Masters Golf Tournament gets 3-D TV treatment

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Masters Golf Tournament is going 3-D for the first time next month through a partnership with Comcast Corp, the largest U.S. cable television provider.

Comcast and the Augusta National Golf Club said on Monday that two hours of live 3-D footage of the Masters would be available to Comcast viewers with 3-D capable TV sets and personal computers.

It will be shown free to Comcast subscribers on a dedicated 3-D channel from April 7-11, and on the Internet at www.masters.com.

Comcast said it was the "first live next generation 3-D broadcast of a major sporting event" on television.

Masters Tournament chairman Billy Payne said in a release that the 3-D coverage would focus primarily on the second nine holes of the Augusta course.

The move reflects a growing drive to adopt the 3-D format for the small screen, spurred at movie theaters through the success of films like "Avatar" and "Alice in Wonderland", and in consumer electronics with the arrival of 3-D enabled TV sets from manufacturers like Sony, Panasonic and Samsung.

Cable channel Discovery Communications said in January that it plans to launch a dedicated 3-D network with Imax Corp and Sony in the United States in 2011.

Walt Disney Co's ESPN sports network plans to start a 3-D channel in June, beginning with the World Cup soccer match between hosts South Africa and Mexico in Johannesburg.

Derek Harrar, Comcast's senior vice president of video, said the company had been testing transmissions from Augusta for the past few weeks.

"The challenges to the players represented by the varied contours of the course come alive, and I particularly liked one shot where the sand flew from the bunker," Harrar wrote in a blog.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)