“One bad
comment is all it takes to ruin a good reputation”
Jim McKenzie, Director of Golf Courses and Estate Management, Celtic Manor Resort. Right, the 18th and clubhouse on the Twenty Ten course
camera towers. On the Monday and Tuesday of that week the cameras and production teams start to appear to test positions for the best angles.
And it’s now that groundstaff begin to interact with production crews a little more intensively as the demands and timetables of the hosts and the media start to mesh.
“Cables positioned in the rough can cause us problems,” Jim admits. “We’ll want to cut the areas of long grass the weekend before the tournament starts but risk slicing through cables if we do.” The problem rose to a head at last year’s Wales Open when heavy rain followed by fierce sun prompted a two to three inch spurt of grass growth just before the event began. We had to cut
the grass to manageable heights but, with the best will in the world, there’s always the risk of
damaging a cable,” which is what happened. The TV guys were not best pleased. We had words,” Jim recalls, “but they
understood our position in having to carry out essential work and we understand that they have a big job to do too.”
The advent of heavier duty, more expensive high density cable a couple of years ago has brought this aspect of media management more sharply into focus, making it all the more important that mishaps such as this are avoided,
Jim stresses, before adding on a positive note: “The practice run at the Wales Open means that, when the media return for the Ryder Cup pre-tournament ‘reccy’, many of the teething troubles will have been sorted out already.” Nevertheless, the many kilometres of cabling, mostly following the ropes that cordon off spectators from the course, seem somewhat precariously exposed. In
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