A Chat with Preston Edwards: A Peak into the Wonderful World of Sports Media

By Ana Laura Macchiarella

Golf: a sport hailed by some as one of the most boring on earth. Yet interestingly enough, it remains among the most popular. With a highly-rated Netflix series, tournaments across the world, and some of the biggest names in sports history, it’s no wonder that this game has remained so well-know. Like any other sport, a lot goes on behind the scenes to make every tournament come together. One of the most important aspects of that hidden world is communications. Without media teams, no event, not even the Masters or any of the other big four tournaments would have the attention they garner. I had the pleasure of sitting down with Preston Edwards, one of the PGA TOUR’s communication managers, to discuss what it’s like to work in the field of sports public relations.

Why did you decide to go on the sports media/PR route?

My dad did it for a long time, he worked in baseball a little bit and then mostly football, like public relations in the NFL. So growing up, me and my older brother were always going to the office with my dad, so it's kind of like a part of our life grown-up and that was just kind of what we got used to. Not to say that we had to go that route, but it was something that we really enjoyed and thought was special.”

Moving on to my next question, I did a little snooping on your LinkedIn and saw you’ve been working for the TOUR for about three years now. How was your on-boarding process with it, what other roles have you fulfilled, and what’s been your overall experience so far?

“When I started I was doing communications with the Korn Ferry Tour, which is kind of like the developmental tour that guys play on to get to the PGA TOUR. I started on that and I hadn't worked in golf before, so it was a big learning curve. From things as simple as how they do media operations, to if media want to talk with players or do any interviews or what's the normal process to go about that, so it took a little bit of time to get used to that. I'd say kind of the whole first year it was one big learning process, but thankfully we have a lot of talented people here, that are more than happy to give pointers and support. Then a few months ago I switched to the PGA TOUR team, so even though I'm working at the same place, my new desk is 20 feet from my old desk, there’s still a little bit of a learning curve.”

Next thing, so you’ve worked at the Puerto Rico Open, you’ve worked at The Players, from the different tournaments that you've been able to work at, what's the difference for smaller ones versus bigger ones? Mainly with the media experience.

So you know the four major championships each year, and then to that you could probably add the Players. At those five events you have basically every big name that

you can imagine, so you're gonna have a lot of media that fly in. There’s a ton of United States-based media that come to it, but then you're also gonna have reporters from Japan, South Korea, Australia, a lot of other countries. It kind of becomes a beast of a tournament when you have all those media [that] wants to talk to [players] and then, you know, for Puerto Rico that was a little bit different because it was going on at the same time as the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Orlando. It was a little bit smaller because a lot more attention was on Arnold Palmer, because was a signature, but at the same time one of the good things about Puerto Rico was [that] so many of the players that may not necessarily had enough points to get into the signature events, they can use Puerto Rico to get a lot of benefits that they wouldn't get you know staying at home, taking an off, and resting up. So like for instance, Carl Phillips, since he won now he's good on tour for the next two years, a lot of money, you know everything's working out. As far as the attention, it's you know obviously the media is usually gonna follow those [big] name, but with that said there's still a ton of value in events that you know may not necessarily have a ton of international coverage.

Speaking of schedules, I have a weird question. So I know my mom and Doug, the guy that was working at the PR Open before you came along, have little routines, like specific meals that they always eat, so do you have any specific routines that you follow when you're at tournaments?

What I eat is entirely based on where I am, so usually the routine is Mondays are always travel days, if I'm gonna be able all week long and I always like to go straight from the airport directly to the course and just see where is the media center, where is the post interview area, where is player dining and locker room. I like to just see it, just so that when I get to the course Tuesday morning, when things are starting to ramp up, you know I kind of know where everything is so that's that's more peace of mind. I don't think I even need to do that, but like the way that my brain operates I can’t go to sleep Monday night if I don't know what to expect. But I usually like to try Tuesday [or] Wednesday since competition starts Thursday. Tuesday [or] Wednesday I usually tell whatever coworkers that I'm there with, like all right, if you guys wanna do something, like let's go get dinner, let's go grab a drink, or anything like that, and then I usually check Yelp a lot. I love Yelp for some reason, it has great reviews, people post photos of the food, I'm a visual learner so I like to see what what's going on, but it kind of depends. Like when I was in San Diego earlier this year, there's this one place that I had heard a lot about and I tried it. I got it before I even went to the hotel my first night there, and I was like I need to go, it's called Din Tai Fung. I usually try to look at three or four different restaurants, just local [ones] that I can't get anywhere else, and try those throughout the week. When I was in San Diego I had I think 4 or 5 straight nights I just kept going back, so I kind of find what I like. But then there's some tournaments where, you know, I might just order chipotle, and pick it up after work, and go straight to the hotel. I know Doug used to pack sandwiches from the course. and go back home. If those are [also] his dinners, I am not I'm not built that way, but I definitely like to try and get out and about. But you know, Thursday, Friday, Saturday night [you’re] usually so tired, it's just getting takeout or delivery, trying to get a few hours of sleep.

