120 Feet Above the Green: John “Bo” Boeddeker’s Golf Office View

#ThePlayers #BayHill #TheUSOpen #pgatour  What's it like when your office view is 120' above the golf tournament? Meet the guy who had the best office window in golf!

On this episode of the ZoomPod, Professional Golf Cameraman John Boeddeker takes us high above the golf course, where it's quiet and peaceful, and the view is spectacular!

We're playing through during golf month in April! https://www.youtube.com/@zoomwithourfeet/

Listen and Subscribe: https://zoomwithourfeetpodcast.buzzsprout.com
-----
My photo work: https://www.facebook.com/zoomwithourfeet
https://www.instagram.com/tvcommandomedia
-----
Check out John's exquisite coffee table book, My Office Window, at:
https://myofficewindow.com/home A great gift for the golf fan in your life!

EXPLORE MORE:

Check out our other great ZWOF podcast Episodes!

Grab my new Mastering Composition eBook!

Link and follow for more great #learnphotography content:

IG: @tvcommandomedia | FB @ZoomWithOurFeet 

Transcript

TMac 0:11

Hello and welcome to another edition of the Zoom with our feet podcast, the pod about learning creative production. With me, your host, T Mack, a professional photographer, videographer, and teacher. Our golf series continues on the Zoom Pod. Buckle Up. We're going up, up, and away to the best camera office window in golf and meet the guy who used to work there. On this episode of the Zoom Pod, cameraman John Bodecker joins me to talk about his years flying 90 feet over the course and providing one of golf's most unique shots. Let's talk to a pro. John Bodek, welcome to the Zoom with our feet podcast. How are you?

SPEAKER_00 1:11

I'm doing great, Timmy. How are you?

TMac 1:14

I am very well. Great to see you, brother.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Yeah, I miss you, man.

TMac 1:20

So let's go back to the beginning. How did your how did the journey in broadcasting start?

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Oh man. Gonna go way back now. You're gonna challenge this old man's brain. Um, well, broadcasting was always in my blood. I I gravitated to it when I was in high school, used to hang out at the radio station, um, made some great contacts there, got into radio, worked my way up in radio. This is in Santa Barbara back in 72, probably, and uh actually went to work at the station. Uh started as a as a um uh news roving news reporter, news cruiser 19, and I'd go out in Santa Barbara and drive around and do traffic reports of all things, and uh I would do that for the whole week. I'd get up every morning at 6 a.m., drive around, and I got one car wash a week because I was sponsored by educated car wash in Santa Barbara, and that's what I was paid, and that's when I started thinking maybe this isn't the industry to get into, but did work my way into a into a uh an actual DJ DJ position at one point. Not sure if I ever even shared that with you when we worked together in the old days. Uh yeah, worked at uh KIST in Santa Barbara for a couple of years and uh and then ventured out, decided to go back to school, wound up at San Diego State, went to work for Mission Cable TV down here, which was a local origination channel. Um, worked there for a few years, and then uh doing handheld on San Diego State football games because it was a local origination, very small production, four-camera shoot, um two 50-yard line, uh, one end zone, and a handheld. And I was the handheld, did that for a few years. And then I remember I got a call from this buddy of mine who said, Hey, uh, would you be interested in in traveling and doing some sporting events? Uh, there's this new company that's kind of building up and they're trying to store some video. And I went, Yeah, sure. And so, next thing you know, I'm doing a football game in Boulder, Colorado, and I'm doing a on-camera handheld on the field, and I pull off the snow capped mountains, the announcer standing there, and he goes, Yes, we'd like to welcome you to our first ever uh live football game. Actually, it was tape delayed, but it was a football game from Boulder, Colorado. Um, we're gonna be bringing you 24-hour days, seven days a week sports here on ESPN. And I went, This is the dumbest idea I've ever heard. But uh I figured, hell, I'll jump on this wave and ride it as long as I can until they run out of money, which they usually did. Well, as we all know, that didn't happen, and it's ESPN's become quite the juggernaut, so that was sort of the the catapult into uh television podcast for me, from radio and then into uh sports and then uh network sports.

TMac 4:33

ESPN. That's so like and who was the talent? Do you remember?

SPEAKER_00 4:39

Oh man, I I I want to say it was Jerry Gross. Um that's at least how I remember it. Uh, because I was doing a lot of stuff with Jerry Gross back then. And ESPN was, they were just banking all kinds of we were doing Roman Greco wrestling, we were doing nine ball billiards. Um, I remember we went to Lake Placid and did ski jumping, all this really obscure sporting events because they just needed programming other than the college football stuff, which was really the brainchild of the whole idea, was to bring uh football or actually college sports to the northeast. And then it just they got their transponder and realized, my God, we can we can go worldwide with the with the satellite cut uh transponder.

TMac 5:27

So where did the golf come into the picture?

SPEAKER_00 5:34

Well, once I started working for ESB and pretty regularly, and they started growing and growing in size and getting more uh uh recognizable sports or a little more mainstream, I got really wrapped up into the racing and I did a lot of racing with them, a lot of indie car back in the early days. And I really liked those shows because they were uh, as you know, the the longer the show, the more money you make. So if it's a big event and you're running a lot of cable, you got to be there, you know, four or five days ahead of time. And then if there's multiple days, like they have uh qualifying and they had you know, so you're running a lot of cable, you do three, four days setting up the cable and building all the scaffolding or building the cameras on the scaffoldings, and then you're shooting for several days, um, and then you tear it all down on Monday. And I thought, but this is really great because I'm working all these days, I can go from show to show to show, make a lot of money because it was all about making money. And I thought this is where I want to go. Drawback, super loud, super loud, and um didn't really think much of it, but I got offered by TWI, Trans World International, a um Bill Lacey, you you know Bill Lacey, uh, called me one time and he says, Hey, we we're doing this golf tournament in Hawaii. Uh, it's the um Coppaloo uh World World Something Coppaloo back in the old heck was the dates on those back in the January in January, right? Actually, I think it was near Christmas, I think it was late year, November, December. Did my first golf tournament with him and went, oh man, this is all those days, big setup, all the days that you're on the air, but quiet and resort communities. You're in a park-like setting, not that yin yin yin going on. Um nice hotels, never work past dark. So if it gets dark, you you gotta go back to the hotel, they'll finish it tomorrow. All those things that I never really even took into consideration when I was thinking about changing. I worked that term and I went, oh, this sport's for me. And then I really focused all my attention on that and kind of worked my way into ESPN and some of those NBC shows, and then it just kind of blossomed from there over the over the career.

