The view Sunday of 18 green
Happy Father’s Day to all you Dads and special love sent to Jeff
and our boys David, Morgan, Trevor and Scott.
Hope all had special days.
Congratulations Brooks Koepka! With the top of the field so closely bunched I
thought surely this would be a shootout to the end. Was I wrong!
Koepka put the hammer down on the back and cruised home. He won playing the best golf. Happy for him.
Tell you what, Matsuyama made a run and Brian Harman could
not get things going. Without Koepka’s
birdie run on the back it would have been a white knuckler.
We were the early marshals at the 18th grandstand. Started at 11:30. When we arrived the first
half of the enormous stand was ¾ full.
By 12:30 it was 90% full and we were giving out tickets to people
leaving so they could return. Mind you
the first group didn’t get to 18 after 1.
There were two ladies in the front row who said they had been there
since 6:30 – as in a.m. Yikes! If they stayed through the trophy presentation
they were there for almost 12 hours. Now
those are golf fans!
Let me start by saying the USGA does a phenomenal job – all
the way around. The logistics are
staggering. Getting 40,000 people to
and from the venue each day is just one huge task that must be next to
perfect. And as I said earlier this year
they had it down to a science. The giant
pillows they had around for watching in the grass were a super idea. I could go on and on and pretty much
everything would be 5 stars. You know what’s
coming, don’t you?
The 18th grandstand was a bit smaller than at
Chambers Bay where it held 6,000 souls.
So easily 4,000+. There were at
least 10 of us to corral and keep happy these golf fans. People are there for hours. And hours in some cases. They want/need to eat, stretch their legs and
of course hit the potty. In some cases,
more than once during the marathon of the day.
And if 4,000 can sit down then another 2,000 want to sit with them too.
Herein lies the rub. People who have
seats want to leave and keep their seats.
You have all been somewhere like this.
Seats are not purchased, there are no assigned seats as it is first
come/first serve. They give us red
tickets to give to those leaving so they can come back in 30 minutes or less. We write the time they go out on the
ticket. A stellar idea but how are we to
know which seats they left because more and more people are trying to get into
the stands for the first time. Honestly
it was a total cluster for two hours.
This is where the USGA fell down. There were no guidelines, no rules, no
official on site. How to handle this was
left up to the Area Captain who had no idea, the overall Grand Captain had no ideas
and the USGA never arrived. This left
the Grandstand Leader who happened to be Jeff who also had no idea at first but
he did get everyone together and put a plan in place. Get the idea?
So as hundreds of ticket holders left and came back we two
lines of people trying to get to a seat or get back to their seats. While this is going on so by the way is the
US Open not 30 yards from where we stand.
As soon as the players got to within 75 yards of the green of course all
seating was stopped for approaches and putts.
Occasionally the fairway would be open and we had five minutes to get
these people seated. Sometimes 20 seconds. At one time returning ticket holders were
waiting 45 minutes to get back. It was chaotic
for a while. To say there were some
furious people is putting it mildly. I
couldn’t blame them but they blamed us.
Long story over – by the time our shift was over we had
things under control as best they could be.
We handed off a relatively calm venue to the 2nd shift. This leader was beside herself because at
least four of her volunteers did not show up.
I heard that there were many who did not show on Sunday. That is bad form.
I hope the USGA sends out a survey to volunteers. I would like to tell them they might want to
review the situation so they can give guidance to their volunteers next time.
Sunday was a gorgeous day…right about 70 with early breezy
conditioners that sent many to the merchandise tent to purchase jackets. I doubt there was a jacket left in the place
by one o’clock. I know I never took my
jacket off even with running all over the place. It was surprising the wind did not seem to
bother the players at least not what I heard.
While we of course are unable to hear the TV talking heads American
Express provides the little radios so you can listen to play-by-play on the
course. Different announcers. It is so nice to be able to hear what’s going
on when you can’t be roaming the course or watching the giant TVs.
I have more thoughts on the event and the course and going
forward but will save those for my usual final thoughts which I will likely
send out Wednesday since we fly home tomorrow.
Again, thrilled for Mr Koepka – Major Champion!
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