Overview
The R&A is the organizer of The Open Championship and the governing body for golf outside the U.S. and Mexico. Its mission: deliver flawless coverage and engaging fan experiences for one of the world’s most-watched sporting events. Each tournament generates billions of data points across shot tracking, scoring systems, fan engagement, and media feeds — requiring observability at massive, unpredictable scale.
Challenge
Every shot, player movement, and environmental change produced millions of new rows of data within minutes. Traditional batch-oriented systems couldn’t scale fast enough to update scoreboards, leaderboards, and sponsor feeds. Any latency, downtime, or data gaps risked disrupting coverage, diminishing fan engagement, and eroding operational confidence.
As Senior Data Engineer Patrick Green explained:
“We had to rethink our data warehouse architecture to ensure every shot, every stat, and every leaderboard update reached fans and broadcasters instantly.”
The R&A set out to:
- Streamline data for fans, broadcasters, and media partners in real time
- Maintain 100% uptime during global tournaments
- Seamlessly scale infrastructure for massive audience and data spikes
Solution
The R&A adopted a modern real-time analytics platform powered by Apache Druid, purpose-built for extreme scale. During The Open Championship, the system ingested 250M new rows every 15 minutes and powered dashboards that enabled broadcasters, officials, and digital teams to:
- Monitor play and environmental conditions in real time
- Respond instantly to in-game events
- Deliver seamless coverage to millions of fans worldwide
“Druid provided the perfect balance of scalability and performance for the Open Championship’s real-time analytics needs.”
— Patrick Green, Senior Data Engineer | The R&A
Results
- Scale — Processed 25B+ rows without performance degradation
- Speed — Subsecond queries ensured real-time dashboards
- Reliability — 100% uptime throughout global broadcast
- Fan experience — Interactive, up-to-the-second insights for millions
- Future-ready — Foundation for extending real-time analytics across more tournaments and digital products
Why it Matters
Real-time observability transformed The Open into a data-driven sporting event: fans enjoyed interactive experiences, broadcasters delivered flawless live coverage, officials made faster decisions, and sponsors gained confidence in global data feeds.
The R&A powers its tournaments with real-time observability built on Apache Druid. That same Druid query engine powers Imply Lumi, the industry’s first Observability Warehouse — delivering the real-time performance, scalability, and cost efficiency you need for your own events and digital experiences.