MICROCHIP technology is promising to revolutionise the game of golf and put Watford on the map as the home of the latest sporting development.

By creating a computerised golf ball Middlesex-based company World Golf Systems has promised to transform one of Britain's most traditional games and modernise it.

The new technology will be launched at the £3 million TopGolf Game Centre, the first of its kind in the world, on the site of the former Jack Nicklaus golf driving range in Bushey Mill Lane, Watford, in October.

TopGolf or Targeted Oriented Play (TOP), as it has been dubbed by its inventors, allows the specially designed golf balls to be digitally programmed to identify their owners and to store information about their individual game and performance.

This technology works in conjunction with the centre's new driving range, which covers a ten acre site and includes 11 target greens, which themselves contain sensors and record the distance and accuracy of a player's shots.

This information is then relayed back to computer screens within individual driving range bays for players and their opponents.

Top Golf's managing director Mr Peter Allport said: 'We believe that TopGolf will broaden the appeal of golf and the way it is viewed in the UK and make it accessible to a wider range of people.

'It offers a way to play and practise golf in a contemporary leisure environment that appeals to serious golfers, first-timers and of course families.'