Travelers Championship   Sunday  Round Four, June 22, 2025

 

A crazy start as the weather was not cooperating one little bit. A severe storm front was moving through Connecticut with possible thunder and lightning strikes from 8 AM until 10. Consequently everything was moved back, teetimes would begin at 11. Our assignment meeting would be at 10 AM and golfers would go off in threesomes from both the first and 10th tees. When I initially looked at my weather app the entire state was one massive orange and green blotch with little jagged lightning arrows everywhere. I thought we’ll be lucky if we even get any golf in from the looks of this, but by 10 AM it had completely cleared up and that allowed the heat to kick in reaching temperatures in the upper 90s eventually. At our morning assignment meeting, I was disappointed at having JT again, along with Austin Ecroat. I was hoping that I would get to work with Scottie Scheffler at least once this week and if not, then Rory or Keegan again. I guess I have to be happy with having worked with the Rory and Keegan in the “mini Ryder Cup” matchup on Thursday, which was a tremendous round with a massive gallery. My Mobile Ambassadors crew consisted of Bob and his son Brendan, and Adam. Bob and Adam were semi- rookies, in that they had only done MA work one other time earlier in the week. However, they were born natural Marshals, both being involved in coaching several sports at high school and collegiate levels so they weren’t overwhelmed in any way. Brendan was pretty much along for the ride with his dad Bob, but he was OK. We only had about an hour to kill before our teetime so I grabbed some breakfast and then had a nice talk with Karen and Diane about the adept way that weather-related chaos was avoided this morning by the well oiled machine that is the Travelers crew. 

At the first hole the atmosphere was absolutely electric. We were accompanied for our round by four honorary of observers who were by and large great guys, but every once in a while would stray too far from the ropes and need to be herded back again. They were always quite willing to comply. We got to witness a spectacular eagle by Austin Ecroat on the second hole. There were a few instances where both players hit outside the ropes, but my guys were tremendous at managing the gallery in each situation. The round went pretty smoothly for JT and Austin until the 13th hole when both players encountered disaster, pretty much tanking their chances for a high spot on the leaderboard. The gallery was extremely supportive of both players, but especially JT who received tons of love and comments of “Roll Tide”. 

There was a hairy moment at 18 when Ecroat landed his drive outside the rope along the left fairway but then had to contend with a TIO/scoreboard. He finally got a ruling to move his ball and played an unbelievable shot up onto the green from there.  

The 18th green and surrounding stadium-like atmosphere was its usual raucous self. Kind of tricky to escort our four honoraries outside of this situation along the really steep hill leading up and away from the green. I said goodbye to my crew and we took a selfie, although Adam had already bailed.

 

I decided I would try to stay a bit to assist with marshaling the 18th, but after Scottie Scheffler finished up, I realized there was still 45 minutes or so left before the final group came through. By then the heat had me physically and mentally exhausted and with the prospect of a three hour+ drive home, I decided to grab something to eat from the concession stand, which would soon be closing and beat the massive crowd at the parking lot. I hunted down Maureen, Diane, and Karen just say a quick goodbye and “hope to see you next year!” At that point, I didn’t know who would win the championship, but Captain America came through in an incredible finish, which I am kind of sorry I missed.  

 Travelers Championship   Saturday   Round Three, June 21, 2025

Another terrific start to the day with our meeting delayed until 8 AM. I had a pleasant chat with a couple of my Marshals from earlier in the week Matt and Julia, who actually work together at Travelers Insurance. They’re still buzzed about their experiences with marshaling over the past two days. I am assigned to Patrick Cantlay and Eric Cole for 1:45 this afternoon which is an odd pairing in that they will not draw a large gallery, but the circumstances are such that we will be sandwiched between Rory‘s group at 1:35 and Keegan‘s group at 1:55. I spoke with Greg Hammond, and we are of like minds that our small group of two MA's (me and Kara) will be roving between both of those much larger galleries to fill in the gaps as things get wild this afternoon. 

I had a nice chat with Jim “the Mayor” who asked me how it worked out finding my lost car key and he was happy that it was a positive outcome. I also sat down for a leisurely breakfast with Bill and Ellen Gerke, who I have known forever from Boston and Cromwell, and we shared a number of past experiences, most recently involving the LPGA as walking scorers at last year's FM Championship. Evidently, Ellen got stuck acting as a sign bearer for a round or two and says she “will never do that again!”

So, with roughly 4 hours to kill, I grabbed some extra food and water and headed to my car. I was able to move it to a shaded area which will make for a much more pleasant rest spot. I texted my family about my assignment for today and also reached out to Chris Rogers to update him on what has transpired over the week. He so wishes he could get back to the Travelers and he loves hearing some of the details of our Marshal experiences. I eventually got lunch and sat with all of the marshaling big wigs in the volunteer villa. I then headed out and sat in the shade at the ninth green and gave Mary a call and had a very pleasant chat, updating her on the week so far. 

