8

 

 

Trailer 33B was the main control room for the broadcast. I followed the other talent into the room. One of the long walls was covered almost from end to end with banks of TV monitors. I counted more than thirty screens, each one labeled with either a number or a name, which I assumed was the cameraman, and some of them had both. There was one large monitor in the center of the wall, directly opposite the center of the rows of controls—all glowing with the colors of the rainbow—where the directors sat. I figured that large monitor showed the program feed which went out to the satellites and eventually appeared on TV screens all around the country.

The tech crew had taken their places at the various boards and controls. Ben Oswald sat in the middle, directly opposite the large main monitor. His leather chair, on plastic wheels like the others in the room, was the largest and plushest. There was nothing in front of him but an empty white blotter. On either side of his position, there were assistant directors with their own specialized control boards, computer screens, and telephones. The assistant director to Ben’s right hand was the guy who mashed the buttons to select which camera’s shot would go out to the world. The guy on the left would be in charge of the Chyron graphics, the scoreboards, and any other informational screen that Oswald might need during the telecast. I didn’t know what the other assistant directors in the main row did, but I assumed they talked to the cameramen, the talent in the booths, and called up the replay tape after good or bad shots. There were some seats behind Oswald, back against the wall opposite the monitors, where the production people sat. And the shorter end walls of the trailer were also utilized with desks set perpendicular to the main set-up. I saw the replay guys taking up positions there, ready to cue up any shot Oswald wanted to show again and get it ready for broadcast.

Oswald entered the trailer, with Arnie right behind. Ben sauntered over to his seat at the center and sat down. Arnie stood behind him, his ever-present notebook open and ready. Wasserman had dressed down here in the South, and today was wearing starched denim and a long-sleeved cotton shirt in bright pink. Oswald was dressed in his usual frumpy pants and a shirt. He had either given up on the idea of dressing for success, or he just didn’t care anymore.

“Awright people,” Oswald called out from his high-backed leather command chair. “Listen up. We’re gonna do a live shot rehearsal from two to three. I want everyone in their place and ready to go at 1:55. You all know your places. Let’s be sharp, on the ball. Right? Let’s do it.”

That was the full extent of the meeting. The announcers turned and filed out of the control room trailer, heading for their assigned places on the golf course: talent to the towers and the fairways, camera and sound crew to their stations. Shooter left. He told me he was shooting approach shots on sixteen. I just stood there.

“Hacker!” Oswald’s sharp eyes missed nothing. Especially me. “Where the fuck are you supposed to be?”

“Beats the crap outta me,” I said.

“Jesus Christ on stilts,” Oswald exclaimed, throwing his hands up in dismay. “Arnie! Tell this idiot fuckwad where he’s supposed to be.”

He turned back and started firing directions at the group of assistant directors who had taken their seats and were playing with the buttons and slides on their control boards, heads down, looking busy.

Arnie Wasserman glided over to me. He looked into his notebook and nodded to himself.

“You’re supposed to be working on your history segment,” he said. “But of course, Shooter is busy. So maybe you should be working on your script?”

“The segment’s in the can,” I said. “We shot it this morning. Recorded the audio tracks. Becky Ann has the film and the script.”

He looked at me, lips pursed, eyebrows raised. I don’t think he was expecting that.

“Really?” he said.

“Done and dusted,” I said, smiling at him. “Maybe I could just sit in here and watch how great golf television is made.”

He looked at me closely to see if I was trolling him. I mostly was, but I did want to see how it all worked.

“OK,” he said finally and motioned at a nearby empty chair. “Sit there and keep quiet.”

I mouthed the words Yes, boss at him and sat down.

At five minutes to two, the overhead lights in the control room were turned off. But with the multiple screens on the wall and the glowing colors from the control boards, there was enough light to see what was going on. The main monitor showed the IBS logo, while the other monitors were jumping around as the cameramen sought some actual golfer to focus on. It was Wednesday, so the morning pro-am was finishing up, and some other players were out playing a few holes, getting ready for the start of the tournament tomorrow.

Just before the top of the hour, one of the assistant directors announced “thirty seconds.” He gave another warning at fifteen seconds, then ten. Then he counted down: “five…four…three…” He then held two fingers aloft, then one.

“Music and roll tape,” Oswald barked. Both of the assistant directors flanking Oswald touched a few buttons and we heard the familiar musical intro that IBS used, and the main monitor, now bordered in red to indicate it was live, showed the IBS Sports logo. Aerial shots of the golf course, taken from a helicopter fly-by on a recent bright sunny morning, filled the screen while the studio announcer’s prerecorded voice told the viewers that they were watching the PGA Tour on IBS. Shots of some of the more famous players in attendance danced across the screen.