TMac 7:57

And the and the West Coast is because of the weather is early in the season and a lot of events. So you were uh you were traveling a lot, but you didn't have to travel a lot, I bet, for the you know, tournaments on the West Coast.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

Yeah, yeah. It was uh it was really nice. You know, really golf goes where the weather's nice. And when you worked golf too, when we worked side by side doing the Florida swing for six straight, whatever it was, weeks together, um, in the good old days, as we call it. Um, yeah, I mean that the weather is gonna be nice for golf. That was another good plus. The weather was always good no matter where we went, because the tour follows. You can't play golf in crappy weather, so the weather is normally really pretty good. Um, and yeah, the more you work, the more you work. So you work the West Coast, and then next thing you know, oh okay, now I got a Florida swing too. Uh yeah, you could really burn out. And I remember we used to talk about that. We used to say, Don't look at because we're, you know, you're out for four or five weeks in a row. Don't look at how long you're out, don't look at how long you got to go, just take one day at a time and try to try to make yourself or someone laugh every day. And that's how we got through it.

TMac 9:18

It is, it is. I mean, it was you help a lot with that, by the way. It was it was oh if we can remember half of the ideas for stuff that we came up with sitting in golf carts, millions, I'm telling you, millions.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

TMac 9:38

So within golf, there's there's and I'm hoping to get into it more this month as as we do this series of of uh different uh jobs in golf, even within the camera department, let's say, there's different types. I never uh personally walked the fairways, and it's probably a good thing. But I spent much of my time up on towers or on those low cameras next to towers, or in NBC's case, uh the little wheelie truck, the rats. Uh uh, we nicknamed them the Rat Patrol uh for driving around and reconnecting at different spots. You followed a slightly different path. Tell me about your path in the camera world in golf.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Right. Well, I I I gravitated to the handheld position. I'm not exactly sure why. Um, it's a very dynamic position, it's very visual, super creative, lots of flexibility. Um, you're really when you're on a tripod, you're limited. You know, you can't move that tripod around. That thing weighs a ton. Um, different angles, you're kind of stuck with whatever the director, the angle that you have. The director wants that angle, you're kind of stuck with that. So he's thinking of a um a studio configuration camera, and he's seeing what that's gonna provide for him for that particular event. Exactly. Handheld, you're free, man. You can walk around, you can get different angles. You got to think about where the sun is, you're doing an interview. Uh, you do I well do I use the lens to zoom in tight? Do I walk in? Do I walk around? It's it's just it was so visual. And um, I remember one of the things I learned. Uh, it was I was doing Aztec football at the time for the local origination. I was doing handheld, and I was on the sidelines at Qualcomm Stadium. We were setting up to do the Aztec game, and NBC was going to be in the following day to do a charger game, and they were also setting up. And I met this guy named uh Corey Libel, who was working for NBC, you know Corey, um, one of the top handheld cameramen NBC ever in existence of NBC for handheld handheld sports. And uh he was on the sidelines and I was kind of just chewing the fat with him, and he had this weird little device. No, it wasn't the arm thing. This was it was like a a two-access, he got it at Home Depot. It was, I went and got one too. It was just a silly little, but what he did is he taped it to the bottom of his handheld camera to the to the locking mechanism that would normally go on the tripod, and he and he somehow fastened it to this, and it gave him the ability to put the camera actually on the ground, and he could still tilt and pan with it, and it but it gave him stability. But it was, you know, you've seen blades of grass in front of the camera. That's how low it was. And I thought, wow, that's a real good example as to going really thinking outside the box, really going low and creating this whole different look uh that no one had really ever seen before. And that's when I just thought, okay, that's I'm gonna do that too. You know, kind of stole the idea from Corey. Nobody else knew it that I and then I started using on the Aztec games.

TMac 13:16

You you liberated the idea. There, there's it was an homage. You didn't steal it.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

Yep, I completely liberated it. And I a little shout out to Corey for that because I thought that was an amazing idea.

TMac 13:29

In the photography world, uh, what some of the guys do, um, the lenses have a foot on the really long still photography lenses. They'll put a pistol grip because it's got the quarter 20, and they'll twist that on there, they set those on the ground, and that you know, getting low in photography is a uh sort of uh go-to uh type of look in photography. So you see guys shooting football, guys shooting soccer, land on their bellies in the center field position, right? Um, shooting in that slightly up angle, and they use a hand grip uh that would go like on a on a cage rig, and they screw it right up on their shoe on their big lens, and now they've got a uh a post, and like you say, they can tilt, they can pan, they can tilt, and they're off to the races. Yeah. But you have to walk in golf.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

Oh, yeah.

TMac 14:38

A lot.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

A lot of walking.

