Last week, the NMI headed to Jacksonville, FL, to visit the PGA Tour Studios and Headquarters. PGA Tour’s mission is to support and showcase professional golf tournaments – and produce the multimedia content that brings the sport to audiences across the globe. Our students got a behind-the-scenes look at how the PGA Tour uses innovative tools and systems to produce thousands of hours of content for broadcast, social, web, print, and more every week.
We teed off the visit exploring the PGA Tour Studios, which is responsible for capturing each moment of a golf tournament as well as producing content for social and streaming platforms. Thursday through Sunday on tournament weekends, an army of videographers and photographers are filming every stroke. We had the good luck to be visiting during a tournament, so we got a peek at how the producers package all that raw footage into a compelling narrative for viewers. And, with 8 built-out studios onsite, commentators and analysts can go live on a moment’s notice and film regular shows for PGA Tour platforms.
Over lunch, we chatted with members of the Tour’s digital media team before meeting with a larger panel who represented roles that included project managers, web and app developers, product managers, and a lead UX/UI designer. Through a series of quick presentations and a Q&A, our students gained first-hand exposure to the development life cycle, tools, and applications employed by a large-scale organization.
After our visit with the PGA Tour, we made our way to St. Augustine to enjoy the sunshine before heading back to Athens. We explored the historic city via trolley, enjoying local seafood, lore, centuries-old architecture, and even hung out with peacocks. This site visit was (dare we say it) a hole in one!