Observations from a 1st Time Volunteer (Oct. 12)
Monday afternoon, after I finished my blog, I picked up my volunteer kit, which included a shirt, a jacket, a cap, some lapel pins, a reusable water bottle, a bunch of paperwork, and some coupons. I tried the shirt on to make sure it fit (it did). Shirt is a nice, silky kind of material. The stuff in this kit is worth way more than what they charge for the privilege of volunteering.
Tuesday I worked at home, but I did spend some time studying the volunteer handbook (covers where to park, how to get to the tournament, how to be quiet, etc.) I’ll carry it with me. I also went online to see what information the PGA TOUR has. A good part of the website dealt with a wrap-up of the tournaments just completed this past weekend. Who won and why and how. This is important, because (1) I have learned that a player’s performance can affect whether or not he will be in the field for The McGladrey Classic, and I’m interested in seeing if some of the blurbs I wrote will actually be used. Also, (2) I’m starting to recognize some more names and am now very much interested in which players to pay attention to in the next few days.
Finally, Tuesday evening I ran through the ShotLink on-line laser training one more time. (ShotLink is the name of the laser system.) I don’t want to mess up. One fact I have been noticing on the ShotLink and PGA TOUR websites is the amount of data that is involved in the game of golf. If baseball kept this kind of data on pitchers (and for all I know they do), we would know what percentage of pitches a pitcher made in the last year to right-handed batters where the pitch was inside and in the dirt on a day when he has cream in his coffee for breakfast. By now someone has surely observed that golf is not a game of inches, but a game of statistics. I love it.
This morning, I went for more laser training. This is where we got to try out the equipment. I wasn’t too bad. Now the remaining question is “will I be able to perform when push comes to shove in the heat of actual battle?” We’ll see.
After I played with the fairway laser, I went over to the greenside laser. They use a different piece of equipment. There was a big crowd waiting to try out the equipment, so I figured I understood the fairway laser well enough that I wouldn’t have any problem with the greenside. After all, you are elevated for the greenside in a tower with a nice roof and have a better view. What could go wrong? I found out later.
After the training, I walked around a little bit. Today was the ProAm. Several groups of three amateurs were each joined by a pro to make up foursomes who played a round of golf. I noticed the amateurs were not quite at the same level of play as is on TV on the weekend. Go figure.
