The FM Championship 

August 30, 2026  

Final day of the FM championship. I factored in some extra time to accommodate what I thought would be a significant delay at volunteer parking at Norton high school. The championship organizers had addressed the problem by recruiting a fleet of small airport style vans, which resulted in no waiting for transport up to volunteer HQ. Consequently I arrived way too early, well before 8 AM. My check-in time at scoring was 9:20 so I passed the time having a second breakfast and reading 1440.  When the time came I picked up my radio and scoring device and met my sign bearer for the day, Margaret, a sixtyish extremely nice lady from East Providence with two years experience at the tournament. We worked exceptionally well together and were able to corroborate player scores smoothly, including a couple of instances of correcting some discrepancies. Our players for this final round:    Yan Liu, China; Mao Saigo, Japan; & Brooke Matthews, Arkansas.

 It was nice to start off at the first tee, which had a lively gallery of 50 people. The usual player and caddy greetings went well with handshakes all around. It was a perfect late summer day but eventually a hot 84 degree wind started blowing strongly. I found that I had to resist the inclination to casually chat with Margaret along the way to avoid becoming distracted. This was compounded on the back nine when Don, a volunteer spotter working for Golf Channel joined us since Brooke Matthews was going on a birdie run. Now I had double distractions, but they both knew I had to fully attend to every single shot made by the three players, especially on the greens. They also tended to rely on me to verify their scores, especially all the birdies being made by Matthews.  She had five on the back nine to go -9 and finish T6. Unfortunately, it was too late in the round for us to get on the Golf Channel feed and I could tell Don was disappointed, never getting on camera. Liu and Saigo both finished at -3. 

I repeatedly enjoyed those moments when it was just me on the fringe of a green, the three players, three caddies, going through the whole process of putting out. As each one finished, they wouldn’t wait for the others, walking to the next tee so it would often be just me and the player and caddy at the green until the hole was completed, and the final putt was registered in the device.

Once finished, at the 18th hole scoring desk, Yan Liu gave Margaret and me an autographed ball each, signed elaborately in Chinese script with a small flower and smiley face. I asked her caddie to take our photo and he happily obliged. 

 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

Travelers championship Sunday, 6/28/26

 Today would become one of those volunteer days that goes down in the books as amazingly good and amazingly bad. First, the good:

 I was assigned to Sahith Theegala and Taylor Pendrith for a 10 AM teetime with Ken being our sign bearer. He is a seasoned veteran at this having done so for the past 10 tournaments and we worked well in a check and balance system throughout 18 holes. Our round with Thegala and Pendrith went great, what I thought of as a “clean round” until the 13th hole when both players ended up hitting into the water and needing to take penalties. Thegala had me radio for a rules official to determine the exact point for a legal drop. Pendrith had trouble with his drop at the greenside water hazard and had to eventually place his ball by hand four times before it stayed in place rather than rolling back into the hazard. Registering all of these penalties correctly in the scoring device gave me a real sense of accomplishment. Thegala played quite well, -5 on the day, -4 for the tournament. Pendrith not as well, -4. Afterwards at the scoring tent I was greeted by multiple scorers asking me how it had gone and would I be coming back next year? I replied certainly, which resulted in positive reactions from everyone there.

Now the “bad” part:

After a two hour well-deserved rest break I psyched myself up to go back into battle to marshal for Scotty and Victor Hovland in the last group on the back nine. I timed my arrival on course to meet Greg just as this pairing was exiting the eighth green. Greg‘s face lit up as if the cavalry had just arrived. The chute leading from 8 to 9 was packed with screaming fans of two different affiliations, half  Norwegian screaming encouragement to Hovland and half shouting “USA USA” at the top of their lungs as both golfers made their way to 9 tee.  It was a tremendous marshaling experience, working with Greg again to attempt to manage a gallery even larger than Friday. Working holes 9, 10, 11, and 12 were just barely within the realm of controlled insanity with this gallery. On the 13th hole, a light rain began to fall, initially feeling like it might be short-lived, then gradually intensify to basically a steady downpour. None of us were prepared for this situation, and we rapidly became drenched to the skin. We proceeded on in this miserable fashion for another two holes until the PGA sounded the horn for suspension of play.  Greg and I and assorted PGA officials escorted Scotty and Victor to the nearby player evacuation vans at the 14th green. It was about 5 PM and taking stock of the situation, I couldn’t imagine that play would resume anytime soon. In multiple prior circumstances, it was my experience that the majority of the spectators would evacuate and create a situation where there were minimal gallery remaining to be marshaled. Consequently, I made the semi-miserable walk back in the direction of the clubhouse where I met up with several fellow scorers standing under the protective overhang. I felt badly that they would have to be heading back out if and when play resumed. They said they were envious that I could walk off now that the crowds would be basically nonexistent. I said a second “goodbye and see you next year”!  Finally arriving at my car I was able to dry off using some golf towels and donning dry golf clothing. I ended up staying put as it took over an hour for the bumper-to-bumper traffic to finally let up enough to attempt to head home. I later learned that play had resumed after a 90 minute delay, resulting in a tie score between Scheffler and Hovland at -21. It was a bit perplexing that they didn’t proceed to a sudden death playoff, instead rescheduling it for first thing tomorrow morning. I later found out that this was to avoid a programming conflict with the Yankees Red Sox game also scheduled on NBC.

