Thankfully by this stage in the Championship, things get off to a later start, allowing the assignment meeting to take place at 7:30am. Got assigned to the Phil Mickelson and Adam Scott pairing, teeing off at 1:15, the 4th from last tee time of the final day of the DBC. By now I was developing a routine for killing time by hanging out on the practice tee grandstand, having one breakfast, then a 2nd breakfast, then timing lunch just right since our 18 hole round would last at least 5 hours.
Got to the 1st tee around 1:00, met up with our crew leader Tony, Brian, Dave, and Tom, all veteran marshals and good guys. We were also going to be joined by a Norton police officer for added crowd control, which was great since the afternoon Labor Day galleries were becoming pretty liquored up. Mickelson and Scott were tied at -12, the leader Charlie Hoffman at 17 under par. The gallery at the first tee was around 300 spectators, growing steadily to 5,000 as we made our way along, picking up people at every hole. Tony and I stayed parallel to Phil and Adam, while the rest of our crew worked a few hundred yards ahead on either side of the fairway. We would join up at each green and position ourselves relative to where the hole marshals were already stationed. Invariably, those marshals would thank us for bringing in the ''reinforcements'' after they saw the size of the gallery we were escorting. Making our way from each green, between the ropes down the narrow chutes to the next tee, was always a challenge, with people standing 7-8 deep, trying to get Phil's attention. At some points, I felt sorry for Adam Scott, who was virtually ignored by the crowd. This would present a challenge to us at each tee and on the greens, keeping the crowd in place until both golfers had hit. Spectators would tend to bolt as soon as Phil was done, trying to move ahead to jockey for the next viewing position along the ropes. We were constantly giving the command "Stand please" & "Hold for both players".
On hole #10 I had an especially challenging situation when Phil's drive went outside of the ropes not once but twice, requiring us to move the crowd to create an alley for him to play his shot. We have to drop the gallery rope by pulling the stakes, which involves marking the stake hole with a tee, or you never find it again and can't jam it back into the rock hard turf otherwise. Little known marshal secret! The spectators want to be right on top of Phil, who only encourages this with lots of friendly bantering back and forth. His caddie Bones was helpful in directing the crowd back the proper distance for the right shot angle. Our crew leader Tony is a master at this type of situation as well.
After finishing at 18, Tony stationed us at the scoring / interview area, which had become packed. The eventual winner of the DBC, Charlie Hoffman was in the pairing immediately behind us, which added to the tremendous crush in this whole area. Was a thrill to be in the midst of all the players at the top of the leader board as they were being interviewed, then making their way to the clubhouse. It was a long 12 hour day, after a long 4 days at the Deutsche Bank Championship, the second stage of the FedEx Cup of 2010, and I'd had some small part in making it all happen. Can't wait until next year.
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