat limited; Amen Corner (holes 11, 12 and 13) and holes 15 and 16 are the only holes you’ll get video of.
Of course there are other video features included, such as featured group coverage, highlights and Masters Extra, a one hour pre-telecast bonus show. There’s also radio coverage of the tournaments, beginning at 2 p.m. EST each day of the Masters.
The iPhone app advertises a new leaderboard view, but unfortunately we’ll have to wait until the first day of the event to see exactly what that entails. For now, it’s just a buggy page that brings up random player bios when you touch the screen.
As far as complaints go, that’s really the only thing I can come up with. Among the other updates in this year’s version of the iPhone app include a news section, photo section and the new leaderboard.
The iPhone app also has a fantastic course section that has information and the layout of all 18 holes, as well as flyover videos for each hole. There have been complaints about this feature, but it worked perfectly fine for me and is a very cool addition to the app.
The best part, though, is probably the price – free. Call me silly, but I’m something of a sucker for well-designed, free iPhone apps that include multi-media content.
The fact that you’ll have to go somewhere else to get complete video coverage is somewhat of a bummer, but it’s likely you’ll get over that quickly. The 2009 version of The Masters Golf Tournament was a nice app that seemed to missing features that would make it an elite sports iPhone app. That’s not a problem with this version, and golf fans won’t regret downloading it.
