Day 3    September 2, 2012   Sunday    DBC

One of the best days I've experienced as a marshal in 4 years of volunteering, I'd earned the coveted assignment to Tiger's group, teeing off at 1:35pm.  I would be part of a 6 person crew, including marshals chair Maureen, our mobile marshals co-chairs Karen & David, plus 2 other marshals with lots of DBC marshaling experience as well as at the Travelers tournament.  I'd learned over the previous years that this assignment wasn't everyone's favorite, several marshals had told me they didn't like the controlled chaos of TW's huge galleries, nearly crazed fans constantly showering him with all kinds of comments just to get his attention throughout 18 holes.  We'd see how this all turned out, I'd have to wait another 5 1/2 hours.

Had my usual volunteer breakfast which I brought up the player practice area to hang out with all my new buddies at the ball tent.  I was also getting to know several of the Norton police officers who stayed in the general area until they eventually left to escort their assigned players, kind of like us mobiles.  Always interesting hearing them talk about events of previous days in the tournament, especially the high-jinx happening yesterday on a hot Saturday afternoon.  At my second breakfast, met up with another marshal, Jim, as we sat at the 9th grandstand, terrific guy, very personable. He told me of the volunteer assignment his high school age daughter had as an observer, which included being stationed near the clubhouse locker room entrance, where she had lots of interaction with the players. What an experience that must have been, she'll be a DBC volunteer for life!  After a couple hours, went for lunch, (all I do is eat at DBC), sitting at a picnic table at the volunteer village, where I was soon joined by Maureen, Karen, & David, then Diane and John, our 6 person Tiger crew.  We worked out our plan for marshaling Tiger and Ryan Moore's gallery, including the need to be aware of fans attempting to take cellphone pictures.

The electric atmosphere of the "Tiger" gallery at the first tee was palpable, a phenomenon like no other at DBC.  As we made our way through the round, it grew from 2,000 to at least 4,000, a solid mass of people crowded around every tee box, 15 to 20 people deep in places.   I spent the entire day inside the ropes as there was no way to make it through these crowds otherwise.  Most of the time, I was within 10 to 20 feet of Tiger and Moore.  It was all we could do to keep control of the gallery, with our crew of 6, plus those marshals stationed at each hole.  There was always someone in the crowd yelling every variation of Tiger's name seemingly every five seconds.  I don't know how he was able to keep his concentration but it goes a long way toward explaining his need to have his game face on throughout 18 holes.  I'd go nuts if I was trying to play golf under these conditions. And yet, it made for the most intense mobile marshaling experience, especially since Tiger was in contention, playing in the second to last pairing of the day.

I had a great time, lots of positive crowd interactions, people asking all kinds of questions as we walked along, all kinds of reactions from fans whenever we asked them to put down their cellphones--"no pictures please'' was my near constant refrain.  I had two high school kids ask me how to become volunteers, they noticed our sign bearer walking with us, a position always reserved for our youngest volunteers.  They mentioned that they were on the golf team, I told them how to go on the DBC website and sign-up for next year.  Along the way I ran into Rex Hoggard of the Golf Channel, introduced myself and we chatted a bit as we walked along the front 9.  It was an overall great experience, no negatives from my perspective, a huge crowd but without mass chaos.   After we finished at the 18th green, we moved on to the scoring / interview area nearby, cordoned off from the massive crowds gathered behind barriers.  John & I positioned ourselves near Tiger and Ryan Moore as they were interviewed by NBC, then moved on with them to the autograph area. Five other marshals were already stationed there to handle Tiger's fans, we stayed off to the side with Moore.  Someone in the crowd asked him "what was it like to play golf with Tiger", to which he replied, "it is what it is!".  I think this is indicative of how exhausting it must be to a  player in the eye of the hurricane that is the ''Tiger'' gallery.