Bridgestone Trip Diary: Thursday

Not news - I made a wrong turn again trying to get to the parking area.

At the security checkpoint, their little magic wand finally detected my car keys. Tuesday and Wednesday they weren’t detected by the metal detector. I guess the players lives are worth more on Thursdays. No terrorist activities would happen on practice round days. One man had a pedometer that emitted a loud sound when it fell off its cord. The security woman told him it wasn’t allowed in. I don’t know what possessed the old man to think it would be allowed in. It would have been worth it to see what Steve Williams would have done to the man if it had gone off at the wrong time. LOL.

On the inside, I saw Stephen Dodd come in from the range. That was around 9:30am. The round wasn’t supposed to start until 11:30am. The local news said it was supposed to rain and I hoped it wouldn’t be severe. I had no idea where to go if I was out on the course in bad weather. The advisories pretty much ban everything on the course and there’s no seating around the clubhouse that would be acceptable.

Standing at the practice green, I overhead an older woman say to the man she was with, “Here comes someone now. Get right up there and tell me who that is. Oh, it’s a caddie,“ she added as if to say he was nobody. To be precise, he was KJ Choi’s caddie and undoubtedly very important to KJ.

Sergio was supposed to tee off on the 10th at 12:50pm. I didn’t know at the time how smart it was, but I decided to sit in the bleachers until Sergio teed off, then I would follow him.

Now for the groups teeing off:

1st group was Brett Wetterich, Vijay and Adam Scott. There’s a practice putting green next to the 10th tee and a lot of golfers took advantage of that. People whispered while this first group teed off. Brett backed off and looked into the bleachers. I noticed there was a guy checking the golf bags for every golfer to make sure their clubs were regulation and they had the right number of clubs.

When Olin Browne, Trevor Immelman, and Angel Cabrera got to the tee, Cabrera shook hands with the boy carrying their sign. Some mouthy guy in the bleachers said, “This hole ain’t even hard.” About this time, I concluded that men yak more than women. One couple of guys was talking about some guy cheating on his wife, then there were these braggarts who wouldn’t shut up. If they could play golf they wouldn’t be sitting on their rears watching it.

The next group was Tom Lehman, Arron Oberholser and Miguel Angel Jimenez. Oberholser looks skinnier in person but was very well dressed. Jimenez was also well dressed in something of a fuscia colored shirt and really nice shoes. The whole group was colorful: pink, green and blue. Before they teed off, Oberholser’s caddie gave a ball to a man in the crowd.

The group of Paul Casey, Geoff Ogilvy and Justin Leonard approached the tee. Justin Leonard looks really short in person and doesn’t seen to have a very well defined neck. Paul Casey looks taller than Leonard. Casey was happy and smiling at the crowds.

The next group is Ben Curtis, Kevin Stadler, and Carl Petterson. There’s a lot of fan support for Ben Curtis since he’s from Ohio. An old man sitting beside me told his wife, “That is the ugliest woman I’ve ever seen. And I can say that because I’m old.” He was referring to someone in the gallery. I didn’t see anyone especially ugly so he must have some issues. I hoped a lot of the people would follow Ben Curtis so it wouldn’t be so crowded at the tee, but no such luck.

Mike Weir, Chris DiMarco and Padraig Harrington were next. Weir looks smaller on tv.

Finally it was time for Sergio, Robert Karlsson and Kenny Perry to tee off. There were Swedish people in the gallery holding a small flag of Sweden. I heard them talking earlier at the practice green and thought it had to be Swedish. Of course, I don’t think I’ve ever heard real Swedish being spoken before so I thought it was a good guess on my part.

I followed Sergio, Karlsson, and Kenny. For one thing, since it’s likely I won’t go to another tournament, I figured I would see as much of Sergio as I could. When I get back and watch tv, it’s going to be all Tiger and Phil all the time and I won’t get to see much of Sergio. And for another thing, since I lost all that weight, I also lost my padding on my rear. It was very uncomfortable sitting on those bleachers. Even the old man beside me stood up a couple of times.

There was a security guy tagging along with Sergio’s group. I made sure I behaved. I made sure my ticket didn’t flap around and that my umbrella and notebook were not in anyone’s line of sight so that they could be a distraction. I stood a few feet away from the ropes, unlike others who leaned into the ropes. And I was very respectful and did not call attention to the fact that Kenny Perry used the port-a-potty on the 4th hole. I’m sure he appreciated the respect. I followed Sergio’s group through 16 holes, but after seeing on the big scoreboard that Adam Scott was 7 under, I briefly wondered if I should have been following him instead. I stopped following Sergio because it was going on 5 pm. I hadn’t had lunch and I had to pee so I decided he could finish the round without me. He probably did better too, I haven’t checked his scorecard for the first round- no internet access here in Akron. Anyway, looking at the pairings, I think I might have to follow Brad Faxon, Jose Maria and Rod Pampling tomorrow. Brad is a favorite of mine and I haven’t seen him at all yet.

Watching Sergio play, I got the impression that he was having a bad round, but then I realized he was 1 under par with a couple of chip ins. I think I like tv watching better than in person watching.

On the way back to the parking area, I saw that people were parking cars on their lawns for $10 each. Yesterday it was only $5.00 per car.

Observations:

If they can put a roof on the Wimbledon tennis stadium, then they can put roofs on the bleachers.

Just because you are attending a golf event, doesn’t mean you need to bring a golf umbrella. They are dangerous weapons especially when you’re not paying attention to what you’re doing with the umbrella.

Out of the 78 players, I haven’t seen 19 of them. I’m not going to be able to see them all, but I’ve seen a good share of them this week. I will be happy to get to watch Saturday and Sunday’s rounds on tv though. I saw some of it on the local news and it doesn’t even look like the same course. Weird.

The players fidget and waggle a lot more than what the camera shows.

Objectives for Tomorrow:

Not to get lost.

Buy another souvenir.

Not leave anything of mine behind in the hotel room when I check out.