Behind the scenes of ESPN’s profile of 14-year-old Masters qualifier, China’s Tianlang Guan

ESPN.com national columnist Gene Wojciechowski and a crew from the network recently spent 10 days in China getting to know Tianlang Guan, who at 14 is the youngest golfer to ever qualify for the Masters.

Wojciechowski and ESPN camera crews following the teen phenom from China to Augusta National in Georgia. Front Row spoke with feature producer Sharon Matthews — who helped supply the photo gallery above — about making the video feature, which is scheduled to air Wednesday during SportsCenter at the Masters (ESPN, 5 p.m. ET), which follows the network’s Par 3 Contest coverage (3 p.m.). ESPN will televise the first and second rounds of the Masters on Thursday and Friday (3 p.m. each day).

Tell us about the trip.
It took us more than 40 combined hours to get to Guangzhou, China. We had to adjust to the 13-14 hour time difference after we arrived. With the additional help of two translators, we were able to film in different locations from Guan’s school classroom to Augusta. We wanted to take viewers behind the scenes of his life as a humble teenager on the verge of making golf history.

This was an opportunity of a lifetime. We looked forward to not only interviewing Guan, but to embrace the culture, try the different foods and see the atmosphere.

Who else did you work with in China on the project?
I worked with Thom McCallum, Creative Director at The Seventh Movement [a company that has assisted on other ESPN features], two camera operators and a local sound crew for this project. We also worked with Smile XU, who helped as a translator, and Lamy Li, who is a producer.