Okay, so next, what have been some of your funniest experiences or like funny stories that you have from your career?P

It’s usually just like random stuff. Like there a couple times, taking it back to the NFL days, where you would see players you want to take, it's actually every sport now, but NFL just because I was there, to do the [jersey] swaps after game. So, take jersey, off give it to the opponent, then they give their jersey, take a photo, and it seems you know it's pretty cool. [They] just collect jerseys, but the hard part is the jerseys are so tight to the players’ [bodies], because they want them as tight as possible so that they can't get grabbed and held by the other team, so they're like skin tight. Then there's pads too, so usually after games, for media, I'd have to go get a player, and ask him to do an interview, and I'd go to them on the field, and they're like yeah I can do that, can you help me take my pads off so I can get my jersey? And there are times where I'm like on the ground, like holding up their pad, they're trying to yan, and I'm, it was very unprofessional, just crawling around this guy just so he can give it to his buddy he played college [football with]. That was one from the NFL, I'm trying to think of one for golf. It's usually the reason it's less athletes, and it's more about it's more like coworkers that we have. I was laughing earlier today, because there was, at The Players a couple weeks ago, there was someone doing a post interview, and I see there's a ton of cameras around and microphones and wires all the way. And it could be as simple as we had a staff member [get] like tripped in one of the cameras the other week. In the moment [you think] like it's gonna ruin the interview, but at the end of the day like we're not finding the cure for cancer with a tournament. You’re there for a good time, and you try to always remember kind of memorable moments.

Now, what about the bad experiences that you've had?

I always hate it, the tough ones when you have to ask for a player to do an interview right after they lost or after they have like a heartbreaking missed cut, you know, they're going home without a check, those ones the worst. I can't stand having to do it, but it's part of the job, and a lot of the guys know. Most of the time, they're usually pretty understanding, but that doesn't make it any less uncomfortable. When you're approaching a guy who you know could even be like in tears, and you have to figure out, you have to have a feel for it. Like when is the right time to approach, ask him if they're open to media or not, those ones are tough. I mean, that's any sport, to not have a distraction for the players, it is a great resource for them to kind of control whatever narratives they want out there. But, you know, it can be uncomfortable at times, that's for sure.

Netflix has series that kind of like covers the golf season, similar to the one for Formula One. Honestly, I don't follow golf super closely, but I've seen in Formula One a lot of the drivers and a lot of the fans have kind of complained that the series has, in a way, almost sensationalized the sport. And in some cases, it’s been kind of an invasion of the driver's privacy, so have you seen like similar attitude in the golf community when it comes to the docu-series?

I haven't yet, I think a lot of guys that have been covered in Full Swing they've all agreed to doing them, and they've been being fully informed on what to expect and what you know how many times they're gonna be getting together, if it's a one time at homem or if they're gonna be talking multiple times. I haven't seen much pushback, and I think a little bit of that is probably because we haven't had something like this for golf in a while, and I really do think that the reason we did Netflix for golf, for the tour was because of all the success that it brought Formula One. I have no idea what the numbers are, as far as like increase in audience, but I know that it was absolutely astronomical, because I rarely ever heard about F1 prior to 2020, or whenever that [series] came out. [And also] Full Swing for us is, it's kind of also reaching certain audiences that aren’t sitting on the couch on the weekends, watching the championship. I think that those have [also] really helped bring kind of a more interactive aspect.

All right, so earlier you were talking about how the players have to kind of figure out their schedules, because there's so many tournaments in the year. What does organizing the schedule for someone working and calm look like?

So obviously with so many [tournaments] throughout the year, it's impossible for one person to work all of them. So we split up, I think it's me and I'd say probably seven others, so maybe about a group of eight people give or take. We split up the whole schedule, so for me, I'm gonna be going to 11 total events, so 11 weeks between January 1 and the end of the championship at the end of October. Then for the fall schedule, [I’ll] probably do like another two or three events, so in all and there's probably 13, 14 total weeks of travel throughout the year. And if the tournament is Thursday through Sunday, we're arriving to wherever it is on Monday. Then leaving the following Monday morning after a full seven days on site, and you know there's obviously tons of places, stretching from California, all the way down to Puerto Rico. So we see a lot of places, I think that's one of the really cool things about the job, you're not tied to your desk. It's definitely rewarding, but thankfully we have a big enough team where we can split up a lot of the events, so we're not burnt out at any point. Usually there's usually at least two, sometimes three, communications people on staff, just depends how big the immediate demand is each week. It’s especially hard like when you're starting out, it's difficult to kind of have that like [balance] with all the jet lag and with so much traveling kind of getting adjusted to that.

Preston’s insights into the world of sports media were very interesting. This is a part of sports that is so important, yet so under appreciated. Remember, any time you’re watching the broadcast for a basketball game, an interview with your favorite tennis player, or something as simple as liking an instagram post made by your favorite team, take a minute to acknowledge the people who make media possible.