When it got close to our tee off time, Greg texted me saying he got an extra marshal for our crew Cheuleun Kim, who I had worked with last year. I was more than happy to have him help us out. As it turns out, we had enough gallery to justify our small crew, so it was a perfect workload. My initial plan to assist and monitor the group in front with Rory and the group behind with Keegan never materialized, both of those groups never coalesced into one massive gallery, which had been my concern. It was a hot day though, in the low 90s, and I spent a fair amount of time seeking out water and snacks for my crew so that they wouldn’t wilt, me too. Using the ice wrap around my neck was a lifesaver as well. I was refilling it seemingly at every fourth tee box cooler. When we finished up, we took a quick selfie at the 18th green and that was it for the day. 

 

Travelers Championship  Friday   Round Two , June 20, 2025.    

 Ran into Jim and Kim Miscoe first thing on arrival TPC River Highlands. Jim is otherwise known as “the Mayor” of the Travelers Championship and is an exceptional personality, and now that he’s here, the cast is complete, with the exception of Chris Rogers who texted me yesterday saying he would certainly be watching on TV and hoping to see some outstanding marshaling!

Ran into Cece from my crew last year and had a wonderful conversation over breakfast. She is such a sweet person and is looking at retirement in four years from her high stress job at Travelers. It was fun to compare her plan with how I have been spending the past year in retirement. 

Afterwards, I got a ride to the walking scorers trailer to search for Buddy Buder, the Walking Scorers Chair, to follow up on my conversation with Jim Horvath about possibly becoming a walking scorer. Unfortunately he was not there, but I got his number to be able to send him a text. Hopefully we’ll be able to connect later in the championship. From there, I went back to the Villa to see if Jeff could arrange for an earbud for my radio, which he was subsequently able to do. He is such a scrounging whiz. I then went to my car to spend about an hour, just relaxing in anticipation of the arrival of my family who I had arranged tickets for today. They came on property at 11 and texted me to meet them at the 17th green where we had a fun time watching several of the early twosomes hit some very nice shots. I then suggested that we move over to the first tee area where they could be positioned for about 30 minutes and get a sense of what the start of the tournament was like at the first hole for each group of golfers. 

My assignment for today was with Ludwig Aberg and Sam Burns. My crew consisted of four experienced MA's: Julia, Bob, Brandon, and Babur (Bob). Even though we were positioned immediately in front of the largest group of the day, Rory and Keegan, our gallery was semi-light, and therefore easy to manage, especially with this very experienced crew.  It was a great day up until the time I realized that I was missing my car key, which evidently had fallen out of my pocket when I was visiting with my family and seated on the hillside at the first tee. Trying not to panic, I held out hope that someone may have turned it into the lost and found. It was a nerve-racking situation through holes 5, 6, and 7, then I finally left to go over to the volunteer villa to check at the registration desk, where they informed where lost and found was located. They told me that they had received a report of a Nissan key being found, which was very encouraging. I then got a cart driver to take me over to the lost and found office and lo and behold was able to recover it. In hindsight, this was incredibly fortunate as I only had to step away from our group for the ninth hole, maybe 20 minutes tops. Everyone on my crew was excited that I had recovered my key and totally reassured me that they had managed the ninth hole in my absence. I had a new lease on life for the back nine consequently and it went extremely well. The pace of play bogged down on the back nine and there was a significant wait for  most shots from the 11th hole on. Additionally, a very unusual circumstance had occurred in the morning when heavy winds had dislodged large tree branches onto the newly installed Treehouse beer pavilion at the fourteenth green. It was closed down for safety sake and probably won’t reopen for the remainder of the championship. Our round finished up in just over four hours nonetheless and it was a very pleasant day for all of us highly experienced marshals. I was proud of them all.        

All photos courtesy of Adam Mitchell

Travelers Championship  Thursday Round One, June 19, 2025

It was a tremendous start to the championship in that Greg Hammond realized that he could delay our AM assignment meeting by two hours, at 8 rather than 6 AM this morning. He said he was trying to really take it easy on us, especially since the first teetime wasn’t until 9 o’clock. It gave me a leisurely start to the day, which was much appreciated. 

Immediately prior to the meeting I got to chat extensively with Adam who I’d worked with last year and who was in the process of completing 50 marathons, one in each state, which is still an achievement that I can barely comprehend. On top of that he told me about volunteering at the Boston Marathon this year, managing the elite runners drinks table at the 10k mark, which sounded like a real strategic challenge.  He liked hearing about my experience volunteering at the start area in Hopkinton this year as well.

