PGA Tour hires London firm to monitor betting activity

Betting by players on PGA Tour events is already prohibited but the new Integrity Program will extend to virtually anyone related to tournaments, including players and their support teams, all tournament staff and volunteers.

As part of the policy, the PGA Tour partnered with London-based Genius Sports, a leader in sports integrity services who will track real-time betting activity and identify potentially suspicious patterns occurring in global betting markets.

"The bedrock of PGA Tour competition are the inherent values of golf and the honesty and integrity of our members," PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan said in a statement.

"We recognise, however, that no sport is fully immune from the potential influence of gambling. So, we felt it was important to move forward with an Integrity Program to further protect our competition from betting-related issues."

The Integrity Program will cover all facets of competition and operations on the six Tours overseen by the PGA Tour.

The PGA Tour also said it worked with Genius Sports to develop an educational program that will help players, caddies and officials identify, resist and report incidents of potential betting corruption. (Reporting by Frank Pingue in Toronto, editing by Pritha Sarkar)