TMac 14:41

Um talk about talk about so you are explain the positioning. So there's a guy in a tower, there may be a guy on the ground, there may be some guy on this hokey little truck driving around, kind of the things that I do. Right. But this is essentially a reverse angle in golf. So on the tower ball going up, that's sort of the standard that everybody sees, or the faces, right? Everybody sees that kind of stuff. But but this, Mr. Bo, is almost a reverse shot, if I'm throwing out filmmaking terms. Talk about it from behind the golfer or just in front of it, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

Yeah, it's oh almost 90% of the handheld stuff is behind. You know, if you're out in the fairway, you're you're behind him. You know, to today they're using a lot more handheld configurations on tripods in the ferries to do catches. CBS does a lot of, they call them the minis. They take the minis out, they set them up in the fairways, and they'll do some catches from T-shots, following the ball off the T and then rolling it into the fairway. Um when we were at ABC and NBC, uh, didn't do a lot of it handheld at NBC, did more handheld at ABC when we did golf at ABC Sports back when ABC did golf. Um, we had the balloon for the RFs. So we were wireless handhelds, which allowed us to go basically anywhere on the course that we had line of sight to this inflatable helium-filled giant balloon that would literally lift up off the ground. We'd send up every morning, and it would have the uh the RF receivers underneath and all the handhelds. And there were four of us, we would go out and we could go anywhere on the course as long as we could see that balloon, we could send live audio and video to that. So we would literally hop in the carts, they had carts for us with 100 feet of cable, and we would drive down the fairways with the players. You know, the players would be walking, we'd race down and get down there and jump out of the cart. And if there was, if it was getting towards the end of the tournaments, sometimes they would double up the handhelds. So you would have one go down and he would get the side shot, and the other one would come up behind and get the reverse, as you called it. And the players, the interaction from the side shot, you'd get the the cut, the caddy and the the mic, get the mic right in there, and you get the sound of the caddy and the and the the player talking about what club they were going to use. And then he would step back once he pulls a club. The director would cut to the reverse. If I'm standing behind him, and I'd yeah, obviously, the optimum idea is to get a shot of him. And if you can see the flag or the pin on the green, that's that's what you want to try to get. Sometimes again, you get down really low of maybe if it's an elevated green and it's a good scenario where you can get the get down. Sometimes it's just you don't even see the player, you see just the ball in the green. Um, and and then you know, widen out before he hits so that you can get that shot. Uh, you'll see that a lot today, the reverse shot, a lot on tees, and they're using the graphics now showing the angle of the ball, which is really neat. I think that's a great, great uh addition to to golf. I think golf fans love it everywhere because you just you see it from behind, and then they'll cut to the camera that's actually tracking or following the ball as it rolls into the ferry or rolls up onto the green. But um, yeah, that's uh the the reverse shot and the handheld, that's um at golf. That was that was uh those are some fun days, you know, interacting with the players. You had a you had a real rapport because uh I remember in the beginning they didn't know who I was, they didn't know whether I was gonna be, you know, if I knew not to move in their backswing, not to talk, not to bother them, this and that. But as time went on and they start recognizing you, you do show it week after week, and they start recognizing you, and then it's like, oh yeah, you know, then you're talking, you're walking down the fairway. In the in the NBC days, we didn't have the cart, you just had the camera and you had a guy with the pointer, and he was walking with you. And so we would literally walk with the players down the fairway and really talk, just like you and I are talking right now, just you know, hey, what'd you do last night? You know, and some of it was quite funny, some of it I can't share here, but uh yeah, just some great memories, those really great memories and really great, uh, great players. Uh one I'll never forget was walking down the fairway um with Arnold Palmer. And uh we were just walking, and he was he was with his caddy, and he kept coming over closer to me and closer to me and closer to me. And he was kind of, and I was he was actually hurting me, you know, he was kind of moving me over to the side of the fairway, and he gets there to one point, he goes, watch out! And I look over, he was gonna walk me right into a back of another cart that was there, and he started laughing. He was just messing around. Um, but that was one of the one of the moments I had with uh with Arnold, which was a treat for me.

TMac 19:50

So you didn't walk the fairways, stalk the fairways your entire career. You are you are known for uh this other um type of of camera work uh that uh is visually off the charts. Um how but I'm interested because you were uh I don't remember you not doing it. So how did that uh start? How did you transition from um getting herded by Arnold Palmer to working a crane camera?

SPEAKER_00 20:32

Well, it um as I mentioned earlier, golf, as you know too, especially the U.S. opens, are extremely um physical. I mean, I you make two trips around 36 holes, following two groups, chasing them from you know fairway to fairway. You're pretty wiped out. And it got to a point where I just went, and it was after a U.S. Open, and I just went, I can't do this anymore. I am I I it just I'm maxed out. Bat can't take it anymore, the walking can't take it anymore. I had put a few pounds on, which probably didn't help. So uh I went to uh to Bucky Gunts, uh the director at NBC, and I asked him, I said, look, if there's any place else you can use me, I would greatly appreciate it. And he said, Well, you know, there is another spot that I could I could put you. Um not sure if you'd be comfortable with it or not, but um we have the Bay Hill Classic coming up next month. And if you'd be interested in operating on top of the Bay Hill Tower, uh, which was 11 sections, eight foot a section, no rails on the top, just a flat top with a monopod mounted in the middle of it, so I could actually 360 degree turn at that height, right at right on the uh golfers right off the 18th fairway at Bay Hill. I went, hey, you know, I'm up for whatever. If that's uh if that's a something I can evolve into, I'm all for it until I got up there. And I remember the first day going up and walking all the way to the top and getting like, here's the floor. And I'm standing on the steps. And we had those steps that go back and forth. It's not like I climbed up a ladder, you know. So the steps that get all the way up, and I'm kind of looking over at the at the pedestal and I'm thinking, oh, and I look at me. Don't, you know, they say don't look down, right? No, I didn't do that. I'm like, oh, this is not good. And literally I climbed over to the camera, latched into my had a full harness, latched into my harness, climbed up the monopod, stuck my face in that two-dimensional black and white world, and I stayed there. As long as I didn't take my head out of that black and white world, I could walk around, didn't have any problem. And then at the end of the day, I took my head out, shimmied down the down the side, crawled over the edge and went down and did that for five days, rehearsal in the four hair days. And on the last day I kissed the ground and I said, I am never gonna do that again. And a couple weeks later, I was up doing it again. And then the after that it became the crane. So then the crane kind of materialized, uh, which it was there were some shows they did, the Bahill Tower, which is what NBC had called any tower that was over, I think, eight sections or something, they call it. And so the Bahill Tower was on, it wasn't just for Bahill. If they had a Bahill Tower, it could have been at any tournament, it could have been at the Honda, it could have been at any one of their tournaments. But the high towers they call it the Bay Hill. They started transitioning over to the crane, which was way better because you don't have to climb anything, it's on the ground, cameras on the on the um bucket, and you climb into it, and the operator just sticks you 120 feet up in the air. Yeah, exactly. And uh, and I found that to be my world. Uh absolutely was drawn to that, loved it. Tiger was um still when I started doing that, tiger was still new in his career, and I could go up there, and I was never bothered by anybody saying, Hey, have you seen Tiger? Do you know when Tiger's coming? Where's Tiger? How's Tiger doing? It's a long way to go to ask that question, and nobody wanted to shibby up there to ask me that. So I I felt it uh there was a lot of peace and quiet up there for me. I enjoyed that.

