Behind the Scenes: Emotional Roller Coaster

Editor's Note: If you want more of an inside look into season four, tune-in every Wednesday for our new Big Break IV All-Access show.

This week's episode was a continuation from last Tuesday night's show. We had started of in the morning shooting the immunity challenge. In the end, both teams found themselves heading to elimination as individuals. This week's show picked up right where we left off.

After lunch that day, the contestants got yet another surprise - a two part elimination challenge.

The first would be a closest to the pin contest. There would be three rounds. After each round, the winner of the round would be safe. In Round one, Warren was in the clear, narrowly beating Thomas by five inches. Ironically, however, Marty misunderstood the rules and because he had the highest score in round one thought he had been eliminated.

After we wrapped the segment Marty became very nervous and attempted to relax by taking a seat on the ground and practicing some deep breathing exercises. Warren, his roommate and someone the entire European team certainly looked to for leadership, spent a few moments talking to him and he was finally able to calm down a bit.

After the chip shot location, we headed to the bunker shot. Paul, the team appointed leader of the Americans was safe after a decisive victory in round two.

Next the 100 yard shot. After that third round Thomas joined the two team captains in the "immune" club.

The four remaining guys would face off in the next phase of the challenge - three holes of stroke play.

At that point the atmosphere was certainly getting more intense. While I knew these guys were quickly becoming friends, they were still all very competitive men when it came down to it. So, with nerves riding high, it was no surprise to me when both Marty and Randall double-bogeyed the first hole. TJ and Guy were hanging in there with a par and birdie, respectively.
On the second hole, Guy ended up with par. And because he was the outright leader after two holes, was also safe from elimination.

Randall, however, had once again double-bogeyed the second hole and on the third could not come back from his deficit. Randall was going home.

Anyone who saw the show on Tuesday couldn't help but be pulled into what followed. In fact, in my personal opinion, it was probably the most emotional moment of ANY Big Break show. Every contestant, and the entire crew, was left in tears. And the guys would be talking about "the speech" for days to come.

To me, though, Randall's speech only reinforced what I had come to learn over the course of the shoot. That Randall was indeed a man of the highest character. Even in his lowest moment, the fact that he could touch each one of us and inspire us with his faith brought me to tears, yes. But it did not come as a shock to me.

What actually came as a bigger surprise to me was a conversation I had with Marty later that evening. He and Guy had both sought me out that night wanting to make calls home to their girlfriends. While we were waiting for Guy, Marty began to open up to me a bit about his feelings on the day. He was obviously visibly shaken and exhausted from the events of the competition. He admitted that he had not been playing up to his normal level for the entire shoot and was really looking forward to stepping it up a notch and showing everyone what kind of a game he really had. That he was just lacking confidence right now and was looking for something to give him a boost. Whether or not he could hold true to his words remained to be seen.

I did hold true to my word that night, though and finally had TVs delivered to the contestant rooms. We had originally taken them out for production reasons and the guys were dying to have something in their rooms to keep them entertained since they were often relegated to their rooms to keep them from running into other guests and already eliminated contestants. I knew they were thrilled the next morning when they excitedly thanked me for the gift of television like a bunch of kids on Christmas morning.
 
But the rest of that story will have to wait until next week’s column…
 
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