Communication Breakdown!

A touch obscure tonight but the title comes from a track on Led Zeppelin's 1969 debut album.  They used it to either open their live shows or as an encore and it became an anthem for the frustrated youth of the day.  Was I really one of those frustrated youths?

Anyway, I don't really know where to start today's blog although I will preface it by saying that I have enjoyed the day probably more than any other in my short marshalling career, despite it providing a baptism of fire.

Today was the start of the DP World Tour Championship proper and I am not afraid to admit that I was slightly nervous about my new responsibilities as a TV Scorer. Why you might ask?  Well today and every day from now, the Scorer's role is about communication from the course to the control centre of the European PGA.

Every scorer is equipped with two methods of communication and it is only now, as an avid watcher of golf tournaments on the TV, that I realise what goes on behind the scenes. The first item is a machine utilised to record the individual score of the golfers.  Now this is extremely important because after every hole has been played there is a process whereby you enter these scores and ultimately press a send button that not only sends said scores to the control centre on the course, it also sends them instantly to every interested party around the world including the American PGA!!  Once that button has been pressed the score you have recorded appears on every big screen around the course and every big screen where the action might be being watched worldwide!  It cannot be retrieved without a great deal of effort by someone much more senior than a humble TV scorer.  So it is rather important.  Of course to relay this information, you need a wireless network around the course and here on the Earth Course, that requires you to enter them by the side of every green.

All was going well today and confidence was starting to build until the dreaded radio communication came out, "the network is down at holes 10, 11 and 12!"  At that point they didn't know it was also down at 13 but as first scorer on the course it quickly became clear that they had a problem there as well.  Of course, that was where the second piece of equipment, the two way radio transmitter, came into play as I found myself not only concentrating intensely to record every shot but then having to radio this information to central control.  Men are simple beings, able to handle only one thing at a time but here I was trying to multi-task, a thing that the female of the species handle with ease.

Actually, I was quite proud of myself as my radio communications improved by the minute - credit for which I must give to my pilot daughter Sarah.  I think she would have been dead chuffed to hear her dad's calm, clear and crisp delivery of "affirm" to the control centre.

Unfortunately, the crisis hadn't quite ended as coming off the 13th green, my scoring machine froze, just like a Windows computer!! You couldn't make it up and I ended up being talked through a reboot process by somebody in a faraway place.  And yet despite all this, it was a brilliant experience and has given me an enormous confidence boost for tomorrow.  If I could handle all that today on my Scorer's debut, bring on any problems you want tomorrow.

For the record, my charges today didn't play the greatest of golf with Matteo Manassero and Matthew Baldwin both recording identical three over par scores.

Usual photos attached including one of the now infamous scoring machine!

I could write so much more about this experience but in the words of the semi proficient radio operator that I now consider myself to be, OUT.