Birdies, bogies and bytes

The European Golf Tour, which stops off at Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Doha on its travels, would be firmly plugged in the proverbial bunker if it wasn't for the mountain of technology behind the scenes. We tee off with Mark Lichtenhein, CIO and Director of Broadcasting and New Media, to hear more about the complexities of this globe trotting organisation.

Although golf is sometimes described by its detractors and those who have suffered the ignominy of a bogey-riddled round of 18 holes as the best way to spoil a good walk, it is now a multibillion-dollar industry. Its top stars travel the world, have money-spinning sponsorship deals and battle it out for purses worth millions of dollars. Even despite his recent annus horribilis and subsequent loss of lucrative sponsorship deals, Tiger Woods is still sport's first billionaire. And although it's always been portrayed as an elitist sport, increasing numbers are getting into the game, particularly in the developing world, as professional golf tours expand into new territories.  

With golf garnering so much attention nowadays, you could argue that Mark Lichtenhein has landed one of the plum IT jobs in Europe. Last year, the tour stopped off at 36 countries and staged 100 tournaments as far afield as Dubai and Kazakhstan. The IT and broadcasting infrastructure that has to be set up  at each tournament - often a greenfield site in the middle of nowhere - is mammoth, including over 80 kilometres of television cabling. When the golf finishes, it's all taken down and the Tour jets off to the next location to begin the whole process over again. "You couldn't do this job if you didn't enjoy golf because it's not a nine-to-five job and can be fairly all-consuming as I'm sure my wife will testify," says Lichtenhein. He never leaves home without his clubs, though. "My handicap is nine, which just about puts me on the board of respectability in this organisation," he reveals modestly. "I'm not a great golfer, but I enjoy it."

Lichtenhein, a software engineer by education, joined the Tour in 1999 after having been a founding force behind Silicon Valley start-up GolfWeb in the mid-nineties, the first ever website dedicated to golf. In the past 10 years he has been instrumental in the evolution of europeantour.com and rolling out new technologies for on-site IT infrastructure. As with most sports, the Tour's information systems and technology have to be ready on time for the first player to tee off; delaying the start of a golf tournament because of IT snags is not an option. "The events don't stop when the network goes down, so it's not a question of when you're ready but how ready are you when the event starts," he explains.

Unlike the US PGA Tour that has to deal with one country, one language and one culture, the challenge of the European Tour can leave Lichtenhein feeling like he's landed in the rough. "Last year, we were in 36 different countries which means it is very challenging dealing with 36 suppliers for telecoms, broadband or whatever we need on site. This is why we try to control our own destiny and bring as complete a solution to site as possible - we can't rely on a local telco trying to work out why the DSL [digital subscriber line] doesn't work or why they can't give us symmetric connectivity." The Tour is self-sufficient with its own VoIP (reducing the need for temporary lines, and  Tour staff have the same number the world over), Wi-Fi and super-fast satellite broadband just in case there is a glitch with the local telco's internet supply.

Most of the golf courses the Tour turns up at don't have a permanent infrastructure but Lichtenhein seems to relish the challenge of unearthing solutions to ensure each tournament runs smoothly. The varying locations and cultures all add to a unique mix. "It means we have to have a lot of innovation and different ways of thinking depending on where we are. It's compounded by the fact that we're not only in a different country, but we're in a green field often in the middle of nowhere, which doesn't even necessarily have good mobile signals or mobile access." He continues: "Some courses, however, are well served, particularly those that have infrastructure like hotels on site, but we go to some fairly remote courses that are very beautiful but not necessarily known to the local telcos."

Indeed, that's the nature of where golf courses are situated, sometimes at a windswept outpost miles from any town. The course itself can be spread over 30-square kilometres, which adds to the expense of installing temporary networks. "The countries that we think might be more challenging tend to surprise us by being rather good," Lichtenhein explains. "We go to South Korea and it's fantastic because they probably have the best broadband on the planet. We went to India and hats off to our Indian partners because we had great connectivity. However, it's closer to home where we seem to have more difficulties: Scotland is not very densely populated and it has some remote courses so we've certainly struggled over the years out there but generally things are improving as broadband availability improves with every country upgrading its networks. Compared to 10 years ago it's night and day but the demands on the network are 20 times higher than they were."

Data manager

As in most sports, information is king for the spectators gathered at the course and television viewers watching at home. Wi-Fi networks now relay scores to the leader board and other data back to the IT hub, which is regurgitated to the public and media. The Tour was one of the first sports to pioneer the use of wireless technology for its scoring and today Wi-Fi is ingrained in everything that goes on behind the scenes. "Wireless technology in all its manifestations is really key for us," says Lichtenhein, "especially because we are working over a wide area. We put down 80 kilometres of cable a week for television, so we don't even have to compound that by putting out huge data networks as well by cable." He adds: "We are so mobile and here today, gone tomorrow, that you don't want to put in permanent infrastructure for one week of the year, even when you're coming back to the same course another time. We look for technologies that help our efficiency and reduce the overhead of setting things up and the costs associated with it."

