Taking Golf Virtual, TGL Competition Inspires Unconventional Golf Sound

The production’s A1: ‘Try to imagine combining a WWF show with a cocktail party’

Microphones will be on many of the 80-plus cameras scattered around the purpose-built SoFi Center in Palm Beach Gardens, FL. The venue will host the first round of the innovative Tomorrow’s Golf League (TGL) in partnership with the PGA TOUR, a production that will fuse advanced tech and live action at 9 p.m. ET tonight on ESPN.

Golfers from the six “clubs” formed so far and backed by such entities as Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy’s TMRW Sports will move seamlessly (it is hoped) between real and virtual tees, fairways, and greens, in the process traversing such hazards as a deep gorge or molten lava.

“They’re hitting a real golf ball into a [64- x 53-ft. projection] screen, and swing metrics provide spin, launch, angle speed, etc., in real time,” explains Joe Carpenter, A1 for the event. “It is so accurate.”

The New York Golf Club, owned by NY Mets owner Steven Cohen will tee up first against the Bay Golf Club, owned by Marc Lasry’s Avenue Sports Fund and Stephen Curry. The others are the Los Angeles Golf Club, owned by Alexis Ohanian, Serena Williams, and Venus Williams; Atlanta Drive GC, owned by Arthur M. Blank; Boston Common Golf, owned by Fenway Sports Group; and Jupiter Links Golf Club owned by TGR Ventures and David Blitzer.

The Sound of Virtuality

There will be microphones on some of the robocams; on a Spidercam; in the warm-up areas, where each golfer will each have their own mini-simulator; and on a so-called rover camera, which can roam the playing area seeking reaction shots. Golfers will be wearing Q5X PlayerMic transmitters as well as Bluetooth IFB packs and prototype Apple Beats earpieces. Carpenter, working from Game Creek Moonshine mobile unit onsite, says the challenge will be creating an individual mix for each golfer’s earpiece as they move back and forth between reality and virtuality.

The TGL playing area within SoFi Center is roughly the size of a football field: 97 yards long x 50 yards wide.

“Each golfer will have preferences as to what they want to hear in their ears: themselves or not, sound effects, teammates, announcers,” Carpenter explains, adding that the mixes will be a combination of preprogramming (via an RTS ADAM frame) and live mixes. (Announcers Scott Van Pelt, Matt Barrie, and Marty Smith are lined up for event commentary.) “Rory McIlroy, for instance, may want to hear his teammates and Matt Barrie but not himself. I’ll create an individual program mix for each of the six golfers. In addition, pretty much every golfer, as soon as they step into the tee box and we’re still in reality, will want to kill that program in their ear so nobody can talk to them accidentally while they’re addressing the ball and hitting. It’s wild.”

The golfers won’t be talking to are caddies — live ones, at least. Virtual “caddies” will display ball locations and other metrics. They’re interactive, providing the golfers with feedback on distance, wind, lie, and other factors.

Complicated Course, Complex Mix

Carpenter will be working with colleagues Dave Free and Mike Rew, who will submix the live SFX and the Q5X microphones and manage tape-replay audio, respectively. All the audio, as well as the final broadcast mix, will be captured and distributed in 5.1 surround.

Although the gofers are hitting into a giant screen powered by simulation manufacturer Full Swing from areas with real grass, fairway, rough, and sand for approach and tee shots (one of which has actual sand from the Masters’ Augusta, GA, course), dubbed the “Screen Zone,” TGL tee sounds will be picked up by shotgun mics typically deployed at tees and elsewhere. For shots of approximately 50 yards or less, the setup transitions to a physical, custom-built “Green Zone,” a 22,475-sq.-ft. short-game area that transforms between holes. It’s built atop a 41-yard-wide turntable that rotates to change approach angles and can morph its topography using nearly 600 actuators.

The Green Zone is about the size of four basketball courts, and numerous sounds will come into play there. Some will be fairly conventional, such as splashes for water landings or ricochets off trees, taken from a bespoke effects library of about 80 sounds that Carpenter and friend and PGA TOUR veteran Brad Faxon compiled for the production by knocking shots around a local Florida course.

Other sounds will be less conventional. “When that ball goes into the virtual world, we’re in a virtual computer [environment], and I’m going to have to decide what that sounds like,” says Carpenter. “Depending on the hole, if it’s a canyon, it’s going to be like rattlesnakes and the Snake River; if the ball hits off the canyon rocks, you’re going to hear it sound like it glances off a rock. One of these holes is over some kind of volcano, and you’ll see — and hear — the gurgling lava. If the hole’s [supposed to be] in Ireland, maybe a little bagpipe in the background and a really stiff breeze to set the sense of place. The trick is going to be picking and syncing these sounds in real time.”

Here, too, Sports Betting Has an Effect

As complicated as the sound for this novel golf outing might be — every shot will be live and fast-paced to keep within the show’s two-hour scheduled slot — it’s made more complicated by sports betting: Carpenter will have to tailor his mix feeds for regions that prohibit the practice.

“If gambling’s legal in one place, you get one program and can advertise gambling,” he points out. “In another feed, gambling advertising gets [removed] entirely. Between gambling or no gambling and also the profanity plunger, transmission gets really tricky with six different world feeds and players wearing mics and fans yelling into the camera mics.”

The Sound in the Venue

All that sound will also be pumped into the venue, through L-Acoustics A and X Series speakers in a PA system installed by Tampa-based ESI Production Services and will be picked up by crowd and other mics for the broadcast. That sound will be mixed by Dave Bjornson, whom Carpenter calls “the best in the business” for getting a great live mix that also provides an impactful background element for the broadcast audio.

“It’s not going to be what anyone would expect from a golf tournament,” says Matt Coombs, director, ESI AV Solutions, a division of ESI Productions. “This is a very large departure from a standard approach for a sports arena or really anything sports-related, ever. We had to wrap our heads around it at the get-go: we’re not building a football stadium or a basketball arena; what we’re actually building is a virtual-reality set inside of a massive television studio.”

Instead of looking to typical sports venues for inspiration, he says, he researched the sound for such events as American Ninja Warrior and other unconventional competition productions. “This was still so much more unusual than even any of those were in comparison. I’m hoping that some of that experience translates to the broadcast. But, in the room, it’s going to be a really awesome experience.”

The sound system will also provide the power for DJ IRIE, a Miami-area favorite who will provide a constant backbeat for the show and will take golfers’ requests for walk-up music. It will create a live ambiance quite different from that of a typical golf production and its usual pastoral soundtrack.

Muses Carpenter, “Try to imagine combining a WWF show with a cocktail party.”