AI golf commentator debuts at New Mexico Open, drawing mixed reactions

As AI continues to expand its reach into sports, a new kind of broadcaster has arrived: an AI commentator capable of interacting with human analysts in real time.

Viewer reactions have been starkly divided. While some said "everyone will surely love this," others warned the experiment would become "a target of mockery and backlash."

According to Sports Video Group, a US trade publication covering sports broadcasting technology, an AI commentator named Duff Forman will appear in Tuesday's broadcast of the New Mexico Open golf tournament.

Duff Forman is an autonomous AI character developed by digital media production company Gopher Hall Productions. It analyzes player strategy — including club selection and shot direction — as well as swing mechanics. Unlike earlier technologies, Duff operates without a script and communicates with human commentators in real time.

The system combines Gopher Hall Productions' AI platform with voice technology from ElevenLabs and Nvidia's Audio2Face. ElevenLabs renders a Scottish-accented voice, while the character's facial expressions and lip movements sync accordingly. A separate inference system developed by Gopher Hall Productions determines what Duff actually says.

Gopher Hall Productions said golf involves many interesting decisions and judgments that are not readily apparent to viewers, and that Duff is designed to help audiences better understand the strategy behind the game. Former professional golfer Notah Begay III, who will co-commentate the broadcast, added that Duff "will be able to analyze strategy and swing, monitor weather and course conditions, and answer questions in real time."

This is not the first time AI has been used in sports. The technology has primarily been applied to officiating and play-reading. A prominent example is Hawk-Eye Live in tennis: last year, Wimbledon fully adopted an electronic line-calling system that uses high-speed cameras installed around the courts to track the ball's movement and trajectory and automatically determine whether shots are in or out.

Soccer has its own semi-automated offside detection technology, in which numerous cameras positioned around the stadium track players' positions in real time and automatically flag offside violations.

Companies are also moving into AI-driven sports applications. IBM used generative AI at the 2023 Masters Tournament to automatically generate audio commentary for more than 20,000 match video clips.

In South Korea, KT Wiz used an AI voice to replicate the sound of its in-stadium announcer, training the system on the real announcer's vocal tone and intonation to deliver player introductions and in-game announcements. The AI voice filled in during the announcer's maternity leave.

Fan reactions to the introduction of AI commentary remain divided. A comment reading "Everyone will surely love this" drew a large number of likes online.

On Reddit, however, users called it "the most absurd idea ever" and questioned why companies pursue such projects. Fox News also noted a stream of negative responses predicting that exchanges between Duff and human commentators would become "a target of mockery and backlash" rather than a source of entertainment.