Sky Sports overcomes the elements to produce “double remote” coverage of the 151st Open Championship

The Open Zone was home to player conversations as well as demonstrations to educate viewers on the ins and outs of golf

“It was a wet weekend, and we had a bit of a runaway winner, but the viewing figures were still strong because the cricket was washed out and F1, as always was a bit of a foregone conclusion so we felt like we had a good window for the end of the day,” says Jason Wessely, Sky Sports, executive producer, golf.

The Sky Sports team relies heavily on the world feed for the core of its coverage, unlike NBC which cuts in a lot of its own cameras.

“The world feed pretty much tells the story, and they don’t take any breaks, so they aren’t having to catch up with themselves,” says Wessely. “They pretty much have all of the bases covered when it comes to narratives on the course, so we don’t need to cherry-pick cameras off the router and try and inject our own stories. It’s a safe and reliable feed that we can sit on and then we just add our own commentary, graphics, commercial breaks, and interviews.”

“At times it felt like a double remote as we were not only remote from the Sky Gallery but the Sky Zone itself as we couldn’t jump in a buggy and drive to the range like we could at St. Andrews.”

For any golf fan the Sky Sports interviews, whether done on the course with an RF camera, at the Sky Cart, or at the Sky Zone on the practice range where there are two cameras and a jib, are always insightful, often entertaining, and definitely informative (ditto for the practice range interviews where players like Jon Rahm simply held an RF mic for a walk and talk interview down the fairway.

“We take 12 cameras to the open but those are mostly used for peripheral presenter-led content,” adds Wessely. “And we rely on the Xmos and the other pieces of the world feed, so we don’t have to add a lot.”

A new deliverable from European Tour Productions (ETP) and the world feed was the CarCam, a dashboard camera mounted in the car that would drive players back and forth from the range which was about a three-minute drive from the course. The camera captured a wide shot of everyone sitting in the car but there was no audio.

“I quick like it as any time you see a golfer in a different situation it’s a good move,” says Wessely. “You saw them in their various states, whether it was Padraic Harrington looking at his scorecard and checking it out in full for strategy or others sitting there taking in fluids or just looking into space. It’s interesting to see shots of players you don’t normally see.”

A bunkercam installed in a bunker near the Open Zone was incorporated into Open Zone coverage

The main production team for Sky’s coverage was located in a control room back at Sky Sports headquarters in Osterley and Wessely says the team is still learning about how to produce such a big production back at Sky. And the fact that the driving range was so far away from the main compound made the Sky Zone production feel even more removed.

“At times it felt like a double remote as we were not only remote from the Sky Gallery but the Sky Zone itself as we couldn’t jump in a buggy and drive to the range like we could at St. Andrews,” says Wessely. “We made it work and the viewer at home wouldn’t have known how far way it was.”

The Sky Sports golf production team is gearing up for the AIG Women’s Open at Walton Heath golf course on 10-13 August. There will be plenty of golf but also a fan village that will feature a performance by Ellie Goulding.

“They’re putting a lot of effort into encouraging new fans to come and watch golf and it will be a festival rather than just a golf tournament and we’ll be trying to help tell that story,” says Wessely. “We’ll also have a Sky Zone and Sky Cart as we’re trying to match what we do at the Open Championship with player interviews on the range and a preview show on 9 August.”

And then it’s off the Fed Ex playoffs, the Irish Open, the BMW Championship, and then the Ryder Cup. “We’re busy through the end of September,” says Wessely.

The 151st Open Championship took place at Royal Liverpool Golf Club in Hoylake between 20 and 23 July 2023.