National Championship presents challenge for TGC
The 2006 PGA Professional National Championship's new two-course format and expanded 312-player field might seem to create logistical and technical difficulties for The Golf Channel, which will televise the National Championship.
By Roger Graves, PGA Magazine
At first glance, the 2006 PGA Professional National Championship's new two-course format and expanded 312-player field might seem to create a shag bag of logistical and technical difficulties for The Golf Channel, which will televise the National Championship for the ninth successive year June 22-25 from Turning Stone Resort & Casino in Verona, N.Y.
Logistically, charting the birdies and bogeys of 312 PGA Professionals competing at two sprawling golf courses 2.5 miles away from one another through the eyes of 16 television cameras, 50-plus microphones and 80 television monitors, and plugging every human-interest story into a two-and-a-half-hour telecast daily for four days certainly constitutes a challenge.
A challenge, but certainly nothing The Golf Channel hasn't confronted and conquered before.
Keith Hirshland, The Golf Channel's managing director of live tournament coverage, considers the 2006 PGA Professional National Championship a golden opportunity for The Golf Channel to again demonstrate its technical expertise in overcoming a few logistical hurdles to produce another award-winning live golf telecast.
"Working with two golf courses a couple of miles apart and such a large field does present some challenges, but it's nothing we haven't dealt with many times before," reminds Hirshland, a 24-year veteran of the television industry. "We are accustomed to dealing with multiple golf courses and large fields at the PGA Tour Qualifying School, and in late April we televised the BMW Charity Classic on the Nationwide Tour (from North Carolina and South Carolina). That involved three golf courses and more than 300 players, when you count all the Nationwide Tour players and celebrities involved."
With play being conducted during the first two rounds at Turning Stone's Atunyote and Shenendoah Golf Clubs, Hirshland says The Golf Channel will have cameras positioned on key holes at each course, as well as some mobile handheld cameras and on-course reporters so the network can capture whatever is taking place wherever it is taking place. "The cameras send back the signal to the main production truck, and we select the picture we want to show and send it out by satellite," adds Hirshland. "It is a little more involved and a little more complicated to set up everything when you are using two or more golf courses, but once the equipment is in place, it's not as difficult as you might believe. It keeps you on your toes, but we won't miss anything important that happens at either golf course."
Once the 2006 PPNC field is cut to the low 70 and ties after second-round play, The Golf Channel -- and the surviving players -- will focus exclusively on the Atunyote Golf Club for the closing rounds Saturday and Sunday (June 24-25).
"The majority of our camera towers and technical equipment will be concentrated at Atunyote, the home course for the tournament," says Hirshland. "But we'll have sufficient equipment and oncourse announcers ready to bring us live play from the Shenendoah course as the situation merits. Once the field is reduced (to the low 70 and ties) for the weekend, our job becomes quite a bit easier.
"We have an experienced team of professionals who have worked the PGA Professional National Championship in the past several years, plus we have technical people who can engineer a golf telecast from anywhere in the world. It will be a fun week for us."
The Golf Channel, whose crews arrive at least a week before the start of a tournament to begin constructing production facilities around the courses, telecasts more than 120 live tournaments annually and produces 80 of those events itself. TGC reaches nearly 70 million homes in the United States and nearly 90 percent of the world's golfers. Beginning in 2007, The Golf Channel will provide Thursday-Friday coverage of every regular PGA Tour event (the non-majors), and will telecast all four rounds of some tournaments.
Of all the tournaments The Golf Channel televises annually, Hirshland says the PGA Professional National Championship is one of his favorites.
"It has always been a major championship for us, and it always will be," assures Hirshland. "I think The PGA made a great decision in changing the name slightly (from The PGA Club Professional Championship), because it reflects the national championship flavor of the tournament and gives the event more luster. Now, it sounds like the major championship it has always been from our perspective."
The PGA Professional National Championship has become extremely popular with The Golf Channel viewers during the past eight years, and Hirshland believes he knows why.
"The Championship is one of those rare events in the hierarchy of golf television that captures the local interest of golfers from coast to coast, because they want to see how the guy they took a lesson from or bought equipment from is doing in the National Championship," says Hirshland. "It doesn't get the recognition and publicity of the PGA, Champions or LPGA Tour events we telecast, but the PGA Professional National Championship still has a lot of viewers. Everyone wants to know how their local club professional is doing."
For the PGA Professionals themselves, it's often their only chance to be on national television and they appreciate the coverage. Says Hirshland: "We have done the JELD-WEN Tradition, which is a major on the Champions Tour, and we do the McDonald's LPGA Championship. We'll be doing additional major championships next year, but we like to say we've been doing a great major for many years -- the PGA Professional National Championship. It has become one of our favorite events to telecast."
While Hirshland coordinates coverage of the 39th PGA Professional National Championship from Turning Stone Resort in Central New York, former touring professional Jerry Foltz and current PGA Professional Michael Breed of Sunningdale Country Club in Scarsdale, N.Y., will serve as on-course announcers.
"We always have some great stories materialize and get to meet some exceptional players at the PGA Professional National Championship," says Foltz, a two-time winner on the Nike Tour during his playing days. "Almost every year, a couple of PGA Professionals play well in the National Championship and go on to play well in the PGA Championship or Tour event later in the year.
"From the perspective of a former player, I can see them gain confidence under pressure by playing in the National Championship. Then you might seem them down the road play well in the PGA Championship or even a future U.S. Open. It's fun to watch."
The Golf Channel telecasts of the 2006 PGA Professional National Championship from Turning Stone are scheduled for 4-6 p.m. EDT daily June 22-25, with additional highlights ticketed for the network's "Scorecard Report" from 7 p.m.- 7:30 p.m. nightly.