Day 2     September 4, 2010     Saturday

It was the second day of competition at the DBC, and it was going to be my first inside the ropes next to the players as a mobile marshal.  To make it an even more unique experience, we had just weathered Hurrcane Earl on Cape Cod, winds roaring all Friday night into Saturday morning but winding down by 4am. I got up at 4:45 to check the weather, but more importantly to check on the status of the Sagamore bridge leading off the Cape; there had been conjecture on Friday that the State Police were going to close the bridge if conditions were unsafe.
No problem driving up to TPC Boston as it turned out, but the weather meant I was delayed and missed the 6am mobile marshals assignment meeting.  When I caught up to Karen and David, they informed me I was assigned to the Phil Mickelson, Ben Crane, & Jeff Overton group, considered the #2 group of the day, (Tiger being #1).  I was really surprised to be placed in such a high profile group as a rookie mobile marshal.  I had an hour to kill so I got breakfast and headed up to the practice tee, getting a cart ride from a marshal's support guy.  Found a bit of golf heaven at the practice area, the place was packed with 25 of the top 100 players in the FedEx cup standings, all going through their warm-up routines, each slightly different from one another.  The atmosphere was already electric, then went up another notch entirely when Phil walked on to applause from the hundreds of spectators in the grandstand and along the ropes.
Made my way to the 10th tee for our 7:48 tee time, joining Diane our crew leader, plus four other mobile marshals, nice guys all.  Diane's style was excellent, letting us each choose where we wanted to be stationed as we walked 18 holes with Phil's group.  I chose to stay parallel to the players, other marshals went ahead at 100 and 200 yard positions.  We started out with a gallery of around 200 people at that morning hour, which eventually grew throughout the round to between 3000 to 4000 on the last 4 holes (6 through 9).  I quickly saw the value in the mobile marshal concept as several holes had only 2-3 hole marshals and would have been swamped with the size of our gallery without our added 5-marshal crew. I was inside the ropes virtually every step of the way, keeping alongside the players, standing only a feet away in lots of cases. One key concept I learned is to be unobtrusive, not blocking the galleries' view, but also being visible as the crowd watched the players.  Spectators take their cues from the marshals as to when to remain quiet and respectful of the play going on.  We on the other hand don't want to act as if the gallery must remain quiet or stationary unnecessarily, so we're constantly assessing each player's shot routine to signal for quiet at just the right moment.
Seeing a player of Phil Mickelson's stature over the course of 18 holes gave me a fuller appreciation of his professional nature which makes him such a crowd favorite.  I could not believe how many people in the crowd were compelled to shout his name or words of encouragement, literally thousands of times.  Phil seems to acknowledge each one, with a smile, a nod, a tip of his cap or his trademark thumbs-up.  I'd be going nuts with that much constant distraction, but Phil is ''on'' every step of the way, all 18 holes.

 Our final hole was incredible. The right side of the 9th fairway is adjacent to the main spectator entrance to TPC Boston, so the first thing everyone does on arriving is to stand at this fairway to see who is coming along.  The midday crowd was like nothing I'd ever seen, people must have been standing 20 deep, the noise was amazing.  All we had to do as marshals was to get them to be reasonably quiet and motionless!  About the best we could do was to get things settled down to a dull roar. A tremendous experience.  Phil was having a spectacular round, starting the day at minus 3 and finishing at 8 under par, a wonderful display of great putting. Afterwards, Diane gathered us together off the 9th green and told us we'd worked ''perfectly'' as a crew.  I really felt such an integral part of the action, as well as having a small part in enabling the tournament to take place as part of the volunteer Blue Crew.  To top it off, I was later cutting through the players courtesy car parking lot on my way to the practice range when I ran across Phil getting into his courtesy BMW.  He looked at me, and nodded, seemingly recognizing me from having just walked 18 holes with him. (Or so I'd like to think!).