22,020 steps 

On course 8am—7:30pm

Many many thanks to Shirley and Jim Bednarek for their fantastic hospitality and accommodations throughout this week of the Travelers!  I couldn’t possibly do any of this without your support!

Championship Saturday, 6/27/26

 

Having fully recovered from yesterday‘s heat exhaustion episode, I was really looking forward to getting back into walking scorer mode, despite having received an email requesting I show up 45 minutes earlier than planned for a 9:25 teetime with Ludvig Åberg and Harry Hall. Again, Tom was the sign bearer, which was great as we worked really well together at the ProAm and he was terrific company throughout an 18 hole walk. Today was a better weather situation, around 80°.  The gallery for Aberg and Hall was decent, but nothing like Scheffler’s. At the start, both players and their respective caddies were all extremely polite and introduced themselves. We wished everyone good luck. Our round went smoothly in that I pretty much had full confidence in my ability to maneuver my way through the complex scoring process. I even had to register an out of bounds penalty for Aberg on the 12th hole, which didn’t throw me. There were later one or two hiccups which I was able to correct in the device, including needing to call in a correction to our producer, situated in Florida. After we finished, Tom and I hung around the scoring area and received a signed ball from Harry Hall. He was very gracious and thanked us again. It all in all was a nearly perfect day in this new volunteering capacity, only requiring 13,667 steps. Easy!

Travelers Championship Friday 6/26/26

I was out the door at 5:45 AM in a driving rain which was forecast to end between 7 and 8 AM. I liked the sound of that even though it forced me to walk directly to the scorers tent so that I could register for bullpen duty within the 6 30–7 a.m. window. Tim was there and said he was happy to see me and that I was third on the list. I told him my option of joining the MA crew later in the day if it turned out my services were not needed as a scorer. He said that my chances of getting out as a scorer were pretty light and that if I didn’t hear from them soon I should check back at 10 AM. So, I cooled my heels with breakfast and a rest until 10 and then headed back to scoring. On my way. I bumped into Greg Hammond and updated him about my situation. He welcomed having my help to marshal with whatever group I wanted. I selected Scheffler-Burns, teeing off at 11:10. We arranged to meet at the first tee

Tim confirmed with me that I wouldn’t be needed as a scorer so I headed to the first tee to join Greg‘s group of three other MAs. One of the guys surprisingly said, “I’ve seen you on TV!“ I was a bit taken aback by that comment but I guess it could happen. So it was like old times, marshaling the largest gallery of the day with thousands stretching along both sides of each fairway from tee to green and then onto the next hole. 

Shades of Tiger Woods days!  

Greg and I stayed with the players while our other Marshals went to forward positions.  Although the gallery was primarily interested in seeing Scheffler, they also treated Sam Burns with equal respect and tended to hold their positions until both players had completed their shots. More than once, Greg said he was really glad that I had joined him as the crowd was so huge. Hydration became an issue as the heat rose into the mid 80s. We were once again restricted from accessing the water chests at each teebox, instead having to flag down the volunteer support carts outside the ropes or locating the semi-hidden volunteer supplies, which seems sort of like a treasure hunt. I got to witness a funny situation at the 16th hole where Smiley Kaufman had his “Happy Hour”desk set up. Ted Scott, Scotty’s caddy faked a fist bump with Smiley, instead dropping a ball into his outstretched hand. Smiley’s reaction was hysterical, (something you wouldn’t readily see on the TV broadcast I imagine). By the 17th tee it was becoming apparent that Scotty was threatening to shoot a 59, needing only one more birdie during the two remaining holes. Unfortunately, this didn’t happen and he settled for a 60, despite having 11 birdies in the round! I later heard it was his best putting performance in his entire career statistically.