TMac 24:37

How how did that feel? That was like you would you would go up, and then there's all this chaos going on, and then it's so funny. I I would hear you, um, you had these sort of scheduled, or or you would come on and say, Hey, uh, whoever was directing, when's a good time? Yeah, and you know, because they totally forget about you. Tell me about how it was once you were up and you were set and you were kind of in show mode, um nobody was banging on the side of your tower, nobody was uh even around.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

No, no, I was in my own world, you know. Like I said, 120 feet above uh they always put the crane on the signature holes, so I was always over the most beautiful holes. Um tournament play, so you have all the color of all the spectators, and these were big tournaments. My favorite was the players, they always positioned me in the back, uh, behind the 17th green at the players, the island green. Um, the players would always look up to the tower to see which way my flag was was flying, um, which is another story about the flag. I'm not sure if you want to go into that, but um I was gonna ask.

TMac 25:56

Keep going.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

Um, but it the the colors, the energy all being focused in that one area around 16 green, 17, and then the 18th T off to my right. Um, and you could feel the energy. I could feel the energy, you know, early in the day when I'm up there and there's just a smattering of early players coming through. But then as the day goes on, especially on the final round, you can feel that energy building and the crowds start to gather, and the and you just and the cheers when the ball would would you know go in the water, or the cheers when the ball would hit and roll up close to the gr up to the up to the pin, or you know, sometimes roll into the cup. And though those are times I will never forget when Freddie hit it into the cup. Oh, that was like the the the sound was amazing. And then obviously the the famous better than most um with Tiger hitting that 60-foot putt that went all over the place before it dropped in. I think that's the loudest and maybe the the most exciting moment I had ever experienced in my career of golf was when that ball went in. Um that was that was pretty tremendous, and it and it blew right up to me too. I mean, it just was uh it was overwhelming.

TMac 27:13

So let's uh uh since we're at the players, let's let's talk through that shot because uh I think what people don't realize, and and this is true for a lot of of cameras in golf, is they'll have multiple responsibilities. So that one camera position, as you said, was sort of central to 16 fairway, 16 green, 17T, 17 green, and then if you spin, you have 18 going away towards the 18th green. So you have a multitude, myriad of different shots that you could quite possibly could be responsible for. And if anybody goes in the in the wherever, um you are the sort of natural uh place that they looked for balls that had gone astray. Talk about um and and Bay Hill is sort of the same. It's that uh it's that T-shot. Um so so talk talk me through a T shot or a fairway U pick and what is your mindset? How are you positioning yourself? How is the um you know because at the apex, it's crazy speed. So talk me through uh you pick um uh and why that camera is where it is.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

Right. Well, let's let's go back to the players because that's probably the easiest one for me to to, and I think a lot of people watch that. So you folks out there possibly watching this, golf fans, you're gonna be very familiar with with the uh the players' championship. Um my primary responsibility as an NBC on the crane, in that position, my primary responsibility was T-shots at 16. That I was the only one that's gonna be able to see that. There were no other cameras assigned to that. So that was my number one responsibility. T-shots at 16. Uh, once the players were down in the fairway, um, then I could the the primary would be the green camera, but a lot of times they would come to me because they would be just short of even with me on the fairway where I was located, and then the ball would literally go by. And that's where uh Tommy Roy, the ex our producer, would say he coined the name for this, the speed shot. It's uh it's not like any other shot in golf. Most people, when you watch golf at home, the t-shot's coming at you, or sometimes you see the reverse follow, which they do at the players on the 18th green, they do that reverse follow. There's a camera set up behind, and it'll follow the ball going out into the fairway. Uh, in my particular case, I didn't follow it at me or away from me. I went with it as it went by me. And that was the speed shot. Now I know you're thinking, wow, how does he do that? First of all, you're high. So the real advantage, and I'm going to share this, and I don't normally share this with anybody because it's a lot easier than you think. Um, when you're on the ground and a ball gets hit, whether it's going to the green or it's going away from you or with you, whatever, that white ball against a light colored sky can be blue, or if it's cloudy, a white ball against a white sky, that's tough. But when you're up and the ball is coming under you, it's white against green or white against dark trees, or it's white. There's a very definite uh change. I mean, it sticks out way easier than it does in the sky. So that's a little bit easier. Granted, you have to speed down. So the speed is that's just you get used to the particular player, you get used to the shot, you go up, you're up there early in the day, you get a feel for that motion. You start here, and I literally would plant my angle and I'd be looking at the viewfinder so that I could turn the camera without having to walk around because up that high on the crane, when you try to walk around, it bounces. So you don't want to have that bouncing going on. So you want to try to, and I loosened the viewfinder and had my viewfinder shade, which we all have. You know, it's funny because I actually found this. Found the shade.

