Lights, Cameras … Golf

Levy, NBC Crew Producing Girls’ Junior Highlight Show That Airs Sunday

 

By David Shefter, USGA

 

Fairfield, Conn. – Dusk morphed into darkness at Brooklawn Country Club and virtually everyone had cleared the premises from another day of play at the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship. All of the remaining competitors had retired to their temporary residences for the week – hotels or private housing – and even the grounds crew had called it quits.

 

Mark Levy (pointing), the producer of the NBC Girls' Junior highlight show, works with associate producer Zac Whinnem on a feature piece for the upcoming 90-minute show. (Steve Gibbons/USGA)

But there was activity onthe course. Just off the 11th fairway and a pitching-wedge shot away from the maintenance area, a small group of individuals were working tirelessly. The production trucks spectators might have seen while roaming the course are not there for aesthetic purposes. Housed inside these vehicles is sophisticated television equipment being used by NBC Sports personnel to produce the Girls’ Junior highlight show that will air this Sunday from noon until 1:30 p.m.

 

Mark Levy, a 17-year veteran in the television industry (he started at ESPN as a production assistant for NHL broadcasts) is producing the show. His main responsibilities at the network are the Olympic Games, but he occasionally gets to work on golf events. He spent several years working for PGA Tour Productions in St. Augustine, Fla., producing Inside the PGA Tour. He’s also an avid golfer, good enough to compete in U.S. Amateur Public Links qualifying. Earlier this year, he nearly made the APL field, shooting 1-over par for 27 holes (including a competitive-best 71 in the first 18) of the 36-hole qualifier at Tunxis Plantation in Farmington, Conn. He struggled to a 44 on his final nine, but his experiences in USGA qualifying as well as his golf background give him the proper perspective for this endeavor.

 

“It’s stories and highlights of this journey of 156 young ladies,” said Levy, whose brother, Jay, is a senior coordinating producer for ESPN’s baseball studio shows, including Baseball Tonight. “We began eight weeks ago with qualifying. We called the local sections where the qualifiers were held and talked to people about potential human-interest stories.”

 

Under the current NBC contract with the USGA, the network will do a highlight show each year with either the Girls’ Junior or the Junior Amateur, with ESPN doing the actual coverage of the other event. So this year, NBC has the Girls’ Junior and ESPN is doing the Junior Amateur.

 

Levy’s staff includes two ENG (electronic news gathering) crews that consist of a field producer, camera person and audio person, plus another seven individuals involved in the production. On Friday, six more camera people will arrive along with golf analyst Kay Cockerill, a two-time U.S. Women’s Amateur champion. Veteran announcer Jimmy Roberts will provide the voice-overs and other commentary.

 

With only 73 minutes of actual program time – commercials and public-service announcements are factored into the 90-minute show – the crew has to carefully edit the hours of footage shot on tape. Through the first three days of the competition, some 60 30-minute tapes were filled. The show will be a combination of features and actual golf, so the challenge for Levy, associate producer Zac Whinnem, senior editor Phil Parrish and the rest of the crew is to get the proper mix of material that will make for an entertaining show.

 

Levy was involved with a similar concept when they produced New York ’s Finest, New York ’s Bravest, about a football game between the police and firemen from that city following the tragedy of Sept. 11. The show won an Emmy for editing of a sports special and it spliced footage of the game with human-interest features on some of the participants.

 

“If you think about it, how many people are going to tune in to watch a match between (defending champion) In-Bee Park and Morgan Pressel,” said Levy. “Nobody is going to watch it. But if we can get you to be interested in Amanda Blumenherst because she spent a summer vacation on her family lake with her sister and brother, or we tell you that Brittany Lang has a little black book a la Harvey Penick that she started with her dad four years ago that she writes about her growth in the game like a diary, that adds a little more (to the show) than just watching Brittany Lang (or Blumenherst) just hit shots.”

 

Levy and Whinnem carefully selected seven to eight feature ideas from the pool of participants and actually went out in the field. Fortunately, all of their subjects advanced to the match-play portion of the championship. They ventured out to San Diego to cover 13-year-old Californians Sydney Burlison, a 2003 Women’s Open participant, and Mina Harigae, the two-time California Women’s Amateur champion who has defeated Burlison both times for that prestigious title. They visited the hometown ( Glasgow, Ky. ) of high school teammates Whitney Wade and Taryn Durham. They went to McKinney, Texas to talk with Lang, and spent time on the road with Blumenherst and her family. They visited with Marika Lendl, the daughter of former tennis great Ivan Lendl .

 

“None of this would have been possible without the families being very cordial,” said Levy. “They were very receptive about us being in their homes. This is something very big for a junior girl. It doesn’t happen every day.

 

“One thing that I am always amazed at when it comes to the amateur events, no matter if it’s the U.S. Amateur or Public Links or the Juniors, is I don’t think people realize what they have to go through to get to the final. And what Tiger did, to do it six (years in a row) …everything has to line up. It’s a journey and a grind. It’s another thing we are trying to share with the audience.”

 

Given the unpredictability of match play, Levy and his crew are prepared if a good story does emerge. Using a non-linear format, the production staff can insert new material into the show if necessary. The staff has sophisticated hi-tech computer editing equipment that looks like a music studio setup with plenty of bells and whistles.

 

“You can cut and past like in word processing,” Levy explained. “It’s a little more sophisticated than that, but that’s basically the gist of it.”

 

All of it makes for some long hours in the editing room. The crew worked from 7 a.m until midnight each of the first four days of the championship. On Friday, they’ll be at it until 2 a.m. and after the championship match on Saturday, they’ll stay until 8 or 9 a.m. on Sunday before feeding the edited version back to the network’s studios in New York .

 

“I’m 38 but by Sunday I’ll be 42,” said Levy. “I guarantee that.”

 

David Shefter is a staff writer for the USGA. He can be reached at dshefter@usga.org.