Day 4   September 1, 2013   DBC

Mike and I checked out of our rental after sleeping in to 6:30am, arriving for our 7:30 assignment meeting with plenty of time to spare.  Got assigned as crew leader for Matt Kuchar and Henrick Stenson, amongst the leaders and scheduled to tee off in the second to last group.  Mike and I hung out in the volunteer tent having breakfast, reading the Globe sports section, and watching Golf Channel coverage of the morning rounds. I arranged for two admission passes for tomorrow to be sent over to the will call booth at the Comcast parking center; my good friend Pat was nice enough to give me his passes so my kids could see the Labor Day final round.  As Mike and I hung out, it started to pour rain like I'd never seen at TPC Norton.  It was coming sideways into the pavilion so much so that we had to scramble to close the huge canvas panels across the front of the tent. Unfortunately, volunteers began scrambling in to get out of the downpour, instantly turning the place into a standing room only sauna.  Next thing I knew, I was informed over the headset that the PGA was making the unprecedented move of scratching the morning scores of all the players who had already gone out on the course, and reshuffling the pairings, now grouping players into threesomes.  As a result, we were reassigned to Brendon DeJonge, Harris English, and Jordan Spieth, all relative no-names in their early pro golfing careers, not likely to draw much of a gallery.

The weather finally cleared by noon and we went to the practice range to kill time until our 1:30 start.  All of the leaders were there including Tiger, Phil, Rory, Stricker, Poulter, etc., all in line going through their routines.  Great to have my buddy Mike there to see them all grouped together, he was in golf heaven.  Once at the first tee we met up with our two other mobile marshals, Michelle, a veteran of 6 DBC's and Rich, a newbie but had previously volunteered as a hole marshal, cart driver, something new every year.  Since Mike was now a veteran mobile marshal, I could focus primarily on Rich, who caught on quickly and was a great addition to our crew.  We had no rain during our round but the threat of lightning persisted and I was hearing lots of headset chatter to plan potential evacuation procedures.  Got to ride in the cart seated next to Jordan Spieth between 7 and 8.  He was not having a good day and I wanted to give him a word of encouragement but I held off.  He has an intense demeanor  but couldn't have been nicer as I walked with him through the round.   We finished at dusk, a very unusual day due to the logistics of weather, but Mike told me he had a wonderful time as a marshal and thanked me for the experience.