GolfSixes, Oitavos Dunes, Cascais, Portugal, June 2019
Possibly one of our favourite trips of recent years. The location, weather and people were great. We’re the first to admit that our knowledge of golf is nil. For those like us, GolfSixes is like the usual game of golf but with a more relaxed and zippier format, a dress-down policy for the players and DJs and entertainment for the spectators. Six rounds of six-hole matches, the top two teams of each group then went onto the next day and points were awarded for wins or draws. With teams being knocked out until the finals. A more relaxed format but no less competitive as the winners get the €200,000 prize.
The project was to measure players heart rate as they teed up and display this on the TV where the presenter, Vernon Kay, could comment on it! For practical reasons we opted for wrist-worn heart rate monitors since there is a lot of twisting of the torso so wrist-worn would be the least distracting.
Since this was a one-off proof of concept, we didn’t have complete sets of duplicate kit at every hole. This meant the only way of collecting physiological data as the players moved from hole to hole was to de-rig, drive a golf buggy furiously from each tee to the next. Add in the crowds of spectators proceeding down the fairway and some deft driving was required!