It’s 9:30am on Friday and people are already drinking beer. Yesterday I saw one of the marshals drinking. Again I saw Stephen Dodd on the range. I chose to sit there for a while when I first got to the course. Looking at the pairings, I realized if I’m going to see Brad Faxon and Jose Maria tee off, then I’m going to have to see Tiger tee off too, since he was going to be in the group ahead of Brad. So, I went to the 10th tee to make sure I got a seat.
At 10:45am Ben Crane came over to the practice putting green. His tee time was 12:10pm.
A stranger behind me offered to buy an old man food and drink. The old man was on portable oxygen. It’s nice to see this kind of generosity. Two men sitting next to me are on their second beers that I know of and it’s only 11am. This can’t be good.
Lee Westwood made his way to the practice green. He looks larger in person than he does on tv.
Since when does handicapped mean fat? There are fat people taking up space reserved for handicapped people. If anyone needs to walk, it’s the fat people. As a former fat person, I can tell you I have never stolen a space reserved for a handicapped person.
It’s 11:30am and the guys are on beer #3. First up on the tee is Lucas Glover, Vaughn Taylor and Lee Westwood. They were ready 5 minutes early and stood there waiting around.
John Bickerton and Thomas Levet have really cute head covers. Something that looks like a gopher and a Dalmatian respectively.
Jeff Maggert didn’t acknowledge the crowds at all when he teed off. I don’t think he even touched the brim of his hat. In contrast, Thomas Bjorn looked at the gallery for a long time before he teed off. Stewart Cink looks even taller in person and Tim Clark was smiling and happy.
Tiger, Jason Gore and Paul McGinley are up next. They all seem to be in a good mood, talking too each other. Jason has a weird looking head cover and Paul McGinley looks a lot shorter in person. I’m 5’2” so I know short.
Faxon, Olazabal, and Pampling tee off next. Olazabal’s shoes aren’t that cool looking today. Ian Poulter walked over to the practice green wearing blue striped pants - very nice. Brad Faxon looked into the gallery for a bit before teeing off.
Following Faxon’s group, I witnessed some pretty cool things. There was a hold up on the 14th green when Rod Pampling needed a ruling. The rules official was nowhere to be found. I think this caused the group to be out of position. I’d like to know why if the rules official isn’t where he’s supposed to be, it’s the players who get penalized if they fall out of position and end up on the clock. Personally, I was glad that this group was a bit behind considering the size of Tiger’s gallery in the group ahead.
Leaving 16 and going to 17 tee, Brad saw someone in the crowd that he knew and talked to him a bit. Then on the 4th hole, these two guys waited for Brad to come out of the port-a-potty and talked to him. I really don’t think people should approach the players when they come out of the port-a-potty.
The coolest thing about following this group is that I had the opportunity to watch all three players up close. All three had shots out of the rough on the wrong side of the gallery ropes. While I’m a big Sergio fan, I have to say I had more fun following Faxon, Olazabal and Pampling.
One more little note about this group - I think Olazabal spoke maybe three words the whole time I followed the them. Good thing Pampling was there considering how much of a talker Brad Faxon is.
I had to leave the group when they were at the 5th hole. It was going on 4pm and I wanted to check out the merchandise, then eat supper and head for home, planning extra time for rush hour traffic.
I would like to take an opportunity now to suggest mental acuity tests for the marshals. I was trying to get back to the clubhouse area when I got stopped at the 8th green. Ernie Els, Fred Funk and Stephen Dodd (yes, I saw him again) were there. I had to wait for them to cross from the green to the 9th tee, then the marshal was supposed to open the ropes to let us go on down the cart path. Well, Ernie tricked the marshal and went back up the 8th a few yards and crossed over there. The marshal was waiting for Ernie so he didn’t open up the path for us to pass. I decided to walk around the 9th tee and go down the other side since the next group was already hitting into the 8th green which meant I would have had to stay there even longer waiting on the marshal to do his job. Finally I got off the premises and left for home.
I missed the whole Tiger overshooting the clubhouse incident. That was good. If I had been there when that happened, I wouldn’t have been able to get through the crowds for a long time and it would have put me really late in getting home.
A note about the merchandise tent and American Express. I got ripped off the other day when the merchandise tent people charged my AMEX gift card twice for my one purchase. Then, today the supervisory staff said “American Express gives us fits.” AMEX is a major sponsor of the PGA tour and the WGC events. I think they need to make sure their credit cards, gift cards etc work correctly at these golf events. Otherwise, the PGA tour is benefiting financially and not giving AMEX what it expects in return, a growing customer base. I’m certainly not going to apply for an AMEX credit card if I’m going to get ripped off when I use it at PGA events.
Also, one more anecdote about security. On Wednesday, an older woman had a big purse with her. She was determined to carry it with her even though anything larger than 6” X 6” X 6” was not allowed. When she approached the checkpoint, all the security people were focused on one young black man wearing very baggy clothing and carrying a cell phone. Because they were all focused on this man, the older woman walked right through the checkpoint without being screened, got her ticket punched and then when she got to the course, showed her punched ticket to the security people there who let her pass. This woman ever did get checked by security.
And one more interesting observation about the players and caddies. Generally, they all had cell phones. In their golf bags.
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