Since 2002 a major drinks’ manufacturer has used a putting game to promote their products at duty free shops at airports. The equipment is moved to a different venue every couple of weeks. The system consists of a large LCD monitor, a DVD player, originally designed control electronics and a putting surface with golf ball and club. 

The monitor depicts one of nine famous greens from around the world. Customers line up their shot with the hole, taking into consideration the slope and the wind. When the ball hits the end of the playing surface it breaks one or more infrared beams in an array of 128 and from its position the control electronics determines whether the ball would have gone in the hole or by how far it would have missed. The video clip on the LCD monitor then shows the appropriate ball movement towards the hole.

Players have shots on three different greens and receive a promotional prize, depending upon their results. An operator controls the game from a hand-held remote. The Control Electronics interfaces to the ball position detector, the DVD player, the remote control and the score indicator.

Twydell Design were invited to put forward proposals for a golf putting game to promote a major brand of whisky in airport duty free shops. John Twydell comments : ‘’As soon as we saw the brief for this project we knew that Paul Oliver would be the man to handle the electronics.

It was quickly decided that the position where the ball would hit a backstop could be sensed by borrowing technology used in infrared touchscreen systems on which we had previously worked together. Paul cleverly interfaced this with a DVD player so that appropriate tracks could be played according to the direction in which the ball had been hit.

He also provided the scoring system and supplied the entire electronics package on budget and, crucially, on time. Despite being moved from airport to airport, the equipment worked perfectly for several years, requiring only occasional cleaning of the IR sensors.’’

The images of the ball moving on the famous green are computer generated by Pilot Studios.
Link: Pilot Studios