We were privileged to work with the R&A Golf Club of St Andrews. We have completed a project that will allow the Royal & Ancient Clubhouse to effectively throw open its doors to golfers around the world. The 360 tours will give viewers a behind-the-scenes tour of the clubhouse.
The R&A Golf Clubhouse
The R&A Clubhouse is next to the first tee of the Old Course at St Andrews. St Andrews is world-famous; considered to be the oldest golf course in the world and known widely as ‘The Cathedral of Golf’ and ‘The Home of Golf’. The Royal & Ancient Golf Club club boasts over 2,000 members (who are members by invitation only) worldwide. Many of the millions of golf fans will never get an opportunity to visit this iconic clubhouse. The 360 tours allow these fans to take a detailed, 360 degree tour around the home of golf. They can look at the trophies and artwork as well as at the sumptuous clubhouse itself.
Showcasing artefacts
The R&A is home to an incredible collection of paintings, maps, trophies and medals, and of course, clubs and balls.
One of the most prized paintings in the collection is Medal Day at St Andrews 1894. The painting depicts future Prime Minister, Arthur Balfour, driving in as Captain of The Royal and Ancient Golf Club in 1894. It’s a huge piece, measuring 1.5 by nearly 3 metres, and shows 191 golfers in front of the R&A clubhouse. The public will be able to click on the painting and zoom in to inspect the hi-res image. In this way, the 360s will allow people unprecedented access to the collection in detail, wherever they are in the world.
Content Management System (CMS)
The 360s utilise a Content Management System (CMS). This enables the client to add, edit and remove content (such as info points) themselves. This is an excellent solution for clients who may have a great deal of content highlighted within the 360 tours that they may wish to change. As new trophies (for example) are added to the collection, the client can add an info point with large image and accompanying text. If artworks move, they can change the info points accordingly. They can do this simply in-house, without incurring further costs.
Content Delivery Network (CDN)
It’s vital that any site with an international audience can deliver content swiftly and smoothly in each country. For the R&A Golf Clubhouse, the virtual tours are distributed via a Content Delivery Network (CDN) around the world. This means that the tours are delivererd locally to the end user. Thus, loading times are improved, bandwidth costs reduced and vitally, traffic spikes will not interrupt service.
Seeing the R&A 360s
The R&A Golf 360s will be launching soon, we will post the link here when it’s available.