As we walked off after the 18th green, I was completely exhausted. 19,189 steps.  Walking as a Marshal is significantly more challenging, up and down the hills of TPC River Highlands, in the thick rough versus negotiating the short grass in the middle of the fairway as a scorer. As it turns out after I got home, I developed a case of heat exhaustion and needed to sleep for 12 hours.

Travelers Championship Thursday 6/25/26

 

While getting breakfast at the volunteer pavilion, I ran into my buddy Ben who I met at the training session. He asked how the ProAm went and was treating me pretty much as an equal in being part of the walking scorers team which implied he could tell I was doing pretty well. He reassured me that the time will come when mistakes are made, “we all do“, which was kind of reassuring. 

At the scorers tent I got my assignment, Matsuyama and Echevarria. I met my sign bearer partner Tom a 30-something guy who works at Travelers as a software engineer, has two kids and lives in Old Saybrook. Turned out to be a great guy, we talked throughout the entire round, but had to limit our conversation at times due to the potential for distraction from the exacting job at hand with scoring. 

It’s always so nice to have each player and their caddie come up to you and introduce themselves and shake hands, all of them greeting us in English actually. I was admittedly a bit anxious at the first tee being on my own for scoring, but settled down by the second hole into a step-by-step rhythm, recording each and every shot for each player. A typical shot sequence involves making at least a six step process. Eventually, it felt like triggering the release button on the device for each ball strike was an integral part in supporting the golfers on the course. It was an incredible experience to be walking near the players from teebox to green on every hole, hearing the player-caddie comments to strategize each shot. Unfortunately, with this pairing, they were speaking Japanese or Spanish to each other! The feeling I got was I developed tunnel vision, screening out the gallery and any distractions so as to focus for what amounts to about 140 separate shot entries throughout the round.

It was nice to have four of my family in attendance who I briefly encountered at the 4th hole and then again at the 17th green. In each instance, they had to call out to me to get my attention as I was completely focused on scoring. Unfortunately I couldn’t linger for a chat as play continued without a break.

After we finished the round, it was nice to be thanked in person by both caddies and Echevarria, and we received the traditional signed golf balls. Tom and I then got a ride from the clubhouse scoring area back to the scorers tent where I spoke with Nick and Mike, the chairman, about not being on the schedule for tomorrow. I was told I will be assigned to a 10:30 group Saturday and if I wanted, I could be on the bullpen tomorrow, just show up between 6:30 and 7 AM. With this in mind, I checked with Greg Hammond, the Mobile Ambassadors Chair about the possibility of working as a MA Friday if my services were not needed for scoring. He was more than happy to agree to receiving my help and to let him know tomorrow about my status. 

Travelers Championship Wednesday 6/24/26

 ProAm

Today’s the day I get to see if I can handle the walking scorer device in actual use during play. Thankfully, the program requires only recording information for the pro. The team amateur score is recorded separately, a simple number on a traditional scorecard. 

Upon arrival at the walking scorer tent, I was met by Steve, who was assigned to walk with me throughout my round to assist as needed and answer questions if and when they arose. Steve’s been doing this for 26 years and is one of the half dozen honchos at Walking Scoring Committee who keep everything organized, but in the friendliest manner possible. That is a key factor to reiterate because I was entering what I always have considered a closed shop committee and I was hoping it wasn’t going to have much of an intimidating atmosphere since I was a rookie. It was overwhelmingly positive every step of the way, and reinforced my ultimate decision to attempt to learn this skill of scoring at the highest possible level.

Prior to heading out for my ProAm assignment, I got to have a nice sitdown chat with Buddy Buder who was holding court at the Walking Scoring HQ tent. He reminisced with me about our mutual friend Jim Horvath, but also demonstrated a genuine interest in my background, including how long I had been involved at professional golf events. It seemed like everyone I ran into this week knew Buddy in some capacity or other, generally mentioning that he was always the walking scorer for the final group on the leaderboard on Sunday.

