The FM Championship
August 27, 2026
Thursday, Day 1
Leading up to the LPGA FM championship at TPC Boston, I received periodic emails from the Walking Scoring chairman Brian Turbitt, including links to the scoring device training website. I completed the PowerPoint demo of the system, used across all LPGA tournaments and was quite happy with how familiar it seems at this stage. In the back of my mind, I knew that it would probably have moments during the actual tournament when it would be a bit challenging. That’s always proven to be the case!
On tournament day, once again, it was nice to have a normal wake up time with my plan to be out the door by 7:50, arriving at the course in Norton at 9:15. However, as I had feared, security at the entrance gate to TPC Boston would not allow me to pass in order to park at the Mass Golf lot using my ID. I was forced to turn around and go to the Norton middle school where a shuttle bus process ended up taking 45 minutes to get back to the course. After getting off the bus, I walked down to Mass Golf to see if I would be able to park there on Sunday. I found two guys in the headquarters who told me they had all been issued special access passes for parking so there was no hope for me to be able to use the lot going forward, not being a Mass Golf employee, just a volunteer, so I will have to adjust my plans for Sunday accordingly.
At volunteer HQ I checked in and got my uniform package, taking it to an adjacent Bouse House to change. It was probably the cleanest porta potty I’ve ever been in thank God! At HQ I got a second breakfast and had a very pleasant time sitting outside, watching the early tournament action pass by, including seeing the mayor – Jim and his wife Kim, who I briefly greeted. They are both now into the upper echelon of tournament management in various volunteer support capacities. I used up my remaining waiting time by taking a walk up to the practice green and range for some pre-tournament photos.
At 11:40 I checked in at scoring for my radio and scoring device. Brian was quite happy to see me back this year as one of his veteran scorers. The fact that he did not offer to review the scoring device usage indicated to me that he had every confidence that I was competent in its use. I then met my sign-bearer companion for the day, John, a thirtyish FM employee from Cranston, Rhode Island and a former Nichols College golf team member. His experience at FM had been as a player transport cart driver last year shuttling between holes seven and eight. He told me he wanted to try something inside the ropes and was able to get on the sign-bearer committee. Our players for this first round were: Minji Kang, Korea; Ryan O’Toole, San Clemente, California; and Stephanie Kyriacou, Sydney, Australia. We went off the 10th tee initially, where all three players and caddies cordially introduced themselves and shook hands. It is a ritual that never gets old. It was great working with John, he was accurately tracking each players score, and served as a check to my scoring as well. It was cool to see his reaction to being inside the ropes for the first time. He said to me “I can’t believe we’re here, actually doing this!”
The threesome format, combined with split tees of 1 & 10 is the LPGA‘s way of condensing the tournament to accommodate the Golf Channel broadcast window available to them. I also observed throughout the day a noticeably faster pace of play amongst the players. For example as each player putted out, they would immediately walk to the next teebox, leaving the other players to finish up. In some instances, the first player would be teeing off nearly as soon as the third player dropped her putt. This became a bit of a challenge as I was having to record shots taking place on the device in rapid succession sometimes. One of the nice little features on the scoring device for the LPGA is the “tap in” button which saves some steps in the putting out process. I found that I was also getting braver with using the device itself. For example, it is emphasized to us to never carry the device in your pocket as it may inadvertently trigger some functions that will render it inoperable. Scary thought. So I always carried the device pretty carefully, but as a result, it got covered in sweaty fingerprints by the end of the round! This time I discovered I could safely wipe them off on my sleeve without engaging any of the buttons, and it made reading it in the bright sunshine amazingly better. Small details in the life of a walking scorer!
It was a fairly sedate round today as this group drew very few spectators, 20 max, sometimes zero. There was no palpable energy level to the tournament whatsoever. However, it get a little more interesting at the 12th hole, (our third in the round), when O’Toole hit into a patch of thorny brush alongside the fairway. In the process of searching for her lost ball, I felt a sharp sting on my left ankle and thought it was from a thornbush. Looking down I saw it was a spider biting me! I immediately thought, black widow, but it was gray in color. I flicked it off and soon afterwards said to John, “If I collapse, take my radio and call for help, ha ha!” He asked, “Will I also have to now keep score? Ha ha”. It didn’t amount to anything, but it had us thinking for a little bit.
We encountered a scoring glitch at the second hole (our 11th), when Kyriacou hit her second shot on the par five into the penalty area fronting the green. She followed the correct procedure of noting the point at which the ball had crossed the margin of the penalty area, and after a brief discussion with her caddy dropped a ball along this line. For some reason, she then sent her caddy on the long walk up to the green, where he observed her ball in a potentially playable position, but she had already dropped a new ball putting it in play. She now questioned this situation and asked for me to radio for a rules official. He quickly arrived and gave her the ruling that the dropped ball was the one in play and that she could not go forward to the ball much closer to the green. All good, but while John and I were focused on all of this, the other players had taken shots as well, which we both failed to record accurately. As a result, I had to radio scoring control and get their assistance to correct the scoring device appropriately. It taught me a valuable lesson: that I could never lose sight of what all three players were doing, all the time no matter what. Soon after, as we were walking along the 4th hole, Ryan O’Toole came up to us, and very politely pointed out that we had incorrectly posted her score on the sign board as a birdie rather than a par, it was a nice moment coming from the player rather than the caddy.
By this point in the round, we were both getting pretty fatigued, both physically and mentally, the 84° heat didn’t help. Thankfully I was able to take advantage of the chairs strategically placed at every green so that I could take a brief rest break while still being able to closely observe every approach shot and putt. John said he was surprised at how tired he got carrying the sign for 18 holes. At the ninth green, our last, we again all shook hands and the players thanked us for our help. No signed golf balls, but Stephanie took our photo which was a nice gesture. I then rode with the players and caddies to scoring over at the 18th green, sitting next to Ryan O’Toole on the way. She and her caddy were talking about the recent “Good Good”controversy and I chimed in a bit asking if she was offended by it all. She said surprisingly “God no, it was all staged anyway.” At scoring, I waited until the pros got their scores reconciled, then the staffer there told me that my scores were in complete agreement and that I could go.
Final statistics at the end of the day
Kang +1
O’Toole +4
Carriacou +8
15,626 steps
