Live from the 2023 U.S. Open: Months of Work Have NBC Sports Set for Final Dramatic Round By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Sunday, June 18, 2023 - 10:45 am
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It's the final day of the U.S. Open Championship at The Los Angeles Country Club, and for the team at NBC Sports it marks the end of months of planning and weeks of execution to deliver a final round that has the most dramatic storylines in quite some time.
We had weekly meetings that started in January because we knew what a challenge this course was going to be and our team has executed amazingly, says Allison McAllister, NBC Sports, vice president, golf operations. It's been a wonderful thing to see. Obviously, there are always the oh by the ways' that pop up at a major, but we've been able to pivot and make it work.
(l-to-r): NBC Sport's Tavi Wright, Blaise Fernandez, Bridget Cugle, Casey McKee, Allison McAllister, Marc Caputo, Adam D'Arienzo, Jason Abrams, and Sam Ruby at the 2023 U.S. Open TV compound.
McAllister says Marc Caputo, NBC Sports, director, remote technical operations and Bridget Cugle, NBC Sports director, golf operations, have taken the lead when it comes to partnering with the USGA.
USGA Senior Director, Broadcasting and Production Kevin Landy is a great partner for us along with [Senior Director, U.S. Open Championships] Reg Jones and [Senior Managing Director, U.S. Open Championships] Jeff Hall's championship teams, everyone at the USGA have been wonderful to partner with, she adds. And all of our other vendors that have provided equipment to bring the 123rd US Open Championship to life! With every US Open there are they challenges that we must overcome. They are all their own jigsaw puzzle that we get to put together.
NEP production trucks are at the center of NBC Sports' 2023 U.S. Open coverage.
NBC Sports, the USGA and related partners had to figure out a plan to navigate a Country Club that has Wilshire Boulevard running right through it. While the course, fans, and players are all located on the north side of Wilshire the TV compound is located on the south side of Wilshire. At the center of the compound are NEP ND7 and ND1 production trucks which support the NBC show as well as NEP Supershooter 9 which handles the featured groups coverage.
Explains Cugle: There are only two small tunnels that you can use to get from one course to the other, so we had to devise a plan to figure out where the best place was to put everything. And we also knew that pretty much everybody who is working on the championship course is not coming back to the compound during the day. So, we have two small trailers on the north side that we use like a camera-ready room. The crews can drop their gear there, so they aren't carrying it back and forth every night.
Caputo adds that there are two NEP fiber trucks on-site because the run from the compound to the tunnels is 1,500 feet. Jason Abrams, NBC Sports, technical manager, adds that when the team came to the course in January all they saw were open holes devoid of any superstructures to work with.
If you look at the course holes 1, 18, and 17 [are near the tunnel] but then everything else just sprawls out from there, explains Abrams. And you can lay it out on paper but then there is topography you have to deal with like ravines. So, we needed to add an additional 20% of cabling to make sure we had enough.
Abrams says that the combination of a remote compound and a sprawling course doesn't just double the amount of cable needed but increases it by multiples.
The bells and whistles take up more strands and there are a lot of centralized locations dropped in between two or three holes that will connect to the fairways or to a rail cam for data which is unique, he adds. All told more than 225,000 feet of fiber cable has been laid out across the Country Club to deliver video, audio, and data.
Enhancing the Coverage
Key to the efforts this year is taking advantage of the tight course conditions so that as many of the 81 cameras on the course as possible can cover numerous holes and locations on the course.
Scissor lifts are being used throughout The Los Angeles Country Club for covering the 2023 U.S. Open.
Most cameras have the ability to cover multiple holes, like our monopods. They can be on one tower and cover the 14th fairway, 8 green, or 2 green because the eighth green tower is on the side of a hill, explains Abrams. The undulations allow for multiple coverage from single ENG cameras.
Also helping in those efforts are two Scorpion cranes that are 100 feet tall and tower over the 1st and 11th holes. Caputo says at other tournaments there is an opportunity to move Scorpion cranes, but the tight layout of the North Course doesn't make that possible this year.
And a drone has also been able to get many unique looks on a variety of holes, flying over the course and giving viewers a much better understanding of the unique landscape, undulations, and elevation changes. Cugle says coverage from the drone has worked out well and Caputo says that coverage is well planned and dialed in.
It's almost like they storyboard what they're going to do for coverage, says Caputo.
A Robovision rail cam at the 15th hole has played a role in covering three holes in one this week.
Additional specialty cameras include three bunker cams on holes 6, 7, and 14, a Jitacam on hole 17 that captures a reverse follow angle from the green to the tee and then a Robovision rail camera system on hole 15, a par three which has seen three holes in one during the first three rounds.
One of the more unique events at a U.S. Open in recent years occurred on the Tuesday prior to play at what is called Little 17 at the Country Club. Located to the right of the 17th green,
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Live from the 2023 U.S. Open: Months of Work Have NBC Sports Set for Final Dramatic Round By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director 