TMac 31:46

I I still have mine.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

Do you still have oh yeah? The shade extension with a little padding, and it literally allowed me to lock out all the all the light, basically, no light whatsoever. You know what I'm talking about. And I could move that viewfinder with swivel like that, and not and it would allow me to not have to walk with it. And so that kept the the ball smoothly going through the speed shot, and they carry it down onto the onto the green.

TMac 32:22

And there were quite a number, and I'm sure they found a place for it in a lot more uh tournaments. Um is there a speed shot like that at the Masters?

SPEAKER_00 32:37

There is not. Not that I'm aware of. In fact, for many years, they didn't allow the crane at the Masters because it, you know, vision visual is really important. The the spectacular of Augusta National is not to be messed with. You know, I mean its natural beauty is uh you don't want to you don't want to be repainting that paint, that painting, you know. Um, I think that they're I haven't been there in many years. Uh they may be open a little bit more to the idea. I'm not sure if they're if they're doing it yet, but I have yet to see uh a speech shot at the masters. I'm unaware of it. Um I think I would notice it if they did. Um, not saying that they're not doing it. I may have just missed it, but to be honest with you, I'd I'd be surprised if it's there if they're doing it. But um no, that that's uh not not that I'm aware of.

TMac 33:33

How many? Uh speaking of masters, it's April. How many, how many did you do? And where did you work?

SPEAKER_00 33:41

I did uh I think I probably did four or five of them early on. I I did them when when uh Frank Trickinian was the producer director. He did both positions back then. Amazing. I I I the hair comes up in my arm just thinking about how lucky I was to work with such a legend in golf uh and getting to know him and what a character he was. Um just an absolute wonderful human being. Uh I've never laughed so much to the point where I'm trying to follow golf and I'm laughing so hard that now the it's shaking because, and then he would always make a point of it, you know, stop laughing, you know, and cuss you out for for uh for uh laughing and or bouncing the camera. But um uh when he left, um it was just different for me. I really enjoyed working with him, and when he left, I I just didn't uh I didn't really enjoy the environment as much as I did before. And so that's when I left. So I think I was there about four or five years, but I I never went back after that.

TMac 34:52

So you're up on the crane, and you at what point did you say to yourself, man, I got some I got some pictures I can take from up here? How did how did that start? And we'll talk about where it where it went, but when did you get that? I would assume pretty quickly, you're like, whoa, look at it up here, and start taking uh, you know, still pictures.

SPEAKER_00 35:22

Right away. I mean, right away. I mean, it's once once can once phones started having cameras in them, there was it was just a natural for me. And it was just I'd take a picture and I'd post it on Facebook, you know, here I am here, here I am there, you know, and I was just sticking them in my Facebook page. Um, and I was working the um uh Phoenix Open, and one of the guys I was working with, who I didn't work with a lot, came up to me and he said, Hey, you know, I love those pictures you've been posting on Facebook. He says, Can you like compile those into one file on Facebook? Because I hate having to go through all your stuff to try to find another picture of it. And he goes, uh, I said, Well, yeah, I could probably do something like that. And he goes, you know, you you might want to think about maybe even putting a book together because those things are you know pretty nice. And I thought, yeah, yeah, well, whatever. And it was really ironic because it was coming up on the end of the season, and I got one of those uh flyers in the mail to do uh God, what was it? Was the name of the company that was doing it? They do a little book for you. I forget the name of the shutterfly, so it was a little shutterfly promotional thing, and it said, you know, we'll do 10 pictures in a small book, and you, you know, kind of promoting. And I went, you know, I'm gonna take a few of these things and put them in the book, and I stuck them in there. They sent it back and I showed it to my wife. I went, This is actually kind of cool. She goes, Well, let's let's look deeper into this. So I went and I gathered more pictures and I kind of put a prototype together and I went back to NBC once I got it all done because now I'm really I'm excited about this idea. It's just pictures, there's no writing it. I'm not an author, I don't write stuff, I just stick pictures in a book.

TMac 37:12

Um, so no stinking words, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:17

No words necessary. So I went back to Tom Tommy Roy, our producer, and I said, Hey, I've got this idea. Uh, what are your thoughts? And I thought, for sure, because I'm taking these pictures on the job, right? And I'm thinking he's gonna say, Hey, knock that off, man. You can't be doing that. And he goes, Well, that's that's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. He says, uh, but you're gonna have to get it approved by the PJ Tour and the USGA. And they went, Well, I kind of figure I was gonna have to go that route. And he goes, Well, I'll tell you what, he says, uh, head on, you got my blessing, but you're gonna have to get that approved. But if you do, come back, let me know, and we'll talk about it on the air. And I was like, What? Yeah, right. So threw the book together, got all the pictures, put it all, put it all together, got a nice prototype done. Trying to make calls, the PGA tour, USGA, all these places, not getting calls back, this and that. Went on for about six months. And finally, I pretty much just about hung it up. And we were doing a tournament. I think it was down in West Palm Beach. I think we were doing a Honda Classic. And he got Tommy came out of the trailer and he goes, So how's the book going? And I said, Oh, I I I'm not getting a call back from anybody. And he looks at me and he goes, Hold on, I'll be right back. And he turned around and he walked into the trailer and he walked back on and he handed me a slip of paper and he says, Call this guy right now. He's he's he's waiting on your call. So I call the number and God, I wish I could remember the gentleman's name. But I remember him saying, Hey, Bo, how you doing? What do you got going on? How can I help you? And I went, Oh man, you got to be kidding me. And it just rolled from there. It just we were able to get an agreement put together. The USGA jumped on board. So now I have the book ready to go. You know, it's just a matter of figuring out how we're gonna publish it, and um, and uh, how many do we need to make, right? How many do we need to print?

TMac 39:22

So and who prints it?

SPEAKER_00 39:24

Yeah, and who prints it, exactly. Exactly.

