The FM Championship 

August 27, 2026

Thursday, Day 1

Leading up to the LPGA FM championship At TPC Boston, I recieved 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 past 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 spouse 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 Turbo was quite happy to see me back this year as one of his veterans 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 a competent veteran 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 Ben 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 a signed barer assignment. Our players, for this first round were Minji Kang, Korea, Ryan, O’Toole, San Clemente, California, and Stephanie Carriacou, Sydney, Australia. We went off the 10th initially, where all three players cordially introduced themselves, and shook hands, as well as their caddies. 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 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 noticeably faster pace of play amongst the players. For example as each player putted out, they would immediately walk to the next tea box, 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 Tappan button which saves some steps in the putting out process.

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. we encountered a scoring glitch at the second hole when Kiraku 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 point. 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 the ball putting it in play as she now questioned this situation she 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 Oh, Ryan O’Toole came up to us, and very politely pointed out that We had incorrectly posted her score on the signas 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 as well at how tired he got carrying the sign for 18 holes. At the ninth green, our last, we again all shows, 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 know, it was all staged anyway.”  Add 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 +3

Kyriacou +8

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