Housed on the campus of Palm Beach State College in Palm Beach Gardens, FL, SoFi Center is the home of TGL, a team golf competition that features PGA Tour players and begins the playoffs for its inaugural three-month season tonight. The 1,500-seat venue, built specifically for the league, combines professional golf with high-end simulation technology, a rotating putting area with seven different hole placements, Pro AV and broadcast gear aplenty, and—in direct contrast to PGA Tour events—air conditioning.
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The league is backed by TMRW Sports, a company founded by pro golfers Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy along with former NBC Sports executive Mike McCarley. Each match takes about two hours. That makes it an attractive programming block for ESPN, which has a multi-year deal to air all matches. The network has its own dedicated broadcast booth on the suite level of the venue, with the field of play serving as the backdrop.
Check the Rules
A quick primer: TGL presented by SoFi has six teams representing six cities. Each team has a roster of four golfers, though only three play during a match. There are 15 holes, with the first nine played as triples (alternate shot) and the last six played as singles.
TGL's field of play is almost as large as a football field. On one side of the stadium, the ScreenZone, there are tee boxes (with real grass) where golfers hit a real ball into a 64x53-foot projection screen. (TGL currently has a catalog of 30 custom holes, and 15 are chosen for each match.) Using several dedicated tracking cameras and other data-collecting technologies, the simulator determines where the ball lands on the virtual course.
From there, golfers move to another box (fairway, rough, or sand) and continue to hit into the screen until the ball lands in the virtual area for short-game play, about 50 yards in. Then, golfers move to the other side of the stadium, the GreenZone, where they putt, pitch, or wedge their ball in the real world. Win the hole and get a point; the team with the most points at the end wins the match.
A Different Atmosphere
Unlike traditional golf tournaments, you won't find "Quiet Please" signs at TGL. Crowds are encouraged to cheer their favorite players, a DJ plays music throughout the match, and lighting and sound effects create an atmosphere that's a far cry from Augusta.
For Andrew Macaulay, chief technology officer for TMRW Sports, that atmosphere helps define the TGL experience. He said the biggest challenge was creating a super-sized environment for the ScreenZone, which he called a “window to the outside world.” After all, this isn't just a match, it's a production.
To that end, Samsung displays play a big role in the live TGL presentation. Visitors are welcomed to the SoFi Center’s main entrance by a nearly 600-square-foot XRB Series outdoor LED video wall, which features 5,000 nit brightness and 3.99mm pixel pitch. ISC Series indoor LED ribbon boards, measuring almost 900 linear feet and offering 3.9mm pixel pitch with 2,000 nit brightness, surround the field of play, providing match information and sponsorship opportunities. Bookending the gameplay projection screen are two massive VMR Series 3.9mm indoor displays, which display scoring, statistics, team branding, and more. Smaller VMR Series 2.6mm displays above the audience provide additional coverage of gameplay.
Meanwhile, a collection of L-Acoustics loudspeakers fill the SoFi Center with sounds of the game, including shot clock warning noises, commentators, and music. The speakers were installed by Tampa, FL-based ESI Production Services. According to Matt Coombs, director of ESI AV Solutions, a division of ESI Production Services, there are 34 A15i Focus concert loudspeakers and 14 KS21 compact subwoofers overhead, plus 44 5XT ultra-compact loudspeakers for under mezzanine fills, all powered by LA7.16i amplifiers. A DiGiCo Quantum 225 digital mixing console handles in-house audio operations, with Luminex GigiaCore AV Ethernet switches for audio transport and communications.
Camera Angles and Data Analysis
While TMRW produces the matches with an in-house production team, it contracts Game Creek Video to supply five full-sized trucks to produce the live coverage and ESPN provides the talent. Jeff Neubarth, vice president of content, said there are 72 cameras in the SoFi Center, most of which are robotic. However, there are several Sony 4K broadcast cameras equipped with Canon UHD-Digisuper lenses and some ENG-style units, plus a Spidercam cable camera system for overhead coverage, a “rover cam” that provides moving camera images for viewers, and even a small drone for flying shots. As Neubarth explained, each moving camera has a two-person team that includes a driver and camera operator.
The screen image itself is produced by nine Panasonic projectors, and the simulation system has eight virtual cameras that can be incorporated into the broadcast and shown on the screen. Data that measures ball speed, angle, spin, and other shot metrics is collected in real time via special tracking cameras.
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To handle all that tracking data, TMRW needed its own on-site data center. As Macaulay explained, the company purchased an old Game Creek expando truck that was at its end of life, drove it into the facility, parked it several yards inside the SoFi Center behind the ScreenZone, and converted it into a data center.