TMac 39:28

We, you and I, it was early in the morning. We had uh we had left the compound and we had our little secret spots, and we were sitting and we were hanging out, and you say to me somewhere in this process, you say, Yeah, I got this idea, and you you tell me about it. And I remember, you know, with my photography background, I'm like, dude, you have to do that. That's that's like nobody else's perspective on the game. You know, everybody thinks they've seen everything there is to see about golf, except the guy who's 90 feet in the air every week, right? Right. So I was so excited for you and and uh happy that it all eventually came together. And and where is it now?

SPEAKER_00 40:28

Are you still getting the little getting a smattering of orders here and there? I'm handling it all now myself because there's not much. We did it back in, I think we dropped the book in 2015. Um, so it's pretty much run its course. A lot of the pictures are now they're the same, a lot of the same courses, like uh above 17 at the players. It's still the island green, still looks the same, but the tournament look is completely different. It's almost a completely enclosed uh arena around 717, whereas back then the picture, which is a big panoramic of 17, is uh you know, it just shows a couple of uh of uh suites and um yeah on the one side going towards 18, it was just sort of this little half thing, and then there were literally stands back in my day behind the T.

TMac 41:27

Right. And um, you know, I haven't seen the players in forever because I've been out for so long, and I'll catch glimpses of it and I'll go, holy smoke, there's a big giant mansion behind 18.

SPEAKER_00 41:45

I think it's three stories now. It's it's crazy. And the same thing at uh at the Phoenix Open, uh the waste management, I guess. It's completely enclosed now. They come through a tunnel to get to the T and they go, wow, through a tunnel to leave the green. It's completely enclosed. It's crazy.

TMac 42:04

That that crane is uh is that platform specifically, was it specifically designed for cameras? Who did who did that? And did did it evolve over the years?

SPEAKER_00 42:22

Well, the first one was uh the first truck was Chubby's Chubby's fire truck, Chubby's crane. The green ones. The green one, which was the retired fire truck, had the extension ladder that went up. Um, and that had an articulating, you know, when you went down, it would you know do this. And as it went up, the the platform always remained level, which the newer the newer cranes did too. Uh they were just more hydraulic. This was more of a mechanical system. Um the the the fire truck was retired, and um Tim Buckingham, um, he was the one that actually brought in the new trucks, extremely successful with many cranes for racing, for golf, for um oh man, you you you want a high altitude shot. That's the crane, it's just you know the crane's gonna get it for you. Uh, and it's safe. Um now keep in mind we're kind of moving into a drone period now. Uh drones are still not allowed to fly over people, as far as I know. Uh, so the crane is still necessary. You have a lot of people in fairways, so you really can't have drones flying over the people. They'll fly out over water, they'll fly out over lakes, but they're not, to my knowledge, allowed yet. That's things are changing so fast. I could be by the time you watch this, it might be approved. But um, I I felt super comfortable up there. Um the uh I would bounce from crane to crane sometimes. Uh you know, one crane would go to uh the west coast, and I might be going to the east coast, and I pick up another crane there with a different operator. Buckingham had his crew of kind of drivers slash operators on the shows. So uh and it was fun. They were all we were all like a family anyway. So it was always a lot of fun.

TMac 44:12

It is uh it is such a specialty within a specialty. Um and and you just always looked at peace, bro. I was always nervous and had, you know, those damn photographers climbing on the irony of ironies. Um climbing on my climbing on my tower and thing. And man, you would come off and just you know, you just it was like peaceful. I'd look up at you and it was just you know, you were just at peace up there, man. It was awesome.

SPEAKER_00 44:49

Anybody would be, you know, it would just it's a peaceful place to be, you know. It's just all you're hearing is birds and wind and you know, Doug Grabert, you know, in your in your ears, um directing a golf show. I mean, it it's it was there was no reason to be stressed out now. Granted, there were moments of stress with lightning would come into the area. Uh that happened a couple of times. Uh, you know, you see a lightning flash and I'm coming down.

TMac 45:20

I am coming down.

SPEAKER_00 45:20

Yeah, sometimes a little bit longer than I felt comfortable staying up there. But um, yeah, they they gave me the flexibility to make the call. They never ever questioned if I came down because I didn't feel safe due to weather. They never questioned it, whether it be wind, lightning, uh, even just hearing thunder in the distance. And I always had my my weather app with me and my anemometer on the top of the flag. So we always knew when the winds were getting to that point where it might be getting a little uh beyond the capabilities of the of the tower itself.

TMac 45:55

So talk about the uh tell the flag story because it's really cool.

SPEAKER_00 46:01

Uh oh, the flag, I had been doing the crane for a while, and uh this was right after 9-11, and we were doing the uh uh players' championship down in Houston, and it was it might have been the week after, or a couple of weeks after, and there were flags everywhere. There were American flags flying everywhere, they were on the top of all the buildings. And this groundskeeper came up to me and he said, Hey, uh, would you be interested in flying one of our flags on the top of your crane? And I said, Are you kidding me? I'd be honored. You know, I mean, we were all everybody was just in that patriotic mode after 9-11. And uh yeah, it flew with me all weekend. And it went at the end of it, I asked the guy, I said, Hey, so here's your flag back, and he goes, No, keep it. And I went, and that flag, that very flag, flew with me for the rest of my career. Every tournament I worked, including the players' championship, when they honored Arnold Palmer after he passed away, and they came out and they asked me, Would you mind flying Arnold's umbrella flag, his logo, instead of the American flag? And I said, I get where you're coming from, but I can't do that.

TMac 47:21

I'm on a streak.

SPEAKER_00 47:22

Yeah, it well, not only that, but I love Arnold to death, but that's the American flag. And uh I told him, I says, Leave Arnold's flag here and we'll come up with an idea. And what we ended up doing is we left the flag at the top of the crane, and when I went up, we had a hanging pole. So as I went up, the Arnold flag hung below me. So we were able to fly them both.

TMac 47:48

And uh do you still have the flag?

