Presidents Cup Makes Leap to 1080p HDR as NBC Sports, PGA TOUR Step Up Coverage

The 2026 Presidents Cup is underway at Medinah Country Club outside of Chicago with Team USA and an International Team of men's golfers facing off for four days of competition (concluding with singles play on Sunday). And for the NBC Sports golf crew as well as the PGA TOUR and related vendors like NEP Group it's a chance to once again flex the muscle of match-play golf. And this time the Presidents Cup will be delivered in 1080p HDR.

We started over a year ago planning with the PGA TOUR and the PGA Tour Championship team, says Allison McAllister, NBC Sports, VP, golf operations. We came out to Medinah, and we did a whole survey of the course, production made a plan, and then Jason Abrams, our director of remote technical operations, and I sat down to finalize things.

The teams have been on site for about a week, prior to play started cabling the course, getting cameras in position, and overcoming the usual (and the unique) challenges that can pop up. Medinah was home to the Ryder Cup in 2012 and much has changed at the course since then.

The Presidents Cup continues this afternoon and this weekend will offer two full days of competition this weekend on NBC Sports and to viewers around the world via the PGA TOUR world feed. Abrams says even on a year-to-year basis course layouts change so 14 years is plenty of time for the course to be changed numerous times. The biggest change from 2012 is that the 15th hole is now the finishing hole rather than 18 and what was the 18th, near the clubhouse, is now the 15th. At match play events many of the matches end earlier so the decision to choose the 15th hole as the finishing hole allows the new 15th hole to be aligned with big crowds and big energy.

Explains Abrams: Those changes impact our technical routing for our cables or our camera layout for production, so this is a fresh start.

Medinah like most other courses on the PGA TOUR and major championship rotation is not pre-cabled. This allows for a bespoke plan to be installed during the setup time that meets all of our technical requirements.

We're using higher density tactical fiber cables, like TAC 24s and 48s, he says. That alleviates some of the lift of relying on single-stranded cable runs and gives us more multiple-signal runs.

That cabling (as well as wireless RF signals) help get cameras and audio back to the compound where NBC is set up inside NEP Group's SS54 production unit. It's in the compound where NBC also shares signals with the PGA TOUR.

It's similar to what we do every week, and they have a mobile unit here, NEP Supershooter 29, that gets all the signals to their production control room at the PGA TOUR Studios where they produce the world feed, adds Abrams.

As for course coverage, unlike a traditional tournament with more than 70 golfers on the course is in groups, match play makes a unique demand for 10 RF cameras and 40 hard cameras and wired handheld cameras. They follow the mostly match play format through the event, along with two drones to cover play, a regular drone and a tracing drone.

Meanwhile at PGA TOUR Studios

While the NBC golf team will be on site at Medinah the PGA Tour's world feed will be produced remotely from the PGA TOUR Studios in Ponte Vedra, FL where world feed operations have been centered since the PLAYERS Championship in 2025.

We are doing this Remy-style, explains PGA TOUR Director of Live Media Jackie Reynolds. We'll produce the feed that will ultimately be sent out to 229 countries and territories in 26 languages. In our control room, we have access to NBC's program output as well as all of their cameras. We can also see their tape machines and their graphic machines, so we have a good insight as to what they're doing behind the scenes. It's a lean operation but we've figured out how to work hand-in-hand with NBC.

The nerve center is the main control room, driven by a five-person front bench consisting of a producer, director, technical director, assistant director, and tape producer. Sitting just behind them is a four-person graphics team and a dedicated ShotLink stat researcher. This core group of 10 is supported by a three-person replay team, an audio mixer, three on-camera studio talents, and two walking commentators stationed at Medinah, along with three dedicated unilateral camera operators on the course.

The PGA TOUR world feed team gearing up for day two of the Presidents Cup. When you're watching it internationally it's going to look very similar to NBC coverage as we share the same graphics package, the same animations, and we ride the network feed as much as possible, explains Reynolds. And then we hop on and off to cover elements that are meant to go out domestically but are blocked worldwide. For example, we don't take any commercial breaks, and we don't show their on-camera talent because we have our own talent. This allows us to localize it to have worldwide sponsorship that is different than the domestic sponsorship.

Complementing the world feed commentators will be walking commentators that have been sent in by broadcasters from Australia (Kayo), Japan (U-NEXT Japan), Canada (TNC), and France (Canal Plus).

In terms of storytelling, the international production sends out its own cameras with one of the first matches of the day and then that match becomes a bit like a featured group for a PGA tournament.

When NBC goes to a commercial break we will focus on the two international players in that match and then when all the groups get onto the course, we will switch coverage if there is a blowout or the first group's match is over.

The goal, ultimately, is to not only tell a different story but also highlight each of the international players in the field by the time singles stroke play begins on Sunday,

Even when there is no g

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2026/09/25/presidents-cup-makes-leap-to-10...
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