RabbitCards, a Golf App From Tour Pro Bo Van Pelt, Dishes Out Prizes While Focusing on Par 3s
Shortly after Bo Van Pelt returned to the PGA Tour in 2019 after a three-year absence with a shoulder injury, he noticed special cameras installed at a par 3 at the Shriners Children’s Open in Las Vegas. The cameras reminded him of childhood trips to the Memorial in Dublin, Ohio, where he and friends would sit by the green next to the 180-yard par-3 12th hole at Muirfield Village and pick players by their shirt color or hat for closest to the pin for bragging rights.
Around the time of Van Pelt’s return to competitive golf, DraftKings had become the PGA Tour’s first official betting partner and gambling—powered by mobile devices and gaming apps— was becoming widespread across professional golf. He wanted to build a game that let golf fans have that same experience through the season that he’d had as a kid at the Memorial.
With the help of FreeForm, a digital marketing company and app developer, and a partnership with the PGA Tour to use Shotlink Data, the 48-year-old Richmond, Indiana, native recently launched RabbitCards, the first free-to-play golf game with Tour data that allows participants to predict the accuracy of their favorite players on par 3s and compete for prizes in the closest-to-the-pin contests. The app includes a feature that allows participants to compare the stats of each PGA Tour player, in real time.
“People are already doing this with their friends at the par 3 16th hole at the Waste Management Phoenix Open and so many other places that have a fun environment at PGA Tour events,” Van Pelt says. “Why not give them an opportunity to do it every week?”
Van Pelt, who is in the field this week at the Barbasol Championship, joins a growing list of PGA Tour players and other professional athletes investing and starting technology-focused ventures in sports. In golf, Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy are the lead investors in a star-studded lineup of athletes behind TMWR Sports, which will include an arena-centered golf skills competition that will operate in conjunction with the PGA Tour.
As a current PGA Tour player, Van Pelt is drawing both from experience on tour and as an observer of the habits of fans who are engaged more than ever with their favorite players and golf courses through the power of technology. The boundaries that once divided the athletes from the spectators and the athletes from the engineers and venture capitalists are closing with lightning speed as the athletes strive to reach fans directly in the new digital economy.
“We think people will get excited about RabbitCards once they try it,” Van Pelt says. “I want people to enjoy the game with their friends as much as I did with my friends and playing many of these par 3s on the PGA Tour.”