Day 3   August 31, 2014    Sunday   DBC

As soon as we arrived at TPC Boston, the mobile marshals co-chair David told me we'd been given the first assignment of the day, Bubba Watson and Ryan Moore, teeing off at 9:15am.  Somewhat disappointed that we weren't given a later assignment to a player in contention, but in a way this was better for Jim to get accustomed to a low key round without the potential craziness of a huge gallery late in the day.  Introduced Jim to several other marshals during our morning meeting then went for breakfast, where we were joined by Eric, also part of our crew today, very personable guy, an accountant in real life. After breakfast, we went to the range for an hour, Jim getting a chance to see all of the players first-hand as they were warming up. When our time came we got a cart ride to the first tee, where our 4th crew member, Ron met us, a chemist from Houston.  Good marshal but tended to be a phantom, self-directed kind of guy, keeping mostly to the cart paths, which was helpful in many congested spots.  Bubba and Moore both tied at +1, leaders at -9, so we attracted a fairly small gallery.  Jim soon got to experience being both inside and outside the ropes, as Moore's wayward drive on the second hole had us holding back the gallery to make an alley for his shot to the green.  Jim caught on quickly, he said later he just imitated me.

After working about 12 holes, I got a call on the headset reassigning us to the afternoon pairing of Matt Kuchar and Billy Horschel, the 2nd from the last group.  Evidently, the crew leader wasn't going to be able to make his assignment.  I discussed this with Eric and Ron as it would be just the two of them escorting Bubba and Moore the rest of the way, which was fine with them as the gallery had remained small and quite manageable.  We snagged a marshal support cart ride back to the volunteer pavilion and got ready for our reassignment, teeing off at 1:35pm.  With a little time to kill, I met up with my wife Mary and daughter Jill who were enjoying their seats at the Gosling Dark & Stormy Rum pavilion over-looking the 18th fairway.  The place was packed but they'd gotten seats and were trying to stay cool in the near 90 degree heat and humidity.

At the first tee we were met by 5 other mobile marshals, a rather large crew for Kooch and Billy but we split into two groups of 3 on each side of the tee box and pretty much kept that positioning and spacing throughout the  front 9.  Since our gallery had only reached 100 or so by this point, Jim and I excused ourselves from the remaining holes, (21 holes was enough for us, especially being Jim's first day).  We'd intended to attend the volunteer appreciation buffet scheduled for 6:30pm, but bagged it after seeing the hundreds of volunteers already in line. Instead, we headed out to dinner in Pawtucket near our rental.  Over dinner and a martini, Jim told me he really enjoyed the whole marshal experience but for different reasons than myself.  He said it was great getting completely away from his life in retail for a day, no customers, phone, meetings.  I was hoping tomorrow's assignment would give him a taste of  working with one of the biggest names in golf in front of sizable crowds on the final Labor Day finish.