We must have had 40 MA's present, divided into ten crews of four marshals. Greg assigned me to Rory McIlroy and Keegan Bradley, which was the marquee pairing for the day. I was happy about this although I was a little surprised at getting Rory two days in a row. I was told later by Diane that it reflected Greg‘s confidence in me as a primary lead marshal and that Rory is considered the primary player at Travelers. That was a wonderful compliment from her, I thought. Greg, Dave, and Matt constituted my crew today. Greg and Dave had prior experience as hole Marshals. Matt was a rookie, a Travelers employee. So essentially three rookie MA's!  All three guys were proficient at marshaling, but needed consistent monitoring and direction for responding to the varying challenges presented to us throughout the day. This was compounded by the 90° temperature with a real feel of 99°.  I must’ve drunk seven or eight bottles of water during our four hour round. The Travelers is still limiting the access to water bottles placed at every hole for players use only, forcing us to contend with procuring water from six or seven coolers stashed in none-to-prominent places throughout the course.  There are also roving volunteer support carts with water and snacks, although this system is hit-or-miss since oftentimes they can't spot us inside the ropes due to large galleries.  

Rory and Keegan played exceptional golf throughout the day with a Ryder Cup style head to head match seemingly in progress. Both players shot -6 placing them in a tie for fourth place by the end of the day. Keegan was greeted with lots of love and chants of “Captain America”, “USA USA”, and “Ryder Cup, Baby!!”. Rory received an equal amount of love for his Masters and Grand Slam victories, so it was an even match throughout the day. We had a tremendous gallery for a Thursday with at least 1000 in attendance at the ropes. With Scottie Scheffler off to a hot lead at -8, this could be the start of an epic Travelers Championship.

  

Travelers Championship Pro-Am Wednesday June 18, 2025

I awoke before my 5 AM alarm and was out the door by 5:15, arriving at TPC River Highlands by 5:40 AM. The weather was questionable in terms of rain & fog, but the forecast was for improvement later on. Unfortunately, long range forecasting for the week seems to predict Biblical heat and humidity, conditions identical to last year‘s Championship.

It was nice to have everything run extremely smoothly this morning for the 6 AM Mobile Ambassadors meeting. I was assigned as crew leader for Justin Thomas in the morning and Rory McIlroy in the afternoon. Greg Hammond our committee Chair had decided to make fewer MA crews with more Marshals in each, so I had five in my crew, all of whom had worked as mobiles before with the one exception. They turned out to be a great crew, receptive to my periodic directions to place themselves to the right or the left of fairways depending on each circumstance. It was a pleasure working with JT‘s ProAm group of amateurs, all of whom rarely hit a ball outside of the ropes. At that morning hour, we had a rather small gallery of spectators, generally less than 100 through holes 10 to 18. We finished up at around 9:30 and stood by JT as he signed autographs for close to a hundred kids standing on the steep incline leading up from the 18th green.  It was great to be close to one of the favorites on the PGA Tour.

We had a three hour break before having to go out with Rory‘s group at 12:50. During that time an interesting circumstance happened to where several of us went to a new concession stand, which seemed to be offering a substantially upgraded menu for volunteers, (Mexican food, lobster rolls, barbecue). Unfortunately it turned out that none of these items qualified for the meal voucher system available to us volunteers; we were all sorely disappointed. One of my crew was kidding me later about the food staffer having the lobster roll all prepared for me and ready to hand over, but then checked with her supervisor and found out that we were not eligible for that upgraded menu so she had to pull it back, with apologies. So I settled for getting a veggie wrap lunch at the generic concession stand. I then went to my car for a well earned sit down, including about an hours nap which was great to recharge. Rory‘s afternoon group was the last of the day and attracted a gallery of several hundred people. The amateurs playing with him were not at the same skill level as our morning guys and consequently, were spraying balls beyond the ropes at almost every hole. My crew members got really good at going forward to position themselves to then find balls beyond the ropes and help with controlling the gallery so that players could return back into play.  I think the amateurs really get a kick out of having a PGA Tour-like experience with the gallery pressing in while they confer with their caddies and try to execute a decent shot. It has got to elevate the experience for them having marshals ask for quiet and "Hold Please",  everyone watching closely, even Rory! 

At the eighth hole, the mobile pizza grill was fired up and we all had a terrific opportunity to join Rory and his group for a couple slices. He was very magnanimous in chatting with everybody, posing for selfies and signing autographs for the pizza staff. Speaking of autographs, Rory had deferred signing anything throughout the round, stating he would sign at the end meaning at the ninth green. When we got finished at that point it turns out there were well over 100 kids waiting for autographs yelling out “Rory” and You promised you would sig!” He worked his way through the majority of the crowd along the ropes but you could tell he eventually became completely fried by the heat and the entire process and had to give it up with a few left wanting, but I can’t blame him for having signed as many as he did. 

We took a terrific crew selfie with everyone seemingly reluctant to call it a day. They all really bonded during this Pro-Am round.