More cameras than ever and new commentary philosophy promise fun, exciting coverage
The NBC Sports golf-production team is nailing down technical operations for the 45th Ryder Cup, which will be played this week at the Bethpage Black Course in Farmingdale, NY. For NBC Sports Lead Golf Producer Tommy Roy, the event format, in which the U.S. and Europe square off for three days of scoring points in match play, provides an emotional boost: unlike a regular four-day tournament, the end of each session packs a punch like the final hole of a major.
“We’re on the air for 28 hours over the course of the three days,” he notes. “I never lose my energy because, at the end of every session, there’s a grand conclusion to all these matches. It’s a different pace, and Sunday will be absolutely rocking and rolling, with those 12 matches.”
Roy and the production team will call NEP PGA TOUR PCR and PGA TOUR REC/FLEX home for the core production, with Supershooter 10 and Supershooter 54 also involved. All told, NBC Sports will produce more than 100 hours of live tournament and studio coverage from onsite, with tournament coverage teeing off on USA Network at 7:00 a.m. ET on Friday, Sept. 26; Saturday and Sunday coverage will be live on NBC and Peacock. Golf Central Live From the Ryder Cup is already onsite with daily coverage and will feature post-round coverage at the conclusion of each round.
NBC Sports Lead Golf Producer Tommy Roy expects a very lively atmosphere for the Ryder Cup this weekend.
“We’ve been looking forward to this one,” Roy adds. “We’ve televised two U.S. Opens [from Bethpage Black] so we know the course well, and we’ve experienced the energy of the Long Island crowd and what they bring to a golf event. I’m expecting this to be an epic three days.”
A Ryder Cup and all match-play events require a different approach from a traditional tournament. Most notably, a match’s winning moment very often does not take place on the 18th hole because it is not a stroke-play event. More important, there are not dozens of golfers on the course all playing simultaneously on 18 holes. Deploying camera and audio resources, therefore, usually requires maximum flexibility to be able to go to where the action is.
“We’ll have more cameras on this Ryder Cup than we’ve ever had on a Cup before, including three drones and a plane,” he explains. “There are also bunker cams on the course, and we have a Scorpion Crane between Holes 1 and 18, and 16 and 17. There will also be tracing on every tee box, and one of the drones is the tracing drone, which I think is going to be effective.”
One big change this year? Encouraging the on-air team to leave aside impartiality and root for the home team. With both Americans and Europeans on NBC’s team, the commentary will most likely be spirited. Lead play-by-play announcer Dan Hicks will host the afternoon sessions on Friday and Saturday and the Sunday singles; alongside, representing the American team will be Brad Faxon, and representing the European team will be Paul McGinley. In the mornings, Terry Gannon will host with Notah Begay for the Americans and Nick Faldo for the Europeans.
“We think this will ramp up the entertainment factor and get added insights into what’s going on with two teams,” says Roy. “But, if you’ve worked the Olympics like we’ve had the good fortune to do and you’re in the International Broadcast Center, you can dial up the feeds from the different countries’ broadcasts, and they are almost all very partisan. I used to scoff at that style because I was so brainwashed into impartiality, but, you know what, it’s actually a pretty fun listen. Executive Producer Sam Flood said let’s give it a shot at Bethpage. This is not going to be the new norm at NBC Sports, but, at Bethpage, this is what we’re doing.”
As for how directing match play differs from a traditional stroke-play event, Roy says the team can’t just bounce around the course and throw shots in the order they take place to document what’s going on with the leaderboard.
“This is player against player,” he explains. “We’ll show the best European shot, the best American shot from a particular match, or, if it’s singles, we’ll go the two shots that the American and the European player hit from that particular match before we go off to the next match.
“You also need to give out more information,” he continues. “Typically, in a stroke-play event, I’ll say in the headset, ‘Over to 14, [Scottie] Scheffler for birdie.’ This time, I have to say, ‘Over to 14, Scheffler for birdie, where Harris [English] has already missed his birdie attempt and the two Europeans have lengthy pars.’ So a lot of extra information has to get out there.”