I was assigned to Sam Stevens for the front 9 of the ProAm, to be followed by Brendt Snedeker for the back nine. Sam was very personable, introducing himself at the first tee, asked where I was from and chatting periodically as the round unfolded. Alongside me was our sign bearer, Mike, who was a great asset to me in keeping track of Sam’s score, kind of in a check and balance way. We had an interesting collection of amateurs in this group a 2, a 6,  and 10 handicap, but found out that the 10 probably should have been recorded as 28 as the round unfolded. He was having a blast playing so poorly, laughing off every flubbed shot, so nobody got exasperated when he would be putting for a quadruple bogey. It later got to the point where Brandt was kidding him about his game and it got pretty silly. Example, on the 16th tee, a par three with a forced carry over water, our “10” wiffed his ball and sent his divot flying into the water, a good 20 yards! It was hilariously bad.

 I was gaining confidence throughout the round, recording each and every shot accurately on the device. It got to the point where Steve didn’t need to check me out at all on the back nine. To elaborate, each shot necessitates  selecting on the device the location from where it is originating (Tee, fairway, rough, green, etc.), then holding the shot button until the moment the player impacts the ball with the club head, and releasing it at that exact moment. This then triggers the Shotlink tracking cameras located throughout the golf course which generate the ball flight depicted on TV screens through a complex hook up. In fact, it’s directly connected to the TV broadcast in that my radio was communicating with a producer rather than a scoring control official. You get used to it! I was very thankful that this first go round did not involve having to register any kind of penalty stroke or a shot into a water hazard or out of bounds. That was yet to come no doubt.

Travelers 2026

 Monday 6/22/26 

I still can’t believe that I am actually going to make an attempt at becoming a PGA TOUR walking scorer but here I am at the mandatory training session held at TPC River Highlands on the Monday before the actual tournament. I was encouraged by the presence of the entire walking scorer committee made up of about 30-40 volunteers, assembled for a PowerPoint and hands-on training session led by a PGA TOUR official. I was paired up with Ben, a 20 year scoring veteran, who was a great guy in answering my rookie type questions and pointing out a few things as the training went along. Using the scoring device is so detailed and complicated that it was somehow reassuring that even veteran volunteers benefited from the refresher course. I, on the other hand, had only been exposed to the process via an online training class, followed by a quiz with a strict pass or fail threshold. Luckily, I passed!  Now on to the “dress rehearsal”, the ProAm on Wednesday!

 Golf in Westport, Ireland 

My family and I decided we would take a non-traditional Thanksgiving vacation and spend a week in Ireland. (This American holiday is not generally observed in Ireland, but we all wanted to return to revisit this incredible country. This would be my fourth trip to Ireland).

We weren’t sure if golfing weather would cooperate, as we penciled in our possible outing for the last full day of the trip. As it turned out, it was the best weather day of the week, sunny, 50’s, with no wind, which was nice after all the rain we’d had up to this point. Westport golf club is in County Connamara in the northwest corner of the Republic of Ireland. It is an 18 hole, parkland course, with stunning views of Crough Patrick, the mountain named after the patron Saint of Ireland.

Brian and I weren’t sure how busy the course would be at this off-season time but we made a teetime for 10:20 am. The morning got off to a rough start at our Air BnB, trying to get the shower “on” switch activated, which was located outside of the bathroom. Typical crazy Irish electrical setup.

We all went to “The Place” down the street in Westport for a breakfast cappuccino and egg & bacon sandwich. The ladies planned some extensive shopping while Brian and I went to the Westport golf club. At the pro shop we got pull carts (trolleys) and rental clubs. Altogether it was €100 each including the green fee. As expected, there were not many other golfers there, especially since we were willing to tee off immediately, in front of a foursome of locals. The course was saturated and Brian‘s shoes got instantly soaked for the entire 18 holes. My waterproof FJ’s did quite well, fortunately. I played reasonably, staying up with Brian scorewise, as he is a 9 handicap and I’m a 12, (he beat me by four strokes 89 to 93). It was a bit of an adjustment for sure with a strange set of clubs, especially since my driver wouldn’t go beyond 160 yards! I ended up hitting Brian’s, which got me off the tee a bit better. There was no standing water on the course but it was so wet that we each lost balls due to plugging, me 1 and Brian 3. Came close to running out of balls as I’d only brought 2 ProV’s from the States. Thank goodness the starter informed us of the local rule lift, clean, and place rule for the day, it definitely helped.  Not our best golf scores consequently but the scenery was outstanding.

