US Open   Day 3   June 18, 2016   Saturday

Arrived at Oakmont at 9:15am, checked in with Buck, 19th hole Co-captain, who didn't have any walking marshal assignments for me, so I went for breakfast which was being well catered at the East Course volunteer pavilion.  As I was sitting on the porch, I ran into Joe, the marshal I'd met at Merion, who was still at it, volunteering at his 20th-something Open with his brother, bringing his wife along this time.  Incredible!

Buck eventually assigned me to marshal at the 6th teebox, along with a very interesting gentleman named Dave who turned out to be the senior reporter for the Madison, WI CBS-TV affiliate.  He'd covered many sporting events in his career, including Olympics, Super Bowls, and US Opens.  A down to earth fellow without any pretense, very willing to talk about his experiences and his views on broadcast media, especially the Fox coverage of the Open.  I found out that my suspicions about various golf broadcasters were accurate, and that the current crew working for Fox were pretty nice guys.  I spent 4 hours at this tee, inside the ropes marshaling a fairly sparse gallery, working the orange paddles to signal so that the crowd in the greenside grandstand had some idea of the approaching ball flights.  The second round finally concluded at 2pm on Saturday so I returned to the pavilion to await my next assignment, grabbing a nice lunch from the concession stand in the process.

After 30 minutes, I was assigned to the 8th green grandstand, which turned out to be one of the best assignments of the week, primarily because of the marshals already posted there and how welcoming they were for my assistance.  The captain, Dave, nearly hugged me when I arrived, he was so appreciative to receive help in managing a busy grandstand holding about 400 people.  We now had 3 marshals to manage this spot, at virtual capacity throughout the remainder of the day, from 3pm until play was called on account of darkness at 8:45pm.  (A 12-hour shift for me total, but I'm not complaining).   Dave and I hit it off immediately and established a great system for managing this grandstand, including implementing the USGA re-entry pass system once the we were technically ''closed''.  Had countless funny interactions with the spectators trying to gain entry, all kinds of offers to allow just a few more folks to squeeze in.  The 8th hole at Oakmont was one of the most difficult holes on the course, a 265 yard par-3, on which we saw less than 5 birdies all afternoon. We witnessed lots of anguished putting attempts for par on this very difficult slick green, stimping out at 15.  Once the horn sounded signaling stoppage of play for the day, we received countless thanks and high-fives from patrons as they exited, thanking us for our volunteer service.