This is what it all came down to: On Friday afternoon, I was chatting with Christian Iooss, Golf Digest and Golf World’s director of photography, over lunch about how the magazine would “play” our coverage of the Open this year. We went over various scenarios, who was writing what and how much space would be devoted to particular stories, etc. When it came to what’s called the ‘Tour Talk Opener”–a two-page spread in the middle of the magazine that opens up its notes section, Christian just kind of casually mentioned that those two pages were being reserved for me, and the idea I’d pitched to them earlier in the year: A panoramic image of the 18th hole, photographed with a Gigapan robotic unit.

No pressure, right?

I’ve written more about my work with the device–in fact, I’ve devoted an entire section of this site–here if you’re interested. But for the purposes of this week’s project, it entailed getting access to a balcony that overlooks the 18th hole at the MacDonald Rusacks Hotel, setting up the system (A Gigapan Epic Pro unit, Canon EOS 7D, and EF 70-200mm f4 lens), and letting it run while I left to photograph the champion arriving at the 18th green.

In addition to being an amazing hotel steeped in the tradition, lore, and personality of the town of St. Andrews (and one I’d highly recommend looking into if you ever need a place to stay while there), the staff at the Rusacks is top-notch. I’d contacted hotel’s general manager a couple of months earlier, and then, once on site, met with its sales and marketing director, and they could not have been more helpful or professional. I explained that I needed to clamp a camera rig to a balcony railing, and that I, or someone helping me, would need to access the balcony intermittently, all on what is probably the noisiest, most hectic day they’ll ever see.

That's the Gigapan unit with camera and lens attached, in operation (it's next to my backup, single-frame remote, mounted just in case). If you look closely, you can also find Christian on the balcony, third head from the left.

They gave their blessing, and at 7 a.m. on Sunday, so as to stay out of the way of the staff and guests, I began setting up the system and shooting test shots. The entire image comprises 512 frames, shot across 32 columns and sixteen rows, with an elapsed time of approximately 30 minutes. When the leaders were on about the 13th hole on Sunday afternoon, I made my way up to the balcony, double-checked the positioning and setup of the unit, and started it on its way. I then left for my predetermined spot at the back of the 18th green (if you look carefully you can spot me in the gigapan image–I’m wearing a blue and black jacket and looking at the back of my camera) to cover the winning putt. In order to get the timing right, Christian positioned himself out of the way on the balcony in the afternoon during the final shot and paused and re-started the unit to ensure that the players were on the green at the appropriate time during the shot. As I told him later, he nailed the timing, even getting it so that the flagstick was still in the hole.

All in all, I’d call it a successful shot. Feel free to linger and browse around a little!