Throughout my career I have had the opportunity to be the director, and/or the technical director on live sports events. As a technical director (or "TD") I've worked every sport involving a stick, ball, or motor. As a director I've worked NFL and AFL football games, professional tennis, college basketball, football, and baseball, boxing, and a few other shows here and there. I have to say - the more PGA Tour golf events I work as a technical director, the more I marvel at what the folks who direct live golf tournaments can do. It really is an art.Think about it: directing basketball involves using cameras that are positioned around a rectangular court, free from major obstructions. Compared to other sports, the ball is mammoth in size and it's fairly easy to anticipate the path of the ball and players sling it up and down the court. Now consider golf: instead of one court, you have eighteen. And they aren't rectangular...they are oddly shaped and vary in length, width, and even height! There are obstructions everywhere, and the ball is microscopic and could travel in just about any direction, depending upon lift, wind and other factors. Oh - just to make it more difficult, there are NO timeouts - it's all going down out there simultaneously, all over the course!
"Great golf directors never get caught without cameras on key holes, to capture key moments. Somehow they see the whole course at once, and know how to get cameras and operators moved all over the course in time for the perfect shot."
In golf, instead of having stationary cameras positioned on all eighteen of those "courts" - there are typically certain holes with no cameras, some with one, and perhaps some with two. To cover the entire course, the director must dispatch cameras and camera operators throughout the day, from hole to hole. They need to stay on top of every nuance of the tournament, who's up, who's down, who's out, who's making a charge. The director must then reposition those cameras to the most suitable locations around the course - taking into account camera cabling, operator logistical moves, lens lengths, hazards on every hole, and where the story lines are most likely to unfold. In effect, they are directing eighteen basketball games at once, darting in and out of each game on the fly (with the producer's help). Great golf directors never get caught without cameras on key holes, to capture key moments. Somehow they see the whole course at once, and know how to get cameras and operators moved all over the course in time for the perfect shot. "Tom, move from three tee to fifteen fairway. Your camera will be moved to thirteen green for Liz to operate. She's moving from four green and dropping Rodger off at six fairway before she gets to thirteen. I want you at fifteen in time for Adam Scott to tee off there."
I honestly don't know how they do it. If all of the cameras are already at a hole, I can direct it as well as anybody. But that's not the real art or talent in golf directing. That's the easy part! True golf directors have that innate perception to capture every great moment while making fifteen cameras seem to be a phalanx of one hundred. The next time you watch a golf tournament on television, sit back, relax...and try to imagine the artistic swaths of camera moves across the entire course, that bring you those pictures and story lines. It really is a beautiful thing to watch unfold.
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