Earlier this month the United States Golf Association held the 2024 U.S. Open Golf Championship, widely regarded as the toughest test in professional golf. Given the high-profile nature of the event, the underlying network that supports it had to be equally tough.

On the Friday of the U.S. Open, Rob Neumann, head of sponsorships technology, and Matt Swartz, a Distinguished Engineer, both with Cisco Systems Inc., provided me with a behind-the-scenes tour of the Cisco technology that powers the tournament.

For background, Cisco has been working with the USGA since 2018 and ensures that the latest technology is always on the course. The role of the network changed significantly at that time. Two decades ago, very few devices were connected. Today, everything is driven by the network.

Fans enter the stadium using their mobile device with a digital ticket and then go through a network-enabled security system. Once on the course, spectators can view information on a mobile device or watch the activity on massive digital displays, enhancing their overall experience.

Though the network is invisible to everyone, it’s critical, since it powers everything — not just fan-facing but also the media center, back-office operations, security and more. Cisco is well-versed in sports and entertainment, with its network in venues such as SoFi Stadium in LA, Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, and Amalia Arena in Tampa Bay, but a golf event poses some different challenges.

With a traditional stadium design, people and devices are fixed. Though people may visit concessions, most are in a specific area for the event. With golf, fans move about in herds as their favorite players progress across the course.

Neumann described this as the “Tiger Woods effect” (rapidly becoming the Scottie Scheffler effect), where thousands of people move with the top-ranked player to catch a glimpse of a great shot. This means Cisco needs to plan 18 “stadium-like” deployments across the course versus one.

Supporting this requires massive infrastructure, including 220 Catalyst 9K switches and 520 Meraki Wi-Fi access points or APs. Adding to the challenge is that there are no ceilings or other infrastructure to hang APs. Walking the course, I saw APs strapped to trees, attached to camera towers, attached to the shot tracer system, and even mounted at ground level.

In addition to the infrastructure, the network was managed using the Meraki Dashboard, which enabled the USGA to capture traffic statistics. Here are some of the data points pulled from the network:

• 80 terabytes of total traffic throughout the entire week
• 54 terabytes of Wi-Fi traffic for the week
• 56,000 unique clients attached to the Wi-Fi
• 15,000 average number of clients per day
• 22,559 Max Wi-Fi clients on Friday, June 14

For comparison, the Super Bowl with the most network traffic set a high of 34.8 terabytes. Concerts at large venues are in the 8-terabyte to 10-terabyte range. Although the 80-terabyte number was for a week, it shows that the U.S. Open network had to support a large venue’s worth of traffic per day with a moving audience.

Cisco provided the U.S. Open with network infrastructure and secured the environment with Cisco Firepower Next Generation Firewalls. Since the network handles personal data, financial transactions and other sensitive information, security must be built into it.

Also, Cisco Video Endpoints running Webex were used at the Championship to enable remote reporters to be part of the media activities. Foreign reporters could use Webex to interview players without traveling to Pinehurst.

Neumann explained that before COVID, there would be upwards of 600 reports at a single U.S. Open, but the pandemic forced the USGA to find alternative methods to allow the media to interact with players. Though many mainstream sports publications have returned to the event, some have to travel long distances, and some that aren’t directly involved in the sport have chosen to remain remote. Webex provides an easy-to-use, high-quality method of collaborating.

The U.S. Open Golf Championship is as high-profile a sporting event as there is. The players must perform flawlessly to win. Similarly, the network must be flawless to enable local fans to enjoy the event entirely, allow the media to cover the Championship, and enable related activities to happen. The Cisco infrastructure allowed the USGA to showcase its premier event without compromise.

Zeus Kerravala is a principal analyst at ZK Research, a division of Kerravala Consulting. He wrote this article for SiliconANGLE. 

Photo: U.S. Open