“Standby camera two,” Oswald said. I looked up at the bank of monitors and found Camera Two: it was showing the front of the Plantation Pines clubhouse.

“Standby Van,” Oswald said. “Intro and Camera Two in three … two … now!”

At his command, the clubhouse shot filled the main screen and Van Collins’ dulcet baritone welcomed viewers to Savannah for the playing of the Southern Plantation Open which, he told us, was an important run-up to the Masters, just three weeks away. Oswald ordered a series of shots of the golf course while Van and Jimmy Williams began talking about which players seemed to be reaching the peak of form, and which ones seemed to need some extra work before heading up to Augusta.

“Standby sixteen,” Oswald said. “Parker, that’s Justin Thomas. Van … send it to 16…”

The main announcer finished up what he was saying and then said “Let’s go out to sixteen…”

“Sixteen-A,” Oswald said and the camera shot from the fairway showed Justin Thomas and his caddie talking as they sized up his next shot. Parker Long began narrating the scene, telling us how far Thomas had left to the green and what the wind was doing.

“Standby ten,” Oswald said, “Kelsey, you’re up.”

Thomas hit his approach shot and the camera followed it to the green.

“Closer, Sammy, tight in,” Oswald said as the ball landed on the green. The camera zoomed in and we watched the ball bounce twice then check back and rolled to about fifteen feet from the hole.”

Parker Long, in the booth, said “He’s got a great look at birdie there. Let’s go to Kelsey on ten. She’s got Billy Sommers.”

“Ten,” Oswald ordered and the camera shot flipped over. Kelsey started talking about what an excellent season Sommers had going so far, and said he was really looking forward to playing in his first Masters in a few weeks time. Sommers was lining up his putt while she talked, and he stepped up and hit the putt.

“Tight,” Oswald said and the camera zoomed in again. “Tighter!” We watched as the screen showed the ball creeping up to the edge of the hole, stopping there momentarily, and finally dropping in. There weren’t a lot of people in attendance on a Wednesday, but the ones who were there cheered lustily anyway.

“Replay?” Oswald said.

“Got it,” one of the assistants on the side of the room called out.

“Cue it,” Oswald ordered. “And run replay.”

Kelsey said something about how well Sommers was putting and that this effort demonstrated how his touch was still there.

While we watched the putt again, Oswald was looking ahead for the next shot. He quickly scanned the banks of monitors, found a player ready to make a shot, and had both camera and announcer ready for his segue.

Just in the first ten minutes, I found myself impressed with how seamlessly Oswald was able to move around the golf course, finding the next player and the next shot. Almost every one of the thirty or so monitors, each connected to a camera, showed a player either getting ready to hit a shot, hitting a shot, or reacting to a shot he had just made. Oswald was able to find, amid all those images and events, a narrative story line that progressed from one to the next without interruption. It was quite a performance. Ben Oswald was in his element, the Svengali making the story happen right before our eyes.

For the next hour, I watched in amazement as Ben Oswald choreographed the cameras and announcers and replay tapes almost perfectly to show the golfers playing their way around the course. Four or five times, when one of the production assistants in the back of the room signaled, he announced commercials, and one of the announcers would say “We’ll be back to Plantation Pines right after this message.”

It all looked quite effortless and easy, but I knew it wasn’t. But this was why IBS paid the Assassin whatever he wanted. I couldn’t see any mistakes. But when the hour was over and rehearsal was called, Oswald threw a pencil across the room at one of the assistant directors, a young woman on one of the replay controls.

“You fuckin’ missed that putt,” he muttered. “It looked to me like Barnaby rushed that putt, left the face open. But you missed it. Left poor Fairfield with his thumb up his ass trying to describe it. Television is a goddam visual medium, you idiot.”

“Sorry, Ben” she said, turning a little red.

“Yeah, you are sorry,” he snapped. “Get the fuck with it or get the fuck out.”

The woman turned red but said nothing. I figured everyone who worked for Ben Oswald must be on some kind of chemical assistance, or he would have been murdered years ago.

At the end of the rehearsal, Oswald stalked out of the trailer. Arnie Wasserman stepped forward. “Good job everyone,” he said. “Let’s make sure we do it just as good tomorrow. Two o’clock call. We’re on-air at three-thirty. See ya then.”

Nobody answered. There was no collective ‘yeah, aww-right’ response from the team. They all kept their heads down, finishing up with whatever buttons they had to push.

Had I still been a golf writer with a newspaper column and a readership, I would have written something about how Ben Oswald was the kind of leader who inspired an ‘esprit de corpse’ from his team. That made me smile. Then I realized the only audience I had who I could share my wordsmithing brilliance with was my wife, Mary Jane. That made me sigh.