The Travelers Championship June 25, 2023 Sunday
The last day of Travelers so I said goodbye to my wonderful sister Shirley, (& Jim), for their terrific accommodations, meals, and best of all, overnight laundry service! Shirley was initially astonished that I was provided with only one shirt for the entire week, and insisted on washing and drying it every night, like staying at a 5-star hotel! At our 7AM meeting I had a chance to chat with Chris, Steve, & Jim about our adventures yesterday with the weather affecting their rounds, getting soaked with those earlier teetimes. Big Jim Miscoe came by to deliver a touching farewell speech as he was retiring from the Mobile Marshal committee after decades of service, due to health reasons resulting in a limited ability to walk the hilly terrain at TPC River Highlands. I spoke with him later on at the 3rd tee where he plans to continue as Hole Captain, feeling its an easier assignment for his worn-out knees. I told him he'll be back as a MM after he has surgery! I also got to spend some more time chatting with Chris and John about our days at TPC Boston, sounding like three grizzled old veteran marshals when we reminisced about the day we had to handle the Tiger Woods / Brooks Koepka pairing in 90+ degree heat, with some of our fellow mobiles dropping like flies as we handled a tsunami-like gallery of thousands. We hadn't seen anything at Travelers to even come close to that experience! 
By process of elimination, I deduced I'd be getting assigned to the Adam Scott, Denny McCarthy pairing, the 3rd group on the leader board, as Greg had assigned me to pretty much all the other big names throughout the week. We'd be drawing a large gallery, sandwiched between the pairing of Scheffler / JT and Fowler / Cantlay and with Bradley / Reavie as the final group. My crew for the day included Steve, who I'd worked with earlier in the week, an experienced marshal and very good at it. And Mark, not so much, who'd had one previous day as a mobile and was still learning the inside the ropes, so to speak. Early on I had to direct him to walk closer to the ropes rather than walking down the fairway. He also needed me to monitor where he positioned himself, requiring a bit of pointing and hand signals periodically. Steve and I repeatedly had to strategize each hole from our vantage point at the tees, always watching the ball flight of each player, and relying heavily on the orange signal paddles. Scottie and Denny kept things inside the ropes consistently anyway. As we approached the 15th through 17th holes, I made the executive decision to skip trying to marshal the entire 16th hole and the 17th tee, as just too complicated to get to, and apparently adequately staffed with hole marshals already. 
Scheffler and McCarthy got on the 15th green safely, so we made our way through the immense gallery over to the 17th fairway landing area. From there we worked our way up 18 toward the stadium-like atmosphere at the green, the hillsides packed with spectators. Along 18, I met up with Chris and John who showed me a coiled rope they'd been given to deploy across the fairway in case the crowd swarmed in behind the leaders as they finished up. (They didn't). There was also a strong security presence along both sides of the 18th fairway, who eventually had to discourage a few spectators from ducking the ropes. Keegan had a three shot lead coming up 18, after making 3 bogeys in the last 5 holes. His drive went left of the ropes and I thought back to the finish at the 2022 US Open when Matt Fitzpatrick hit a wayward drive on 18 into a bunker, potentially sinking his shot at victory. Keegan got safely onto the green from the rough, in no small part thanks to the effort of the marshals removing the ropes and handling the huge crowd. The ovation he received as he walked up to the 18th green was spine tingling. His caddie had to quiet the chants of ''Kee-gan Brad-ley" so his two-putt could seal the deal. He raised his arms in victory, then got to lift his kids up as well, saluting all of the ''New England golfers'' for their support. 
My 2023 Travelers stats:
41.40 miles walked
16 PGA Tour players (no repeats)
11 Mobile Marshals (some repeats)
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