Live From the 153rd Open Championship: How R&A Spidercam Became a Reality for Golf Coverage

Live From the 153rd Open Championship: How R&A Spidercam Became a Reality for Golf Coverage It took considerable collaboration and a will to try new things By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director

Friday, July 18, 2025 - 11:11 am

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A cablecam on a golf course? It has long been an elusive goal of golf-production professionals around the world. It's probably a bit much to call it a holy grail, but it is certainly one of those aspirations that would be a big deal when someone could pull it off. And the R&A did it - at this year's Open Championship.

It took an all-hands-on effort, involving Paul Sutcliffe, head of broadcast, the R&A, the Championship's governing body; the team at Spidercam; the team at ACS; Russell Dawson, executive producer, the Open, European Tour Productions (ETP); and the team at Gravity Media.

Russell kept bringing the idea to us for a few years, saying we need to find a way to do this because someone in golf is going to do it, recalls Sutcliffe. This is one of the events big enough to justify using it, and Royal Portrush is great because there is no clubhouse behind the green and we had to put in a wrap-around grandstand.

Adds Gareth Jones, group director, broadcast and media rights, European Tour, You need to be on-air for a long time to justify it, and you also need a strong field to help make the most of it. So far, it has been great.

The R&A's Paul Sutcliffe (left) and European Tour's Gareth Jones in the Open Championship Media Center

The wrap-around grandstand solved a couple of problems. First, it provided a suitable structure in which to hide the Spidercam supports. Also, the backdrop of the fans in the stands made it easy to park the Spidercam in the back of the grandstand and out of view of the players as they hit into the green. With those two issues resolved, the system has been put to the test to see what kind of shots can be captured and how it can change golf coverage.

We obviously work hard throughout the year to make sure every angle is covered, especially for the 18th and final hole, says Sutcliffe. You try to plan for camera coverage of the pin position and where the winning putt is going to be made from. But Russell was telling us he doesn't need to think about [that] because Spidercam gives him every possible angle he needs. He doesn't have to wish for an extra tower or another green camera or worry about if someone [blocks the view] of the putt or the player's back is turned to us.

The R&A and production team have been fairly cautious so far, allowing the operators, the director, and the players and caddies to get more comfortable with it, Sutcliffe says. The players have been asked about it quite a lot by the media, and reactions to it seems to be fairly positive.

Making Spidercam a reality took the cooperation of several entities.

Notes Jones, We used the practice days to maximize it and get the feedback because that's when you can get them comfortable with it.

The Spidercam is also very quiet, allowing the operators to move the camera behind the players while they are putting. When players are locked into putting, notes Sutcliffe, they've got a very narrow field of focus, and we can put the camera in some pretty interesting positions.

The only hard rule is that, for second shots into the green, the camera is parked in the back of the green to ensure that it and its wires are not in the way (if a shot does by chance hit the camera or cable, rules call for the player to replay the shot).

The R&A has also expanded its use of drones, adding a smaller fly-light drone. It has more flexibility for use related to health and safety, says Jones. We fly in behind the game within the ropes, get down low, show the elevation, get closer to people. Obviously, we're still a very, very safe distance from people, but we've been able to get great shots of players like Tommy Fleetwood teeing up on the second hole. It's more intimate and can get lower than the crane shots or the airplane.

Adds Sutcliffe, It accentuates the scale of the Open: you can see the crowd lines and how they wrap the fairways. It's a great enhancement.

A larger drone, deployed for the first time since 2023, captures scenic shots of Royal Portrush.

With respect to drone tracing of shots, Jones cites the different challenges of UK's health and safety requirements. It's something that we and our partners will continue to work on to see if we can get to a place where we can use it. It's visually impressive, but we've got traces on every tee, so I don't think we miss it. But it is certainly impressive.

The push and pull of innovation at the PGA TOUR, the European Tour, and the majors (and even something like TGL and LIV) is interesting to see. An exception one year, such as the Open Championship's use of line tracing, eventually becomes the norm, and new rightsholders, such as FOX Sports most famously, make a statement by deploying Top Tracer in record numbers.

We benefit from the work done week in and week out and in just developing technologies, says Sutcliffe, noting, Top Tracer was super innovative 15 years ago, and now you have to have it.

The role of rightsholders like Sky and NBC is very important, Jones points out: [The effort is] very collaborative, and we are always learning from each other as to what tech's being developed. Some tech suits different venues better than others, and I think the Open with the incredible undulations makes it different from the U.S. It's a great opportunity to use slightly different stuff here whilst sharing ideas and learning technologically from our media partners.

In many respects, the Open Championship is a culmination of technologies that ETP can test out and ideas tha

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