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
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
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
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
31/05/2026
Olivia P rez-Collellmir to Premiere Original Work at Gaud Centennial in Barcelona The Berklee graduate and faculty member will debut her choral symphony with...
31/05/2026
Taiwan is home to more than 500 NVIDIA ecosystem partners. More than 1 million N...
31/05/2026
As factories move from isolated automation to plant-wide intelligence, manufacturers need AI systems that can connect live machine signals, quality systems, wor...
31/05/2026
The NVIDIA AI Cloud ecosystem is accelerating the global buildout of AI factory infrastructure. Partners are expanding capacity to meet growing demand from ente...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Zero in on one that says yes (and no)
Andy Marken May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Hero image courtesy of Deposit Photos
For content creators the most difficu...
29/05/2026
With InfoComm 2026 just weeks away, NDI is giving attendees plenty of reasons to...
29/05/2026
Reaffirming a partnership that has defined Canadian sports broadcasting since 19...
29/05/2026
Mobile/tablet is No. 2 device for watching TV, suggesting that the sports-production industry needs to take another look at the format
Ring Digital's Sprin...
29/05/2026
Berliner Ensemble, one of Berlin's five major theater companies, has expande...
29/05/2026
Solid State Logic will showcase its new compact, fly-away TCA Tour audio product...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, passed away last month on April 12 ...
29/05/2026
Paramount+ will be the English-language U.S. home for Barclays Women's Super...
29/05/2026
Further strengthening its virtualisation strategy to fully support broadcasters ...
29/05/2026
Swiss broadcaster Canal Alpha has deployed Harmonic's award-winning, software-based XOS Advanced Media Processor to modernize playout operations across cant...
29/05/2026
PTZOptics will showcase a new generation of intelligent video workflows at InfoComm 2026, June 17-19, Las Vegas. Visitors to booth N8227 will see how PTZOptics ...
29/05/2026
Arizona's Family has launched the Arizona's Family Sports (AZFS) streaming app, a new direct-to-consumer destination for live, local sports. The app is ...
29/05/2026
Starting in 2027, DAZN will be the exclusive home of The Canadian Football Leagu...
29/05/2026
Comcast Business has detailed the advanced network infrastructure it has deploye...
29/05/2026
In two-day event, leaders from academia and industry explored solutions to chall...
29/05/2026
The Basketball Tournament (TBT), now entering their 13th year of competition, ha...
29/05/2026
Roku has launched FOX One as a Premium Subscription on The Roku Channel in the U.S. Roku customers can now subscribe to FOX One using their Roku account for liv...
29/05/2026
In its sixth year, the broadcaster's coverage has become a global brand and ...
29/05/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent ratings news and is derived from press re...
29/05/2026
The days are getting longer, the temperatures are rising, and playlists are filling up for the season. With summer around the corner, Spotify's global edito...
29/05/2026
New retro-inspired MPC announced
There are few devices that have gained the status held by Akai Pro's MPC range, and in recent years, the company have s...
29/05/2026
Save up to 30 on acclaimed titles
Following a successful launch at Superbooth 2026, Bjooks have revealed that they will be continuing the Kickstarter campa...
29/05/2026
Binaural monitoring application improved
Genelec have just released an update that brings some powerful new features to their HRTF-based binaural headphone ...
29/05/2026
6 June 2026 at SAE Institute, London, UK
IMSTA FESTA 2026 is almost upon us, with some of the biggest names in pro-audio set to descend upon SAE Institute i...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, died April 12, 2026, at his home in...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Comparing 5 AI Video Enhancers for Restoring Old Video Quality
Kate Luvis May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Digitizing VHS, MiniDV, and other legacy formats doe...
29/05/2026
Studio Hamburg Builds New Post Pipeline with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Workflow replaces a patchwork of legacy tools...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
At the Intersection of Music and Dance, an Epic Collaboration Boston Conservatory musicians and dancers found creative parallels in their recent performance o...
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 
