Denis Pugh

What goes on behind the scenes at Sky to bring you 100s of hours of live golf

Whenever I watch golf live on Sky Sports at home, I’m always amazed at how slick the production looks, especially as I’m privileged to know exactly what goes on behind the camera. Let me spill the beans on what a typical night is like in the studio.

I am contracted to do the evening punditry shifts, so I’m always stationed at Sky Sports HQ in Isleworth to cover one of a number of events on the PGA Tour. I always try to arrive 90 minutes before the on-air time and immediately make a beeline for the producer. He is responsible for putting the whole show together, so it’s his job to plan for every eventuality. Once all the pleasantries are out of the way, he will issue everyone with a rough script and then leave us to our own devices while he studies about 30 different TV screens.

I usually take the stats pack and player profile sheets into the make-up room, in the hope that I return to the studio all-knowing and wrinkle free.

Twenty minutes before we go live, the audio technicians will mic us up and the floor manager will make all the necessary sound checks. By this point, we should be able to hear the director barking instructions in our earpiece. Usually, they will want to rehearse “the top of the show” and anything that we know is going to happen. Three cameramen will then get into position to cover all angles; one even squeezes into a little cubby hole behind the sofa set when I’m operating the shot centre.

Once all the preparation is done, I’ll be asked to put my phone on silent, albeit the chances are I’ll still be tweeting away furiously. Once on air, we are encouraged not to tweet ourselves, but that doesn’t stop me from scouring social media for news, especially if there’s a rain delay. Unless you’ve got a man on the ground, we often rely on player tweets to give us a clue as to when the action will resume.

What makes our lives even more difficult is that we are totally reliant on the host broadcaster and their relationship with The Golf Channel. As such, sometimes there is a 30 minute lull during the middle of the show that is filled with studio analysis and demonstrations. Once the live action resumes, I will wait patiently for my moment in front of the camera.

When I first started as a pundit two decades ago, any props were limited to a notepad and pen and some kind of plastic training aid. Thankfully, those days are long gone and I’ve now got access to some pretty nifty gadgets and gizmos. The best tool by far is the shot centre, which enables me to analyse a swing sequence in super slow motion. It’s easily the most enjoyable yet pressurising segment I am involved in, and usually I am thrust into the spotlight with just a few minutes of preparation time.

To make matters worse, the ipad is notoriously unreliable in my less-than-capable hands and is susceptible to locking up mid-analysis. Thankfully, we have a tech team on standby who spring into action once they hear the code word for “no ipad control”. A few clicks on the VT machine and the device will often burst into action, saving my bacon and an ear lashing from the director.

Real-time analysis is a fundamental part of what we do at Sky because most of our viewers are golfers who are looking to pick up tips. Unfortunately, we do not have the technology in place to illustrate exactly where the ball was struck on the clubface. That’s why I’m tasked with breaking down the intricacies of a Tour player’s swing and to highlight the positives and negatives to an untrained eye. Some viewers may mistake this as advice, but my analysis is mostly restricted to showcasing what someone is doing, not what you should do. By the time we wrap things up, it’s normally approaching midnight but the watershed rules still apply for us. Swearing is a big no-no, and we are often issued with regular updates on what we can and can’t say. But even with the best of intentions, the wrong words can slip out. In the early 90s, my TV career was almost brought to an abrupt end when I closed a show moments after Nick Faldo had holed a putt on the final green and kissed his caddy Fanny Sunesson. Without any malice, I uttered the words: “A birdie for Faldo, and a kiss for Fanny... the perfect end to the day”. It was anything but for me, which is probably why I’ve remained on the late shift ever since!

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