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Chairmen of the bored

From social networking to playing online Scrabble, staff have always used the Internet as a gateway for whiling away the hours when they are supposed to be working. And while bosses may have hitherto railed against such time-wasting, they could be about to join the ranks of the cyber-slackers. The latest online time-killer is targeted squarely at that well-known executive weak spot – golfing.

Although hundreds of online golf games already exist, World Golf Tour (WGT) is much more refined: think life-like recreation of PGA-class courses, not avoiding the cartoon windmill blades. Such is the attention to detail in the game that serious golfers are already hooked.

It has even prompted a team from Harvard to challenge counterparts at Yale. The team behind it have taken high-resolution photographs of some of the world’s finest golf courses, including aerial shots taken by radio-controlled drones. These are then digitised in a six-month process to recreate the course in a virtual environment.

The site is still undergoing beta testing, but players can participate in a nine-hole ‘nearest-to-the-pin’ competition, and already players are clocking up the hours trying to perfect their swings. As one player notes on the WGT blog: “I am seriously hooked on this game. Right now I am playing 20 to 30 times per day.”

With a playable version of the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, South Carolina, going live this summer, expect executives to spend more time huddled in front of their PCs.