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GREENSBORO -- John Maginnes is hearing voices again. Five or six, to be exact. And he's not losing it. Honest.

The Greensboro resident and Sedgefield Country Club member is an analyst for XM Radio's coverage of the PGA Tour, and as the Wyndham Championship began Thursday, he and his comrades were ready for another six hours of tracking people and places they couldn't always see.

If it sounds like chaos, it's close. But the extent of the back-talk and cross-talk speaks well to the comprehensive nature of a seemingly implausible -- but successful -- venture.

"It's like watching television and talking on the phone at the same time," said the former PGA Tour pro. "And playing on the computer. Oh, yeah. And there's kids in the room. That's what it's like."

Golf on the radio? Wouldn't consumers rather hear how fast the acrylic's drying on the walls of Tiger's rec room? Don't assume. Once upon a time, people thought The Golf Channel was a silly concept, too.

With a combination of recorded interviews, live analysis and more research than the Library of Congress, they manage to pull it off. The on-site crew includes a host; analysts Maginnes and Larry Rinker, both former PGA Tour players; two course reporters; two producers; an engineer; and a volunteer support staff. They communicate with one another and with XM's Washington studios, trying to ensure they fill six hours of live air time on XM Channel 146.

"Rarely is there a time when we don't have a lot of action," said Doug Bell, one of the course-walkers.

On Thursday, for example, the network aired interviews with Arnold Palmer and Richard Petty, honored the previous day for their contributions to sports in the Triad, to occupy a time in which none of the players was about to finish the round.

XM, a satellite radio service with 18.5 million subscribers after last month's merger with Sirius, got into live golf at the end of the 2005 season. It is the PGA Tour's contracted radio home, and as such, it staffs the Wyndham and 19 other events with the full crew and sends a slightly smaller contingent to the rest of the schedule.

The work begins each Tuesday, when the staff arrives for reconnaissance. Bell accosts 18 players one by one and asks each to describe one hole on the course from tee to green. Another half-dozen competitors are then rounded up to discuss their chances and the implications of the coming 72 holes.

Rinker, who made the cut in half or more of his starts for 11 straight years, and Maginnes, who majored in English at East Carolina and earned nearly $427,000 on Tour in 1999, usually stay in the tent and survey the big picture. Come Saturday and Sunday, the roving reporters will follow the top two groups and a triumvirate will walk with one or more hard-chargers.

Maginnes, whose playing career was cut short by injuries, easily transitioned into broadcasting when XM began putting its plans together.

"I thought, 'Thank God I've got a job.' It turns out if you reach your mid-30s and you've never actually had one, you have to invent one," he said. "And fortunately, about the time I was about ready to invent one, they invented this."

There are plenty of voices. Golf is one of the few sports in which dozens of competitors go head-to-head simultaneously, which is why producer Justin Ware often has several irons and woods in the fire.

Maginnes is cracking a joke while Ware gets word that reporter Bob Stevens is in pursuit of Bob Heintz, who will finish the day with a 63.

"Bob Stevens coming up on Bob Heintz," Ware says. Stevens then starts talking and -- through no fault of his own -- is a little bit loud.

"We need to take him down," Ware tells a technician. "Push the sign up top. It will be the second button on the right."

Mission accomplished. As Heintz is putting, 2007 Wyndham champion Brandt Snedeker is closing fast. Bell will describe Snedeker's shot, and his recorded analysis will be aired as soon as Stevens is done. At 3 p.m., life gets easier. That's when The Golf Channel's live broadcast starts and the radio guys have the benefit of video for the first time since they started at noon.

"In the television truck, they've got cameras everywhere, and they can see what's going on," Ware said. "We're just trusting our guys on the course. We have a (network TV) monitor that we call things off of, but we don't know what's coming there, either."

But somehow, it works.

Contact Rob Daniels at 373-7028 or rob.daniels@news-record.com