PGA Tour internship: first impressions

I've been putting in hours for my PGA Tour internship for a little over one week now. Most of my time has been split between orientations and trying to stay out of the way while I learn my way around here. The rest of the time I'm parked at a keyboard logging tournament tapes or interviews and press conferences. It's not glamorous work by any means, but I have learned everybody around here shares in the duty or has been promoted from logging tape.

Last Monday, after four days of orientation, I started at PGA Tour Productions. These are the guys, and gals, that throw together footage for Inside the PGA Tour, various other TV spots, promotions, recaps and working with anything video that relates to golf. One thing I'm thankful for is that my duties at Productions aren't meaningless and I actually am trusted to get work done on my own, rather than being baby-sat all day.

I work with a graduate student who has spent ten years in the TV production business, Sangwoo Kim. Sangwoo comes from Korea where he worked with broadcasting live sports. My supervisor, Rick Persons, was out of the office for the first four days of my work week. He arrived in Florida with just enough time to make it to employee golf at TPC Sawgrass last Thursday. Eventually Rick will assign Sangwoo and me to different production teams around the building to expose us to everything that goes on around here in depth.

Even though I have yet to take the full brunt of any production responsibility outside of logging or watching an edit session, I have taken note of ways to make things run smoother around KUJH-TV next year, as well as ways to make Sports Talk a little more interesting. It didn't take long for me to pick up on everyone's sense of purpose around the office. People around here work together so well it is no surprise that things come together the way the do.

Well, it's time for me to head back downstairs to "Edit 3" for the voicing of Inside the PGA Tour. They haven't let me push the buttons yet, but I'm hopeful I'll be in the hot-seat before too long.