Day 2 Saturday September 3, 2016
Assigned to the premier group of players, (Jason Day, Dustin Johnson, & Patrick Reed) with my buddy Tony, along with our mutual friend Jimmy, a great marshal with a very dry sense of humor who has tendency to have a witty quip ready for any occurrence as the day unfolds. Nothing phases him. Since our group wasn't teeing off until 1:40 pm, David asked if I could help with a morning group, initially assigning me to walk with Rory McIlroy, then later switching me to Jordan Spieth. Great, this would give me an extra hour for breakfast, sitting at my usual spot on the porch of the volunteer pavilion, chatting with my fellow marshals. As things worked out, Dave came by with a change of plans due to one of our marshals being delayed, and asked if I could switch back to walking 9 holes with McIlroy. No problem, but no leisurely breakfast, had to be on the first tee in half an hour. We had a 4-man crew, Rick, Geno, and another Rick (a rookie). Just a word about two of these guys, to give you an idea of how deep the marshaling thing runs in all of us. Rick told me this was his 34th tournament, combining The Travelers and Deutsche Bank! Geno has marshaled at a mere 20 or so combined! And here I am at my 11th, I felt like a rookie by comparison. This was my first time working with Geno, great guy, outgoing personality, completely positive outlook which is instantly perceptible on meeting him. The gallery fed off his vibe and did anything he asked of them, ( "Please hold your positions").
I had a great time walking the front nine with Rory, Tony Finau, and Jim Herman, being positioned about 100-200 yards ahead of the players, not my usual position but enjoying the different perspective it offered. As I'm usually the lead marshal I tend to position beside the players, but in this instance I was happy to help out where I was needed most. We were marshaling a decent sized gallery of 200-300 spectators for early on a Saturday morning in very pleasant conditions, temp in the low 70's with hazy sunshine. Our round went very smoothly, only one instance of crowd control when Rory hit outside the ropes to the right off the 7th fairway, having to control the gallery and create an alley for him to get back to the fairway. He thanked us when he got back to the rope we were holding for him and his caddie as they ducked under.
My commitment for 9 holes ended quickly so I headed to the volunteer village to rest up for my primary assignment in the afternoon. Had lunch with Tony, my co-lead for the assignment with Day, DJ, and Reed. Talked about his relatively recent experiences running road races, having given up smoking only 3 years ago and recently completing a half-marathon. Myself being on the far side of long-distance racing, (three Boston Marathons 20+ years ago), I gave him the benefit of my limited wisdom for setting his sights on Boston. He has his doubts, but I'm confident he'll be able to run Boston, the difficult issue being obtaining a bib number.
Made my way to the 1st tee for our 1:40 tee-off and was met with the largest gallery of the day by far, 1,000 spectators gathered and ready to go. Tony, Jimmy, and I were a relatively small number of marshals for this size group, but the recent down-sizing of the mobile marshals crew was in play. Additionally, we were to find out that our committee co-chairs had made a decision to send us out with the premier golfers, rather than reserving this assignment for themselves. It represented a definite shift in how our assignments were being issued, and also signified a tremendous level of confidence in our ability to handle the largest gallery. Tony and Jimmy are the best marshals, knowing exactly where to position at each hole based on an ever-changing dynamic of gallery size and player position. The gallery grew to Tiger-like proportions of over 3,000 moving en-masse tee to green, jockeying for position. Even when Jason Day hit his drive deeply into the woods to the right off the 5th fairway, a situation where there was only 1 hole marshal stationed, we were able to marshal a huge crowd of not only thousands of spectators but also photographers, tv crews, 4 Norton police officers, and even Roger Maltbie, providing running commentary for NBC. Unfortunately for Day, he subsequently hit an atrocious 2nd shot, again into the woods, where we had to repeat the same set-up so he could escape his predicament. He kept his cool and thanked us on his way back to the fairway. Day again hit beyond the ropes on the very next hole, but rallied for birdie, and subsequently held on to make the cut after having shot an 8 on the fifth hole. Impressive!
Patrick Reed
We had only one instance of near chaos, on the long cart-path connecting the 7th green to the 8th tee. The players are always transported by golf cart while we try to keep the cart-path partially clear to avoid having the gallery interfere with the traffic flow. Unfortunately, our master plan got clogged by 2 additional carts transporting beer from the 7th green concession stand, bringing several thousand spectators to a complete halt while we got it all sorted out. Closest I ever saw Tony to losing it!
I had a brief encounter with Roger Maltbie on the 13th hole after Day seemingly hit his drive wide right again but I lost sight of it. Maltbie was standing near me about 50 yards forward of the teebox and I asked him, "Did Day hit it outside of the ropes?" He looked at me and replied good-naturedly, "I don't know, I can't see that far!" We both chuckled. He is a beloved character at DBC, always addressed by someone in the crowd with a hearty Boston-accented "Rogaah!!"
At 18, DJ unfortunately lost his approach shot to the green, having to backtrack to the drop area, resulting in a little extra work for us as well, but worse for him, a double bogey. We finished up our round at 6:15pm, another long day at DBC. Our crew was able to score some left-over Bertucci's pizza and Ben & Jerry's ice cream at the tent, where we sat with Karen and Maureen, all pretty exhausted but happy from the events of the day. Now all plans are focused on the tropical storm due to arrive here on Monday, the forecast still developing but sounding serious.
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