SHINNECOCK HILLS, N.Y. - The U.S. Golf Association is using artificial intelligence in new ways at this year’s U.S. Open, adding digital tools designed to help spectators follow the action and give golfers faster access to rules guidance.
The governing body has introduced a chatbot-style service called Rules AI, which it says is meant to answer golf rules questions quickly and in language players can understand. The USGA says the tool draws on decades of expertise and is intended to complement, not replace, human officials.
Craig Winter, the USGA’s senior director for the rules of golf, said the goal is to make the game easier to navigate without losing sight of its traditions. He said the organization wants golfers to get answers that are as good as or better than what they would receive from its staff experts.
Golf’s rulebook can be complicated even for experienced players. The sport has 24 core rules covering everything from equipment standards to penalties in unusual situations, and edge cases can be difficult to interpret. The USGA cited examples such as what happens when a ball ends up on an unplayable road or is deflected by an animal.
Rules AI first appeared in a pilot phase in late May through one of the USGA’s mobile apps, where selected golfers could ask practical questions and receive written responses in moments. The system was trained using more than 25,000 real questions gathered from the USGA’s long-running phone and email help services.
Anthony Santora, the USGA’s managing director for IT, said the dataset is the key to the system’s usefulness. He said the organization did not rely on open internet sources and instead built the tool around how its own officials have handled prior rulings. The system also includes guardrails meant to keep it focused on golf-related questions and prevent inappropriate or sensitive outputs.
At the tournament, the USGA set up interactive 7-foot screens in a pavilion near the third hole so fans could try the system themselves. The display featured an AI-generated rules official and was staffed by employees from Deloitte, which helped build the platform. Visitors could type in scenarios about course conditions, equipment limits or other rule questions and see a response with references to the official rulebook.
Some spectators said the idea could be useful, especially in situations where a player needs quick clarification during a round. Others said they had not yet heard about the tool. The USGA’s landing page also warns that Rules AI is not a substitute for a human ruling and that generative AI can make mistakes.
Rules AI is only one part of the USGA’s larger push to use automation and AI across its events. The organization already uses technology to track shot trajectories, publish highlights quickly and generate text descriptions of players’ movements during competition.
That data also feeds fan-facing products. Last year, the USGA launched ShotCast, which provides shot-by-shot graphics and AI-generated summaries through its website and app. It later added RangeCast at the U.S. Women’s Open, giving viewers a closer look at warmup shots on the driving range with ball-flight data.
This year’s U.S. Open coverage also includes broader AI-generated round summaries that update as the leaderboard changes, giving fans a way to compare one player’s performance against the field in real time.
Dave Giancola, the USGA’s senior director of global media, said golf produces an enormous amount of data, with 156 players hitting tens of thousands of shots across 72 holes. He said AI gives the organization more flexibility to combine those stats with television footage from drones, towers and cranes, then package the information in a way that is easier for fans to follow.
The USGA says it hopes to roll out Rules AI nationally by spring 2027. For now, the tool is part of a broader effort to make golf more accessible to new audiences while preserving the sport’s rule-driven identity.
Not everyone at the tournament was enthusiastic about the added technology. Some fans said they came to the course for a break from screens and digital noise. Still, USGA officials say they see room for more innovation, including future tools that could make it easier to track shots against the sky or view the tournament in more interactive ways.