The Travelers Championship    June 21, 2024  Friday

At our 6am Mobiles meeting, (tee times having been moved up by the PGA Tour due to impending weather), I chatted with Adam, who completed his first assignment as a lead yesterday.  He commented on how much radio chatter there was in his ear throughout the round, who knew?  He enjoyed the experience, and is certainly qualified to be lead in the future.  I also spoke with Jim, who was still semi-exhausted from yesterdays heat, as was I. My assignment as lead today was for the 12:50 group, Wyndham Clark and Jordan Spieth. Greg apologized for giving me such a late tee time, plus a crew of 3 rookie Mobiles, but they turned out to be a terrific group.  Corey and his wife Cat, along with Corey's brother Craig made up a family affair of thirty-somethings who were quick studies and great personalities.  Craig was unmerciful in teasing his sister-in-law Cat throughout the round, which was hysterical.  

(How do I use up the next 6 hours until out teetime? Had breakfast, sat in my car, sat at 1st tee borrowing a marshals chair and chatting them up, walked a few holes with the Tom Kim group but wasn't really marshaling since I sat at a few shady spots, trying to conserve my energy, 84 degrees at 9am. Went back to my car and moved into a shady spot but it was still too hot to take a nap, grabbed lunch and sat at the Barbados pavilion chatting with the staff and a standard bearer seated nearby). 

Finally, at 12:30 I met up with my crew, the Three-C's as they called themselves, at the first tee and briefed them on details of marshaling on the fly, as differentiated from hole marshaling, which they had all previously done, as well as shot-link. They were full of energy and enthusiasm and were psyched!  With 10 minutes to go, I received word via head-set that we would be joined by the Governor of Connecticut, Ned Lamont, along with a security detail of unspecified number.  Radio speculation instantly began as to how many holes the Gov would last walking in this heat, 5 being the highest prediction.  Ultimately he and his party vanished after three holes.  His presence didn't affect our job at all as his group were pretty  low key, walking at a discrete distance inside the rope.  I had an interesting experience early in the round, near the 2nd hole green, as a ball came over the hill, and rolled up the cart path near my feet.  I actually recognized it as belonging to JT, a Callaway with 4 marked dots.  Fans instantly began to crowd around, but were great in allowing JT and his caddie to approach and direct us all as to their preference for relief from the path and taking a drop.  I had to remain here throughout these proceedings while my crew continued on with Clark and Spieth on #3.  Once I caught up to them on 4, I knew they were a competent bunch as they'd kept going, and didn't need constant directions from me.  

Wyndham Clark was having a fantastic round, -6 for the day, with the weather beginning to turn thankfully with a light rain and clouds to dissipate some of the heat.  Even so, we still baked on the back 9, a portion of the course, holes 12-13-14 which I dubbed the Sahara Desert due to the heat.  By the 15th hole, I was getting weather updates from Maureen, the PGA Tour's threat of a lightning cell moving in our direction, condition "yellow" now upped to "red".  The horn blew at 4:11 and we were directed to escort our players to the awaiting evacuation vans, of which there were none in this area.  Clark and Spieth were thankfully picked up by carts, so our job was done while we went into weather delay mode.  We stood under the 17th grandstand archway, us and about 50 fans, who'd been advised to evacuate the stands above, being predominantly metal structures.  It was an opportunity to talk at length with these three very interesting people, as well as share stories about our previous PGA experiences.  We eventually made our way back to the volunteer village and waited it out, the assumption being we would eventually head back out.  It was a wild time with the rain, thunder, and lightning pounding this canvas sided temporary structure.  A tornado threat caused us to begin cracking jokes about getting carried away in the storm.  The PGA Tour provided updates every half hour, at 5, 5:30, 6, but I questioned if there would even be any spectators left out there to marshal.  I finally got Greg to release use from duty at 6:30, and promptly thanked Corey, Cat, and Craig for their services above and beyond the normal call of duty.  Despite the weather we'd had, they said their experience was tremendous!

Total for day:

20,308 steps

7.37 miles

12.5 hours on site