Special Access to The Players Championship

What is it like working behind the scenes at a PGA Tour event? Last year, I got the chance to cover The Players Championship for National Club Golfer to understand what happens behind the scenes of a golf event.

In this video, I show you behind the scenes in the PGA Tour Media facilities, what happens in player press conferences, what the atmosphere is like at TPC Sawgrass, as well as exclusive interviews with staff and people on the ground.

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Hi, I’m Hannah Holden; welcome to my channel!

I am a +2 golfer from Leeds

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What’s it like working behind the scenes at a PJ Tour event we’re here at the Players to find out in 2023 I got the chance to cover the players championship for National Club golfer in this video I’m going to show you what it’s like behind the

Scenes working in the media at such a big golf tournament I’m also going to show you the amazing atmosphere at the tournament especially around 17 so make sure to stick around for all things behind the scenes including interviews press conferences and just really exciting overall Atmosphere Okay so we’ve just arrived on site let’s head inside and show you all the media set up and where we’re going to be based for the week how insane is this they have speaker phones in the plant like flower beds they they made to look like rocks so you can’t tell this Let’s go we have our own secret entrance with the caddies which feels pretty cool the the caddies should have a more important entrance than us right let’s go check out the media center it’s pretty cool most events it’s like a 10 or like an area they put up 10

For the tournament but this is like a full building because like the PJ to headquarters are here so they have more stuff set up so let’s go look so that is the main Clubhouse for SASS and we are literally just here morning this is where all the work

Happens behind the scenes also all the players will come in here for like pre poost round interviews and before like the week starts so basically every journalist who’s covering the tournament is based in here right first part of call is obviously to get breakfast and apparently the French

Toast is really good so we need to try that today okay I’ve gone for a really random mix of hash browns and sausages cuz I don’t like EGS and then a fruit salad and I might go back for some pancakes yeah right let’s go see what’s happening

Out on the golf course it’s Wednesday so practice day two see what people are practicing and just what’s going on what the vibe is that is a filthy club to for a little chip shop pretty cool training a usage here that is called the perfect P people

Basically use it to roll balls down it and check that that the line is perfect before they set drills it’s also really good if you want to use it for like green reading these has a laser in it as well so it can point check where it’s in and and then

Roll the balls down so it shows you even though he has that lined up perfect to the hole like not every balls going in the practice facilities are literally ridiculous here so this is the for the end of the practice ground which is always here literally just designated the tall place look how

Pure it Is right it’s Wednesday lunch time let’s go check out The Vibes at 17 I think nearly every person on the side is around there is a caddy competition going on stairs to see which CAD can get the closest to pin 4 7 in it’s a good effort oh it’s [Applause] rcky Some serious moov on That now if you want to get up close and personal and see lots of the GOL the best days to do that are on the practice days because there’s literally no one here spe and hland we not talk about how I got on in this hole when I played this it was the

Start of My Demise It why am I like that I have blocked it as far Past damage limitation is not going well 0 feels a lot nearer all of a sudden been hitting the same Chip Shot the whole time I still don’t think he’s got it inside 10 ft obviously very quick to that front left front right pin decent shot for Rory there are seven people walking

Around with Rory what can seven people possibly be doing I wonder how they pick who they’re going to play a practice round with but there’s no start sheet here or anything so just Ro just like rock up and then two players like run up to him and join or like is there a

Plan this seems like quite a random grouping everyone’s been hitting chips out of that roof it’s obviously causing a bit of a problem Ian it does look quite juicy I’m not sure I’d want to be in there so we’re definitely at the most famous part of

The golf course now and probably one of the most famous stretches in golf I think the 16th is really understad for just how hard it is people often talk about going for it or laying up but actually the layup is really difficult because one you’ve got this massive tree

To go which is definitely a lot taller in person than it looks on TV and two this Fairway is seriously sloped like we’re on a massive slope here and it’s also down sloping and then you’re hit into a green that’s like running away from you towards water so definitely not

The easiest approach shot and the layup almost feels harder than actually going for it pretty good looking golf hold there literally just water everywhere so many golf balls must be lost in the water here every year okay it’s 5:30 in the morning and were’re attempting to get to the cars in

