On Monday, we left you heading out to our first day of marshaling at the Sony Open. Roasting in the morning sun, we found relief in our marshal captain as he told us we were going to be assigned. He didn’t say what exactly, but we were just happy to be getting out of the heat and humidity. He lead us down the path and back towards the 1st tee box where we met up with two more captains. They were discussing details in what was to be our newest job, player escorts!
Since the Sony Open had been rain delayed, they decided that the remaining three days would feature two tees. That meant at the start of every round, half the players would be starting off the 1st tee, and the other half off the 10th. Our job was to escort players between the 18th green and 1st tee if they had started on the 10th, and then from 18th green to the clubhouse if they started on the 1st. It sounds pretty complicated, but it came down to the fact that we would be personally interacting with the players. As a golfer growing up, and a general fan of the game, I was more than happy to trade our old sitting-in-the-sun job for this one!
As the began rolling through, we started to see some familiar faces. John Daly, Ernie Els, Jesper Parnevik, Vijay Singh, David Duval, were all entered in the tournament and Friday and Saturday we got to interact with a bunch of them! If they were passing through from 18 to 1, we held back the crowd and allowed them safe passage to their back nine. If they were finishing on the 18th, we escorted them back to the clubhouse. It was one golfer though that made my weekend…
PART THREE SCHEDULED FOR FRIDAY! See you then…
Nick