SPEAKER_00 47:51

I have both flags, yes, I do. I have uh I have the original uh American flag, which is now wrapped up in a little a little triangle triangle thing, and uh and I've got Arnold's flag that they let me keep as well.

TMac 48:05

Well done, sir.

SPEAKER_00 48:06

Two great memories.

TMac 48:08

I can tell this story. I've been out of the game for a long time, but you know, when you're up on a tower, um and this was sort of in the earlier days when they didn't really have scheduled people um to be relief guys. So at the end of my career, I gravitated towards that position. I was older, I could handle the whatever. And so I was a relief guy at the opens and the big tournaments and you know, had everybody on a schedule and I'd show up and I'd tap my ring on the bottom of the thing and and relieve people and give them their half hour, 45 minutes. Um uh I love you, Bo, but I'm not going up on that crane. So uh how did how did we work the and you know, in case of an emergency, you take this big, huge bag that we had that would cover the whole uh the whole camera and tie it off at the bottom. You take that thing and you put it over yourself and you do your business. Yeah, um that's not necessarily an option, 90 feet in the air. So, how how did that work? You scheduled your times, right?

SPEAKER_00 49:19

Well, first of all, I want to I want to say thank you for the relief that you did do, because that is one of the toughest jobs in golf, because you're walking up to a camera that you have not set up for yourself. Yep, you don't know what the feeling, and you every every guy you went to, I'm sure, said the same thing. Feel free to adjust it whatever way you feel comfortable, but you never did because you knew he needed to get right back on it and start the job, and you didn't. So you had to adapt to every different camera as you went through giving people relief. So I'm gonna say this right now that is the toughest job in golf. Thank you, brother. So hats off to you for pulling that one off.

TMac 50:03

Well, the the hardest one is when like guys like G Mark ran towers, and I get up there and I'm like, where's the lens box? And I'd pull the lens box over and I'd stand on top of the lens box so I could at least be his height. Or then right, and then you had that monster tied to your to your, you know, and now I'm like uh still, yeah. Oh yeah. It was it was I loved it. I I just you know, and I sort of I was teaching at that point, so I brought the sort of teachers because it was kind of free-for-alls. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, boys. I want you to regulate because you know, like the other option is you just don't drink all day. That's not an option. If you know I'm coming at two, then I'll be there at two. And everybody was a little iffy about that at first, but then after um that open we did out in Tacoma where it looked like the moon, uh I forget the name of that place. That was one of the first ones. That was like 2014, 2015. And I was already teaching then, and I'm like, no, boys, this has got to be and and you have to come back because I'm moving on, kind of thing. And once everybody sort of got it, then it was like, oh, this is great, because then I could eat and I could drink, knowing in two hours I'm gonna get some relief. Because if I didn't, then get to the end get to the end of the day, and some poor guy, you know, is is not able to uh get relief at all.

SPEAKER_00 51:46

And you could have been the poor guy because if you're bouncing all the way through and they're not coming back in time, which slides your whole schedule down, next thing you know, correct it's the end of the day, and you have worked all day without a break because you're racy to get to the next position.

TMac 52:00

So that's so you would just pick spots during the coverage that you knew if I'm not up there, it's it's okay, right? And then you would jump, you know, because it's a lot more elaborate than me climbing down off a tower.

SPEAKER_00 52:19

Normally, as especially later in my career, I got to the point where it really wasn't worth the hassle. Um, I because especially again, I'll go back to players because people most people understand that I'm next to 616 Fairway, I've got 17 green right in front of me, I've got 18T not far from me. So it's active, and that truck makes noise when you start it up. So to find an opportunity where there's not play in those three places was really hard. And I would spend a half an hour trying to find a point to come down, and I finally just went, you know what? I'm taking my lunch pail, I'm taking my water, I'm taking all the the amendments.

TMac 53:04

My other bottle.

SPEAKER_00 53:05

That's never go up without an empty water bottle. And I did that once, and then I chased it all day because you go, Oh man, I I gotta the number one kind of question I had, not how do you follow the ball, which is what it was before. What do you do when nature calls? And I went up without one, and you can't just take a full bottle of water and dump it out. There's people down there, and God knows what they think that might be if I poured out a bottle of water, right? So take the bottle of water, drink it so that you have an empty bottle of water to fill. But now you're chasing it all afternoon. So that was a real dilemma. So I learned very early go up with an empty bottle so that you can stay ahead of the game. And it was, you know, up there, it was there's no one can really, you know, you can hide behind a bag or you can hide behind my lunchbox, you know. It's uh it was I I worked it out.

TMac 54:05

Do what you gotta do.

SPEAKER_00 54:06

Did what I gotta do. Yep.

TMac 54:08

What was your favorite? Do you have a favorite memory uh working golf?

SPEAKER_00 54:19

Oh man, there's so many of them. God, there's so many great memories that I had um working the last tournament with Payne Stewart before that unfortunate accident he had the chance to uh I actually we actually had breakfast together a couple of days before, just in the hotel, you know, the food area of the hotel. We were kind of getting food at the same time. That was a real tough one for me. Um the better than most, uh, but that's that's definitely up there. Um there was a you could probably relate to this, there was a, I believe it was a rider cup that we were doing. And you remember when we used to go do the rider cups, we would fly, and then you would get to whatever country you're in, try to acclimate your your clock, go out, and then it was like, okay, set up, get everything, get everything configured the way you needed to do. And by the time you were ready to rehearse, the players had already practiced and they're off the course, so you never actually got a chance to see what the ball looked like. Horrible scenario. And you know, same thing up on the crane, you don't know what you got. And they always put me on the first green or in the first T, you know, area. I always had the first hole. Um, and opening shot. Oh my god, yeah. The opening of the show. Here's the first, you know, the first T shots of the U.S. Open on. And I'm just like I'm gripped onto it thinking, what's this ball gonna look like coming out? Um, but there was one where we actually were able to rehearse, and uh, I can't remember which one it was, but I remember, okay, I've got this, okay, so I know what it's gonna look like. Confidence, as you know, following a golf ball is 80% confidence and 20% ability. If you think for a split second in the middle of that back swing that you might not see it, you're not gonna see it. You gotta believe you're gonna see it. So confidence is huge. So going into this first t shot of the opening of the rider cup, I have the confidence. It's very, very high, and I'm relaxed. And I got to enjoy again all the people that are gravitating into this, and it pops into my head, you know, I've got millions and millions of people that are going to be watching this t-shot. Don't think like that, Bob. Oh no, I enjoyed that because I knew I was gonna have it. Confidence was so it was the first time I couldn't do it before because I would freak myself out and I'd never see it. But this one I was so confident because I got a chance to rehearse it that I was able to really enjoy the magnitude of that particular moment. And that's definitely up there with uh with the highlights of uh really probably my whole career.