Time for the first t- shot so let’s go this is fun look how close we are to the clubhouse just saw Mara getting ready we literally got up at 4:30 this morning to make sure we’re here to the first t- shop and to make sure we could get to

The front you know get a good seat and look how busy the first te is there is literally no one here picture with the trff a surprise there’s not like a grand stand or something it feels like quite understood for the first t- shop of the players ladies and gentlemen welcome to

The first round of the 2023 Players Championship this is the 650 starting time on the te from Wilmer Alabama Robbie [Applause] Shelton next on the team from Australia Min W [Applause] Le Jesus I love it when the players introduc thems to the marshals as if someone doesn’t know who they are M hi

I’m M as if he’s not like one of the top golfs in the world like everyone knows who you are mate a few of them have stuck it in close there will we see the first birdie of the players situation is minu has about 10 foot for birdie Austin has about six oh

Wo W Woo at least there’s a few people to witness it birdie number one how many will there be today if you’re wondering why there’s literally like hundreds of Marshal on every hole one of them just told me that basically the roof so thick and like the ball sits down it so much

That if you don’t see the ball go in you basically don’t find it so that’s why you see them putting loads of these little Flags in to be like the ball is here it’s fine we’ve got it the roof is so thick I can literally be

See the players feet when they walk in you can’t see the golf ball and when they put the club down you can’t even see the club it God you can hear how much it slows the club head down like through the I mean I would not want to hit golf ball

Out that okay one the difficulty about te off at this time is everyone who walks past is casting Shadows like straight across this green around it was like stopping every person go and the Marshall’s going like this and he’s like put your hands down my fun fact for the week is even

Though it’s irrelevant to this tournament there’s two courses here and they have a separate putting and chipping green for each one to make sure they stimp at the same level of the actual C they playing is pretty mental oh look Roar is there that’s why everyone on the property is stood here

Oh I’m Ricky oh and and R literally every here everyone here and Adam Scott Rory is here in mid irons and his ball speed is nearly the same as what mine is with the driver it’s a little bit depressing oh look turny Fino in the building so we’re just going to meet the

Head green keeper superintendent I’m not sure what the word is here um to find out what it’s like setting the cour up for this championship and bit about I really want to know what it’s like to try and set the course up over two days when they’re playing one round like

Thursday and Friday so it must be pretty hard to try and get the S so first of all could you run me through like your role I’m the director of aromy so what does that involve on like a day to-day B and how would that vary like on a normal

Week compared to like players week you know it’s it’s really very similar you know we’re prepping the golf course every day we have a team that’s prepping the golf course every day for for play um you know we’re we’re planning things out in advance trying to you know trying

To get ahead of any uh potential issues that develop or anything along that line um you know it’s it’s it’s very similar it’s just a little busier this week and how is it different setting the course up for like the March players than it

Was when it was later in the a well when it was in may we we didn’t have to oversee now we have cool season grass that we integrate into the Bermuda grass uh to kind of give it this beautiful color you know the weather uh was probably a little bit more predictable

In May um than it is here in March but I think that’s what makes this unique for this Championship so in days like today where kind of round one has run over into round two what do you do about setting those few holes up on today to

Make it play as much like yesterday as you can yeah I think that’s the that’s the art piece that we kind of get into it’s it’s a little bit more challenging we don’t want it to be drastically different this morning than it was yesterday especially like it was yesterday afternoon obviously the

Daytime of the day is going to be the biggest change that has occurred if you had two or three holes left those two or three holes are just naturally going to be a touch softer uh you know earlier in the morning than they are late in the

Afternoon U but we’re going to try to keep it as same you know the biggest change comes that we have to get up earlier you know that we have to be here at the office a little earlier in the morning so do you have extra stuff that

You bring in for this week or is everyone already here yeah no that’s a great question we have an international uh Team of volunteers they’re from all over the world from Japan to the UK down in Australia and New Zealand uh so we have a lot of people here we have about

A hundred volunteers here from around the world um that that kind of accompany our 100 staff so we have over 200 people that are prepping the golf course uh two times a day that includes our shop team and our landscape Department as well so

It’s it’s a big it’s a big team so we can do a lot of things in short order so that’s a that’s the that’s the idea behind it I was out very early yesterday I was very impressed with all the green Keepers literally blowing every last Leaf off the fair on

