If you’ve seen the new PGA Tour headquarters building down the road from the intersection of Palm Valley Road and A1A, or for residents, across from the post office and Walgreens, then you know that another building has gone up next door. That’s the TV production building, and it’s getting ready to take over the golf television universe. Well, a good part of it anyway. Cue the warning music that goes dum-dum … dum-dum … dum-dum …
Since PGA Tour Productions — now PGA Tour Studios — was opened in 1990, it has gone through various stages of development in programming capability to the point where it now has everything it needs to handle worldwide broadcasts. And more.
Initially, it was located in the third floor of an office building on Route 1, just south of the end of Butler Boulevard. (I know this because I used to go there to produce a program called “The Golf Show,” which was syndicated for 10 years on WGN and WOR and before that was on Prime Network and Sunshine Network and most of the sports channels across the country.)
From there Productions moved to the World Golf Village, to a 35,000-square-foot facility next door to the former World Golf Hall of Fame.
Now Productions has officially become PGA Tour Studios, and it has its own huge, 165,000-square-foot facility with things most people would not even believe possible.
To give you an idea of the size, the TPC Sawgrass clubhouse is 77,000 square feet, if that helps, and it has two floors, so 38,500 square feet each floor. This new TV production building has three floors, which means they are about 55,000 square feet each. The Publix in Sawgrass Village is about 50,000 square feet, and that’s counting the back part that we never see because it’s where the food comes in and gets stored until it goes onto the shelves. So, stack three Sawgrass Publix on top of each other and that’s close to the size of the Studios facility.
The new PGA Tour Studios building includes eight production rooms, eight audio control rooms and seven LED-outfitted studios, including a 270-degree LED display in Studio 1A. That means every place in that room except where the cameras sit can be lit.
PGA Tour Studios is now creating the live telecasts for the PGA Tour Champions events, Korn Ferry tournaments and PGA TOUR LIVE on ESPN +. Announcers will often come to Ponte Vedra to voice the telecasts instead of going to the site of the tournament, which some of them have different feelings about, but that’s just the reality of today.
In addition, PGA Tour Studios is creating a number of new original programs like “Scottie 24” and “Xander Embedded,” which were shown on PGA Tour YouTube channel, pgatour.com and PGA Tour social channels, PlutoTV, Roku, Samsung TV Plus, Tubi and XUMO.
“These two programs represent just the beginning of the new and dynamic, original content that we plan to deliver to our fans in the years to come through the new PGA Tour Studios,” said Michael Riceman, PGA Tour senior vice president, content and production.
Six more similar programs are planned.
“Every new technology and forward-thinking innovation we introduce is about serving our fans and meeting them where they are, and the creative capabilities of PGA Tour Studios will help us further that mission while showcasing the beauty of our sport,” Commissioner Jay Monahan said.
At THE PLAYERS, a new World Feed of PGA Tour telecasts will debut. It is kind of like the telecast of the British Open that we used to receive from the BBC decades ago and we have lately gotten from Sky Sports. Our network would receive it and might add some additional shots of U.S. players that the Brits and the rest of the world didn’t care so much about seeing.
But the PGA Tour Studios World Feed will have the ability to focus on both the tournament leaders as well as the players from each of more than between 150 and 200 countries that carry golf telecasts. They will be able to custom-create each broadcast for each country with country specific and correct-language-speaking announcers. That, folks, is an unbelievable achievement. Somebody’s going to have a headache making it work that week, for sure.
They do this by having cameras on a majority if not all players. If you’ve ever tried the every-player, every-shot live offering that the PGA Tour created in the past for THE PLAYERS, that’s what everyone would have as the base for the program. Then what happens is, for example, some shots of U.S. players are dropped out of the telecast that’s going to perhaps Japan, and several Japanese players are shown instead. And while they are shown, Japanese announcers, who are voicing the telecast to Japan, talk about the Japanese players and the shots they are making. So, it’s golf, tailored to the country, to the language. Then, they revert to the main telecast when they want to. If they want all Hideki Matsuyama all the time, they can have it. That’s what World Feed will eventually become, and the World Feed programming at THE PLAYERS is the first step.
It’s all made possible in part due the combination of the new Studios building and the addition of what is called PGA Tour Fleet, a group of nine state-of-the-art production trucks that debuted at the Farmers Insurance Open in January. A production truck is like a studio on wheels. All the cameras are connected to it, either wirelessly or by wire. All the audio from the announcers runs through it, and directors give instructions on what camera shots to use from it. Graphics run through it, too. There might be 25 or 30 or 40 cameras to choose from at one time, with, in the every-player, every-shot version, the ability to capture action from up to 144 cameras or live feeds from locations of tournaments.
And while sometimes there’s important action at two or three locations at once — that’s when you rely on the guys and gals in the tape truck — and believe it or not, sometimes there’s nothing but guys walking down the fairway or off the tee and nobody hitting a shot. And you’ll probably still see the same shots of squirrels and ducks.
Now, somehow, they have the capability to stick shot tracers on all the shots. Personally, I love that. It’s my all-time favorite feature of golf telecasts ever. There’s even a new one where the tracer path is like a ribbon, and you can fly over the top of it. Love inventive electronics.
The PGA Tour Fleet is a collaboration between the Tour and CBS/Paramount+, NBC/Golf Channel/Peacock and ESPN+. It is the production center for seven live shows, including the network broadcast, four PGA TOUR LIVE streams on ESPN+ and two live streams for IMG Arena.
After the debut of the World Feed at THE PLAYERS, there will be a World Feed for all the rest of the tournaments in 2025.
Coming in 2026, PGA Tour Radio moves in. In addition, PGA Tour Studios will house Pro Shop, the PGA Tour’s partner in Hollywood dedicated to creating what they call “premium content.” Think of this, perhaps, as like the Netflix golf series “Full Swing.”
So, there’s more happening by the post office and Walgreens than you ever imagined. In fact, Ponte Vedra has just become the center of the golf television universe.
