By Nick Totten at Woburn
The stunning Woburn scenery is coming direct to your living room this week with nightly highlights showing the best of the action from the Travis Perkins plc Senior Masters.
The hour long shows will be broadcast on Sky Sports at 11pm every night allowing viewers who could not make the trip the chance to follow the golf.
The show does not just magic its way onto our screens though, and this week there is a thirty strong crew making sure they don’t miss a thing.
Commentator Phil Yates is charged with describing the action this week and he is the first to point out just how spectacular the effort is from the guys putting the pictures together this week.
He said: “The work behind the scenes and the speed with which they put together such a quality product is stunning at times. We had a particularly tricky time at Slaley Hall last year with weather delays and play finishing so late it - was a miracle that we got a show out that night.”
Yates does not shirk the work though, and he spends a lot of time himself making sure he knows what’s been happening on the circuit and who the ones to watch each week are.
He said: “I always make sure I have plenty of notes going into the week and pick up any little stats that might be interesting for the show. And the evening is a perfect time for people to watch such an extensive highlights package, especially with the Tour being so popular.
Phil is joined this week by former Tour pro John Hawkesworth who brings a player’s perspective to things.
He said: “I really enjoy doing these weeks as we get to go out and see the golf, get a feel for things and talk to some people in the crowd. Me and Phil get on really well and what he doesn’t know about stats isn’t worth knowing.”
These guys may be the talent, but the guys behind the scenes are always working tirelessly to get this kind of show out and the logistics are very different to a live broadcast.
Graham Badger works for Tour Productions, who put the whole thing together, and he explained what will go into this week.
He said: “We have four cameras this week compared to 14 for a live broadcast and this week we have 30 guys working for us.
“Usually the tapes are sent back to London for editing but the immediacy required here means we have to bring the editing suite with us as our guys log and cut the footage throughout the day.”
Evidently there is a lot that goes into making this highlights show, and it’s easy to see why when it will be shown to over 330 million potential households in more than 30 countries.
So tune in this week to see the fruit of their labours as well as some exciting golf to boot.
