The 2012 Deutche Bank Championship   Day 1   August 30, 2012   Thursday   Pro-Am

Got up at 4:15am, taking less than 10 minutes to get out the door for the drive to TPC Boston, arriving at 5:45 in frigid 55 degree pre-dawn conditions.  Always good to renew old acquaintances at the mobile marshal's assignment meeting.  Initially assigned to Bubba Watson's group for a 7:00am tee time, then also volunteered to be available for extra afternoon duty with Phil Mickelson's group.  As crew chief,  I was in charge of our 3-marshal group for Bubba, which was plenty for our relatively small gallery at the start, it being Thursday.  He was a great pro for this round, interacting continuously with the 4 amateurs playing with him, lots of trash talking, pretty funny stuff.  Every player got a few comments about their games, both good and bad, with a few sarcastic comments about not quitting their day jobs to turn pro.  A very social and comfortable round, the temperature warming up to 75 degrees.  Interesting listening to all the chatter on the headset, but amazing how much of it was discussions between various hole marshals trying to schedule relief lunch breaks for their staff.

Finished around noon and got lunch, putting my feet up until the 2:00 tee off with Phil.  We had a crew of 4 for Phil, all very experienced marshals, which meant we all knew how to properly position ourselves relative to the players for optimum crowd control.  Started out with a fairly small gallery by Phil  standards, only around 100 people, but steadily grew to 200-300 throughout the first nine holes.  Many encounters walking next to Phil in the transition areas from greens to tees.  By the 10th hole I was pretty gassed so I handed things off to Tony, who said we probably weren't going to be getting any busier as the day progressed.  I guess I was also mentally exhausted as my beloved 12-year old golden retriever Bogey was deathly ill with liver cancer and we would need to put him down tomorrow.