Twin Warriors on TV

The Golf Channel will deliver CPC drama to the golf world

By Roger Graves, PGA Magazine

Talk about challenges. Imagine the logistics of trying to televise a golf tournament from a course spread over 400 acres of rugged, high-desert terrain on which no two holes run parallel to each other and several mountain buttes make line-of-sight transmissions difficult. Keep in mind that you want full 18-hole camera coverage. No blind spots. No disruptions in audio or video transmissions.

That is the task facing The Golf Channel, which will provide live 72-hole coverage of The 36th PGA Club Professional Championship June 19--22 from the scenic and expansive Twin Warriors Golf Club. To provide comprehensive first tee-to-18th green coverage throughout tournament week, The Golf Channel will utilize 100 members of its live-tournament production team, 24 television cameras, 50-plus microphones, 80 television monitors and will roll into New Mexico a week before the telecast with two 53-foot tractor-trailers with enough production equipment to create its own little city.

To facilitate coverage from every possible angle on the rolling terrain of Twin Warriors, The Golf Channel will employ the latest technology, including six handheld wireless Radio Frequency cameras and a network of fiberoptic cable to complement, and in some areas replace, the traditional 135,000 feet of audio and video cable.

"Twin Warriors does create a unique technical challenge, but our production people have taken all the steps necessary to provide a picture from every angle imaginable on and around the golf course," says Keith Hirshland, senior producer of live tournament coverage for The Golf Channel, who compares this challenge to televising the first Skins Game from the rugged desert terrain of Bighorn in Palm Desert, Calif.

"Twin Warriors is going to present an extremely dramatic picture on television. I grew up in the West (Reno, Nev.), and I love the look of golf courses where you can incorporate the natural terrain into the telecast," says Hirshland. "We're thankful for those pioneers who came before us who established the technology to allow us to transmit a picture as the crow flies, rather than trying to lay cable over 400 acres of tough terrain like this. We will use a couple of 200-foot cranes that will give us line of sight between a camera person and a receiving tower, and we will utilize up to six wireless RF cameras to cover some of the remote areas of the golf course.

"Ten years ago, it would have been very difficult to attempt to provide 18-hole coverage on a golf course like Twin Warriors. But today's technology will help us produce a tremendous telecast. There is almost nothing we can't do today, and Twin Warriors will give us a great backdrop for the drama everyone will see unfolding on the golf course."

The Golf Channel, which plans 12 hours of live coverage in 2003, treats The PGA Club Professional Championship like the "major" national championship it has become during the past decade. It positions microphones on every tee, around every green and adjacent to every major landing area. It also mikes select players, so the viewing audience can hear the decision-making process between player and caddie, or eavesdrop on strategy. A special heart-rate monitor is also installed on some players to show the 57 million Golf Channel subscribers what it's like to face a pressure-packed 15-footer for birdie.

"From the first year we televised The CPC, The Golf Channel has felt it is one of the most important events we do every year," says Hirshland, a 24-year veteran of the television industry. "To the players in The CPC, it's a major championship. And to The Golf Channel, it has always been a major championship. The PGA of America makes sure that the atmosphere is that of a major national championship, and we have always treated it the same way. The people we deal with at The PGA of America have always paid as much attention to The CPC as they have the PGA Championship, and we treat it with the same respect.

"For us, it's a fun championship to cover because we get to introduce some of these PGA Professionals to the country via The Golf Channel. Then, you will see many of them at the PGA Championship the following August. It's a grassroots national championship. The PGA Professionals are the real ambassadors of the game and a guy might tune in to the telecast and say, 'hey, I took a lesson from him a couple of weeks ago.' The CPC shows the game in its best possible light."

In the week leading up to The CPC at Twin Warriors, Hirshland and his staff will plan a variety of features to intersperse during tournament coverage, such as player profiles, hole profiles, interviews on strategy, and a historic look at The CPC and Twin Warriors Golf Club. The telecast will conclude on Sunday, June 22, with the presentation of the crystal Walter Hagen Cup to the 2003 Champion. By then, all of America will be familiar with The 2003 CPC winner and the breathtaking golfscape that is Twin Warriors, compliments of The Golf Channel.