Out on the course, an army of volunteers carry handheld devices to collect stats as the tournament unfolds, while GPS is used for calculating ball positioning, distance to the hole, ball speed and more. The scoring and stats are delivered to a worldwide audience, whether they're embedded in television pictures, stand alone data on a website, syndicated to third parties or provided to the press. "Data is very much our product," Lichtenhein states. Indeed, the thirst for information is hard to quench; golf followers want as many stats as Lichtenhein can provide. "There is an insatiable demand or appetite for information because our audience wants to know every last detail of everything that's happening on the golf course. There's an awful lot of data out there so it's just a question of capturing it all." This is where Lichtenhein thrives. "My role is very much to look after all those digital assets and to ensure that they're produced in the most timely and cost efficient manner and distributed to all their respective destinations as quickly as possible because we're living in a real-time world where the value of the data decreases dramatically with every second that passes afterwards."

Following what's happening on course can be a difficult proposition for spectators, whereas on television you have the commentary, close up action of all the shots and a plethora of stats and graphics. To redress the balance the Tour is working closely with Canada-based Kangaroo TV to stream live footage of the action and data feeds to a handheld device that users carry with them around the course. The Tour predicts that in the near future this same footage will be available to spectators on their smartphones. "Unlike a stadium sport where you've got action replays and you know exactly what's going on, it's much more difficult on a golf course with 18 holes," Lichtenhein acknowledges. "And on television you know instantly who is leading; as a spectator walking around the golf course you don't. So this is the kind of thing we are working on to improve customer experience."

But any technologies Lichtenhein rolls out usually come with a hefty price tag, especially given the open environment of tournaments and the globetrotting nature of the Tour. "It's a huge cost because all of this is temporary infrastructure," he explains. "It's not like erecting a giant screen at Lord's Cricket Ground and then leaving it there for the year - you're picking it up and taking it somewhere else, so it's got to be durable, transportable and cost effective."

As well as being CIO, Lichtenhein is charged with the broadcasting side of the operation, being Co-Managing Director of European Tour Productions - a joint venture with IMG Media - which produces almost all of the Tour's telecasts on behalf of the broadcasters worldwide. A specialist live golf team has now produced more than 400 European Tour events while each week 20 hours programming is delivered to over 30 customers worldwide. Around 220 people are on site every week for the broadcasts.

"We produce all the pictures that you see on television stations around the world, be it Sky in the UK, Sky Deutschland or the Golf Channel in the US, so we bring a lot of infrastructure with us and are dependent upon technology. The Tour broadcasts the action in high definition to viewers at home and IPTV HD footage locally to hospitality and the clubhouse. The Tour uses the services of a company called Creative Technology to deliver the pictures to plasma screens around the course.

Eyes on the prize

The 'big one' for Lichtenhein is the 2010 Ryder Cup at The Celtic Manor Resort in South Wales in October. Europe's top players versus the best the United States can muster in a match that takes place biennially. It's one of sports most prestigious events and is expected to draw 200,000 golf fans and 1000 journalists to the nearby city of Newport and a global television audience of tens of millions. Lichtenhein has been making preparations for the competition for the past four years. "It's the biggest golf event on the planet - much bigger than any of the Majors." Lichtenhein stresses that four years is a short time in terms of planning an event like the Ryder Cup but that technology can evolve dramatically in this time. Indeed, making tech decisions back in 2006 was a tricky proposition. "For instance, we are putting in 100MB symmetric connectivity but it's situated in a valley. There are a couple of PSTNs [Public Switched Telephone Networks] if we can find them so we are having to put in a lot of fibre from the local exchange. We are looking at some fairly sizable costs to run all this for a week but it's an event that's going to be under the world's gaze."

Preparations were ramped up in October of last year as the IT and broadcast teams nailed down what they needed. By this April, a team was assigned to concentrate solely on the Ryder Cup and system testing began. The Tour will also be relying on outsourcing partners to make it all happen. HP, for example, will provide a unified wired and wireless network infrastructure to ensure fast, secure internet access to every corner of the complex, including the tented village, hospitality pavilions, business centre, media centre and the ream rooms of both Europe and the United States.

Lichtenhein says any solutions he implements have to be tried and tested; the Ryder Cup is too important to be wrestling with unproven technology just before it starts. "We are very innovative but we would never use something that hadn't been fully tested, particularly for the Ryder Cup. So if somebody came along and said they had this great solution for the Ryder Cup I would think that's fine but let's have it out on a European Tour event a year ahead so that we can see it in action, we can use it and by the time we get to the Ryder Cup we haven't got any surprises." This cautiousness is important but Lichtenhein is quick to reiterate that the Tour is innovative. "We are constantly innovating. One of the great assets we have is our high public profile which has meant we are fortunate enough to capture the imagination of a lot of technology companies who come to us with solutions that they think would work for golf. Some of them do and some of them don't, so I think we're well placed in terms of understanding what's going on and events like the Ryder Cup only helps to reinforce that."

The overall goal for all this technology is to improve the user experience, he says. "We are always asking ourselves how we can improve things, deliver a better experience for our television viewers, website visitors and spectators but it has to be cost effective and build the business going forward." Looking into his crystal ball, Lichtenhein doesn't foresee a ground-breaking technology development but rather ways of better using the technologies currently available. "I don't think we're going to have a paradigm change in the way that the internet changed things 10 or 15 years ago when it went mainstream. However, I do think we're in much more of a consolidation phase about how best to use these technologies, and things like, VoIP are very important to us." As he converses you notice that Lichtenhein seems to be always naturally smiling; he really does seem to still relish this role. Working in a sport that you love is a dream combination that most of us never get to experience.