TMac 57:14

I got a couple for you. And and and it's and it's you and I. In this in this uh March of golf tournament during the month of March, we would fly to Miami from wherever we were coming from. And then uh either at the airport or at the hotel, we would hook up with our co-pilot or pilot, depending on the roles, and then we would drive from Miami to Fort Lauderdale, so Durral, Honda, Bay Hill, Players, and Atlanta, and then the Masters. Right, and I have some really good memories of you and me just driving along. Oh, yeah, talking, talking all kinds of stuff. The big crown VIX that we used to negotiate our way into, and um, you know, it's related but unrelated, but it was so nice to uh be able to just you know get to know somebody and uh um talk about whatever. Right. And uh those are I think some of my most most favorite.

SPEAKER_00 58:36

Well, that's the family. That was the family we were, you know, and we had to be family. Um and I think what would really really makes uh this industry so great is their personalities. Um you can you can be phenomenal at your job. You could be the best camera operator on the face of the earth, but if you can't roll with the punches, if you can't try to stay positive, if you if if if you're negative all the time, you're gone. You won't stick around. Um, that's why I was saying when you're on the road a long time like that, try to laugh every day. You know, uh I used to say try to do something different every day. Go into a city, go somewhere, go see something, make a memory. Try to make positive memories wherever you went. And I I think that should be kind of across the board if you're if you travel for any job, don't look at the negative, try to find the positive, try to find a good positive reason to be in that city at that particular time, not just because you got to go to work, not that we had a really tough job. I mean, come on, Timmy, we were at golf tournaments every week. That was it was it was it was awesome. And we were, like I said, we were family. We all because we had to be. We were together for so much. Yeah. The big drawback to that is is our family, our TV family, be it, you know, and we crossed over, you know, we worked NBC, we worked CBS, we worked ABC. There's a small nucleus of golf camera operators, golf production people, not just camera operators. That's a it's a it's a small number of people, but in the big schema thing, there's a lot of people involved in that. And as we're all getting older, that's the horrible part, is that now we're starting to lose them. And that hurts because we have our network is so big, we're just gonna lose more people just because of the numbers. And I'm starting to realize that now.

TMac 1:00:32

Well, speaking of that, let's let's end on a positive note. You I'm sure, because I think we all do, especially after we step away. I get asked, now I'm in education, so maybe a little more than you, but I'm sure you get asked about what it takes to work in this industry. You kind of skirted the issues right now. Part of it's the relationships. But if a young person, and I know plenty of them I could send you away, uh, were to ask you about specifically uh the subset of golf within the subset of TV production people and what they need to know, hard skills, soft skills. Give me three things that you think, based on all your experience and your many travels, that they need to know.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:34

Well, I can I can only speak for camera operators because that's what I know. Um there has to be some natural uh ability for composition. I mean, you've got to be able to see what looks right and what doesn't. Um not saying that can't be trained. Uh it comes natural to some people, it came natural to me, and I feel very lucky that it did. Um, that's probably the number one. Number two, attitude. Oh my God, I can't put enough emphasis on attitude. If if you're not fun to be around, if you're well, let me put it this way. If if you if if you're yeah, if you're not fun to be around, or if you're just kind of a jerk, you're not gonna be successful. You know, be available, uh, offer your your time to help. Um stay late if you if you feel the opportunity would, it's always gonna benefit you. Um show you're motivated, um, willing to do whatever it is that needs to be done to get the job done. Uh don't race off to the hotel because you're tired from the day. Stay. Show that you're willing to go. And that's how you really will get in. You'll make an impression with uh the people that that will and other camera guys. They'll they'll go to bat for you. If they like you, they'll they'll go to bat for you. They'll say, hey, this guy's a this guy's a hard worker, and I think he deserves an opportunity to, you know, we need to get him up during during um lunch breaks, get him up training on a camera, send them out to a par three, let them follow balls, you know, teach them how to do it. And I like I don't think there's any camera guy that you that wouldn't go, come on, yeah, come on up, I'll show you how to do it. And then it's just a matter of learning that that hand-eye coordination, you know, knowing that jerk that camera up when that ball first gets hit. Wait till it gets to the top of the widen out as it comes down. And remember, when in doubt, widen out.

TMac 1:03:35

My brother John Bodecker. I can't thank you enough for being a part of the project.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:41

I'm honored, Timmy. You know, I'm here for you anytime. We're family.

TMac 1:03:45

We are family. Enjoy your retirement, brother. Thanks, I appreciate it. Thanks again to golf TV cameraman John Bodecker, now retired, whose office window was the best view in golf. The Zoom with our feed podcast is a production of TV Commando Media. The Zoom Pod theme is by Novembers and they're Funky Groove Cloud 10. Golf fans, if you'd like your very own copy of my guest John Bodecker's coffee table book, My Office Window, you can check it out on myofficewindow.com. It's a great gift for the golfer in your life. Until next time, camera operators, dream big and reach for the clouds.