18 it’s a leaf blowing Army so my last question to you is how many leaf blowers do you have cuz I was thinking how how do they have enough kit to do this on every yeah we have about 65 leaf blowers or backpack blowers on team and I have

Friends from around the area kind of say that’s the reason there’s a shortage to get those particular blowers is because you’ve bought the whole area up so uh no question we have we’re we’re blessed to have a lot all the funds are streaming in today way busier on Friday compared to

Thursday after the player hits the ball what we do is we take the laser and shoot where the ball is then we mark it on our tablet so that it gives them the distance from where the ball is to the pin so each player’s shot is measured

From the distance from the ball to the pin so you’ll see that on your stats on the boards and on TV so that’s fed back straight into the TV and then also does it go through to like shot link for the stats this is shot link yes yeah this is

Shot link so it goes to all the stats and then it goes onto the boards and everything for all your STS that’s really interesting I didn’t realize like people were actually manually using a laser to them Mark where it is what do you do if you get in a situation where

There’s like like here on the last shot there was a tree in the way there was a tree in the way Well what we’ll do then is we’ll go over here with the laser and the person that’s marking the ball will’ll Mark to the side of the tree and

Then we’ll mark it on the tablet and then move it over to where the ball is so we get an exact spotting for the ball perfect now you know how you find out all the distances on the teller I’ve got a lid is flex wedge so that’s a good

Start love the Assumption of that was a little bit easier than the actual hole there what we actually want to see is Alex have a [Laughter] this is the content we’re here for I want to sleep a golf ball thanks well done thank you so with Ray here’s a volunteer here

This week is this your first time volunteering it is my very first year how did you get into that well I just moved to Florida a year ago and being this close to this beautiful golf course it couldn’t resist had to had to just

Come and give it a try and get to walk the course and so I actually I I do some Gallery management I cook over at the kitchen and I did the flag presentation on Tuesday evening on the 17th green so wow that was been pretty special it was

Fun yeah yeah so day today what are you doing how long are you here is it a long day today I’m here 6 to 6 pretty much the only day I’m here this long and the gallery management just has to do with either on the on the tea watching the

Crowd trying to keep them quiet while the crowd comes through and make sure that the players have a route to get from the previous green to the next te without interference here this is called the landing area and all we do is try to spot the balls along with the shuttling

People and if they cuz sometimes they can get lost over here and we help them find them then there’s a greens crew who just kind of keeps crowd quiet while they’re putting so those are three main jobs for gallery management there’s a seriously big difference in atmosphere from watching

Golf here on the 15 so watching golf here on 17 so where have you guys traveled from to come to the players this week uh Fort Rucker Alabama how long a journey we talking uh four and a half five hours yeah that is a decent effort is this your first players it is it is it’s our

First BGA tournament period oh wow why did you decideed you wanted to come well we’re down here for the Army and uh we were like they give free military tickets so we were like let’s come down and go watch the Players he’s also a very large golfer he loves golf what do

You think of the vibe I feel like it’s quite different to like a normal golf T I couldn’t tell you to what other other ones are but it’s a blast I mean there’s people everywhere I was surprised we could get so close to the big who who have you come to watch like

Who’s your favorite player be she wanted to see Rory and luckily he didn’t make the cut and it was a uh I got a nod from there was a delay yesterday so we saw him on as he finished his second round so oh yeah so luckily you call him today

Before the cut that was definitely lucky so you’re a fan of the fact there was a r yeah well thanks for chining to us oh absolutely thank you I mean it’s one of the biggest regular season events and you know it’s obviously considered the fifth major and

Um it would have been guttering to come 51st in the ranking and not get in so uh I think it ended up being one8 of a shot uh with it’s tall that he looks on TV [Applause] everyone’s crammed in down 18 to see if Scott is going to win or not it’s a bit touch and go at the moment and I think it’s both fitting and impressive that our 2022 PGA Tour player of the year is now our 2023 players

Champion now Scotty to to you to your caddy and partner Ted Scott to your entire family congratulations on this awesome accomplishment we’re proud to call you the Players [Applause] [Applause] Champion she bye sass you what the behind scenes content we’re all here for hello sorry um pleas please number nine this is the Glamorous part of the week it’s 1:00 a.m. UK time we’re just loging on to do podcast for God’s sake