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.
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