White Eagle Golf Club provides live streaming at the Illinois PGA Tournament

The White Eagle Golf Club in Naperville, IL was proud to host the 71st IL PGA Open in August 2020. The course was originally designed by Arnold Palmer and encompasses three nine hole courses over 163 acres. For 2020 it was decided to expand the audience experience by offering real time streams from the course itself to be available not just at the club house but on the course itself. With a firm date and plenty of time to prepare normally connecting the cameras at each hole was not a problem.

The event was thrown a curveball when COVID-19 hit, necessitating that the tournament be rescheduled. Unfortunately, this new date was being driven by the pandemic, and hence it was impossible to predict exactly when. The challenge was to be able to move rapidly and connect the cameras with little advance notification. The cameras being used were high quality high definition, and streaming the content in real time meant the network solution had to support gigabits capacity and have reliable, low latency.

As this was a championship level PGA event, the esthetic beauty of the course had to be maintained. It was not ideal to have cables scattered throughout the fairways, interrupting the field of view for all participants. The result needed to allow for both the safety of all attendees, employees, and participants, while still creating an entertainment experience unlike any other that has been done before.