The Masters once again leverages the power of the open web to immerse you in golf coverage

This morning, The Masters officially began and just like last year, masters.com is one of the coolest, most fan-centric sites I’ve ever used to watch a sporting event. The features are robust, the execution is flawless, and with this PWA/website – no app necessary – fans of golf can watch every single shot from their favorite players and not miss a moment. It really is a blast to have on throughout the day.

Big features delivered on the web

This service (calling it a website feels like a massive under-sell) comes with so many features that you need a few minutes of messing around with it to really gather yourself and begin using it the way that works best for you. Want to follow a single player through their entire round? You can do that. Want to customize a group of players to watch throughout the day? You can build your favorites via starring certain players in the player list that is up top across the entire site.

Once you’ve built your favorites, you can watch a feed of only their shots and even turn on the shot tracer for a 3D digital view of ball flight that can be seen right next to the live video. You can also choose to include great shots and moments that happen apart from your favorite list, too, so when crazy things happen around the course, you won’t miss those things either.

For me, this means I get to watch Tiger Woods play every hole of this tournament where he’s delivered unforgettable performances in the past. Golf tournaments are long, long affairs and there’s simply no way to deliver all this content for every player on more-standard television services. On the web, however, it all comes together and having this sort of control over such an important sporting event just feels awesome.

The open web is powerful

Even if you aren’t a fan of golf, I’m guessing that if you are on our site, you are a fan of web-based tech. And I’ve not seen too many examples of the open web being leveraged like what we see in The Masters website. And that is why we highlight this tool when it comes into play each year and why it’s even worth checking out for those of you who aren’t really into golf at all.

Most days, we find ourselves trumpeting the fact that Chromebooks are far more than “just a browser,” but with web-based experiences like what we see on masters.com, I feel like we keep moving to a future where that argument matters less and less. As the web continues becoming a better and better platform for more powerful tools, Chromebooks are clearly made with those tools in mind and are primed to take full advantage of them. The Masters is a beautiful example of this, and it’s worth checking out if you haven’t yet.