The FM Championship 

Sunday August 31, 2025 

After what I’d been through for the previous two days of this tournament, I was glad that the final day was a return back to normal, meaning a reasonable 12:10pm midday teetime. Our player group consisted of Aditi Ashock, India and Minjee Lee, Australia. We were back to twosomes which meant for a much more reasonable 4 1/2 hour round.

I had another great talk with Mike over lunch waiting for our respective rounds to begin. He gave me a lot more details about walking scoring for the PGA and how it differed in complexity to the LPGA system. He said there’s less margin for error and it’s a more complex, exacting system, which is tied into video recording as well. I had been thinking about pursuing walking scoring at the PGA level, specifically at Travelers, but I might have some second thoughts about that. This past weekend may have been the peak of my comfort level; laser focused for five hours to record every shot accurately and I sort of can’t imagine taking it to an even higher level.

Our standardbearer for today, Jill, was terrific, a super LPGA fan, who seemed to know all of the players and filled me in with lots of tidbits. My contribution generally amounted to telling her little stories about incidents that happened at certain holes around TPC Boston back when the PGA played the FedEx cup here. It was a lively discussion and the day went by fast.

Both Minjee & Aditi started this round at -8 and played really well although didn’t gain enough ground to catch the leader Miranda Wang who ultimately won at -20. Still, it was great to watch the precision ball striking and accuracy of women’s golf at the professional level up close from the fairway. 

13,127 steps 

4.5 miles

 FM Championship 

Saturday August 30, 2025

As it turns out, this was the situation I had been hoping to avoid by becoming a walking scorer rather than a mobile Marshal at the FM. By that I mean, the predictability of knowing exactly when your teetime is was such a tremendous benefit to the walking scoring assignment. Today, however, it was like being back in MM scheduling having to awaken at 4:45 am and make the drive up to TPC Boston in order to arrive by 6:20 am. I quickly grabbed my scoring equipment consisting of the radio and handheld device (iPhone) and headed out to the 11th green where we left off last night. It was rather pleasant actually, no one else was around, all I heard was crickets. The three players, Porvasnik, Kang, and Phatlum arrived with their caddies, ready for the 7 am restart. Immediately, Jessica Porvasnik asked me to summon a rules official with my radio as she was concerned that her ball mark from the previous night had been moved. As it turns out all three balls had been moved apparently so that the greens could be rolled for resumption of play. A rules official determined the players could estimate their previously marked positions and play resumed. It was a rather peaceful and pleasant golf experience, although a little chilly at 55°.  Early morning mist was rising off the ponds and we could hear roosters crowing nearby. Managing the scoring system was becoming second nature, although constant attention was needed to log every single shot accurately. I got to chatting with Phatlum’s caddy who told me that her nickname is “Whin”, pronounced just like my name “Wyn”!  I asked if she would object to me mentioning we have the same name and he said go for it, she would love it, and she did! She and I later chatted about her terrific par save on 9, the last hole, which enabled her to make the cut at -3. She was ecstatic. Such a sweetheart.   

A disheartening moment occurred after Kang sent her shot wide left of the green at the par three 8th hole. She was dragging her 7 iron along the wooden walkway from the tee to green as she was +7 for the tournament. I thought any minute she was going to wing it into the pond off to the left but she held it together nicely. Not so sure I would have seen the same degree of composure a few years back at the FedEx Cup event, (I’m looking at you, Mr. Poulter).  I received a signed golf ball from Whin at the end of it all. Handshakes and thank you’s from Kang and Porvasnik.

Took my lunch to the car, very nice chicken sandwich and fruit cup all the while wondering if I would get an assignment for the afternoon as there was a surplus of walking scorers apparently. Brian did set me up with a good group although not marquee, with the exception of Megha  Ganne, recent winner of the Women’s US amateur Championship.

Also playing in this afternoon group teeing off at 1:42pm was Jin Young Ko, Korea & Yahui Zhang, China. For this third round, I was joined by a standardbearer, Scott, a terrific guy, chemist from Stowe, Mass. He didn’t need my help in posting the scores accurately and it was a good check and balance situation.

A little bit worried that an entire second round would be exhausting, but I was able to make it through successfully, ultimately 35 holes for the day. At the conclusion, had a great interaction with Ko’s caddy, a burly Australian dude who came up behind me, slapped me on the shoulder, and said some encouraging words, acknowledging my very lengthy day helping out with walking scoring, ending with him saying to those gathered round, “He’s a legend”!

Nearly 12 hours on the course

24,625 steps

8.3 miles

FM Championship 

Friday August 29, 2025

The prediction of rain for the entire day was an understatement. Ultimately, there were three thunderstorm delays, the first just ending when I arrived at TPC at 11:30am for my 1:10pm assignment. My players group included Jessica Porvasnik, OH; Haeji Kang, Korea; & Pornanong Phatlum, Thailand. 

I was then informed that our starting time had been moved back to 3:15! Two more rain delays would ultimately result in my assigned group not teeing off until 7 pm!

It was an unprecedented circumstance as everyone I spoke with had never experienced anything like it in all their years of involvement with the LPGA and PGA. The volunteer headquarters was jammed with us all seeking shelter. I met up with Mike from Travellers from two years ago and had a great lengthy chat about what he has been up to down in Florida, working at multiple tournaments as a walking scorer.  We both got to talking as a threesome with Brian Turbitt, Chairman of the walking scorer committee who has a very interesting background living on Nantucket as the town Finance Director. He has been involved with walking scoring going back at least 15 years to the FedEx cup era at TPC Boston.

As the hours dragged on during the delay, I went back to my car for a respite from the HQ bedlam. The restart for 5 pm was pushed back by the LPGA to 5:30, then to 6 pm.

Eventually play restarted at 6pm, with my group not scheduled to tee off until 7 pm.  When we all gathered at the 10th tee the players were surprisingly upbeat, I guess having been used to these kind of delays from past experience. The volunteers, on the other hand including the starter and myself couldn’t believe we were about to start a round of golf when it was nearly dark. We completed the 10th hole and teed off on 11 when the horn blue at 7:15pm halting play on account of darkness. Players marked their positions on the green and we walked back to the clubhouse cutting through the driving range area. During our long walk back, I had a great chat with Pornapong Phatlum and her caddy, both extremely pleasant people and very curious about my circumstances, background, history with walking scoring, etc. They both thanked me profusely for sticking it out to that late hour under trying conditions. I said goodbye to them at the parking lot where they all got into their courtesy BMW’s while I continued on to make my way home. I was fortunate that there was virtually no traffic driving back to the Cape on the Friday night of Labor Day weekend. Thank goodness since it poured rain for nearly the entire way.

The FM Championship

Thursday, August 28, 2025

I can sort of never get over how different it is to volunteer as a walking scorer at the LPGA FM Championship at TPC Boston than it is to be a mobile Marshal crew leader for the PGA. Part of the difference is the appearance of TPC Boston at this event, with the nearly complete absence of built-out infrastructure, far fewer corporate pavilions, grandstands, and vendor exhibits. Far fewer people in the galleries as well. But mainly, it’s the difference between the actual job of being a scorer versus a Marshal. Instead of walking inside the ropes with a crew of anywhere from 2 to 8 Marshals, I’m inside the ropes “alone”, just me and the three players and their respective caddies. We didn’t even have a standardbearer with us today. Since none of the players in my group were in the top echelon, we basically had the course to ourselves, virtually no gallery. It was only later when I watched the playback on Golf Channel that I saw that there were actually thousands in attendance, but they must’ve been on the other side of the course! It was a pleasant walk in the sun on a perfect late August Thursday. Of course, the responsibility of being the scorer required my absolute focused attention to record each and every shot from each and every position on the course and accurately enter it into the handheld iPhone scoring device. My player group consisted of Yahui Zhang, China; Kate Smith-Stroh, Detroit Lakes, MN; & Brittany Altomare, Shrewsbury, MA. They were all extremely pleasant to be around for 18 holes, introducing themselves to me at the first hole, both players and caddies. As volunteers we are instructed beforehand to not chat up any of the players in order to avoid distracting them, so there was no chitchat with them throughout the day. Although none of them scored really well on the leaderboard (the best of the bunch at the end of the day at even par), it was terrific to watch them play at such a high level from my vantage point in the fairway alongside them. I wasn’t absolutely certain I’d accurately recorded all 18 holes worth of golf for all the players (219 shots!), but once we got to the scoring area, everything matched up perfectly. All three players thanked me for my help, then it was a handshake and goodbye. I returned my scoring device and radio to Scoring Central and was reassured that the schedule for tomorrow was certain, (unlike last year!)

 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.